How Dave Doeren, NC State football are preparing for spring practice after offseason of change
N.C. State’s football team will open spring practice next Thursday with five new assistant coaches.
Dave Doeren retooled his staff after the Wolfpack went 4-8 last season. N.C. State will have different coordinators on both sides of the ball for the 2020 season.
Tim Beck (quarterbacks, offensive coordinator), Joe DeForest (safeties), Brian Mitchell (cornerbacks), Charley Wiles (defensive line) and Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay (nickels) are new to Doeren’s staff.
Tony Gibson, who was the defensive co-coordinator last season, replaces Dave Huxtable as the primary defensive coordinator.
The 15 spring practices, including the spring game on April 4, will be a good chance for the Wolfpack players to get to know the new coaches and the new schemes.
Doeren covered a variety of topics on Thursday at his press availability at the Murphy Center.
▪ How he handled the process of replacing five assistant coaches since the end of the 2019 season:
“It’s the worst thing that you do as a head coach, and probably anyone in management, is when you make changes to the people you care about on your staff.
“Those guys did a great job for us but there was just certain things I wanted to do differently and felt like we needed to do differently to move forward.”
▪ On how Tim Beck, who worked with Doeren at Kansas in 2005 and was at Texas last season, meshes with what has been Doeren’s scheme and philosophy at N.C. State:
“What I asked him to do is learn what we did and why we did it. And then look at all personnel and then put it together the way he wants it to be so that it fits our guys.
“I told him to use the terminology he needs it to be so he can call the plays. So the terminology will be completely different.
“What he did at Texas may not be exactly what our guys can do. The stuff that fits, some of things we did they may not have done and he wants to do it here. That’s going to be an evolving process throughout the spring.”
▪ On the decision to go with just one coordinator on each side of the ball after having co-coordinators at both spots last season and how that’s different for Gibson this season:
“The ‘co- thing’ I think a lot of people get hung up with publicly. It’s a title. It’s a professional title that shows you’re higher up than just a position coach.
“But Dave Huxtable was our defensive coordinator. Des (Kitchings) was our playcaller last year. You see it at a lot of schools. It’s more of a way to recognize stature within your coaching staff but it doesn’t mean that (Gibson) was calling the plays.”
▪ On how Gibson, a former coordinator at West Virginia, will make his own mark on the defensive scheme now that he’s calling the plays:
“I asked Tony to do similar to what Tim did. I told him to break apart what we have. I don’t want to run last year’s defense. I don’t want to run (the 2018) defense. I don’t want to run West Virginia’s defense. I want to run what’s best for our players. And to look at each part of what we have coming back and what we do well and what we don’t do well and then build it from there.
“So that’s kind of where we are right now with a lot of experience back on defense in a lot of places, other than the d-line. We’ve got to use those pieces the right way.
“It’s a multiple defense. We’ll be able to be in a three-down front and we’ll be able to adjust from that to a four-down and five-down fronts.”
▪ What the quarterback situation is heading into spring with the return of Devin Leary, Bailey Hockman and Ty Evans and the addition of freshman Ben Finley. Both Leary and Hockman started games last season:
“Devin is the starter going into the spring. I know Bailey has worked really hard this offseason and Ty Evans has really changed his body. Ben Finley has been here for half of a semester and he’s getting used to things.
“The spring is a great competitive time where you’re not in a rush to put a game-plan in and you can kind of see the progression. It’s not wide open, but at the same time, it’s Devin’s job and it’s up to the other guys to try to catch him.”
▪ On the possibility of adding a grad transfer at quarterback after the spring semester:
“Right now, we’re set. You never know what’s going to happen in recruiting. You always have to look and see what’s going on every day but that’s not something we’re actively pursuing.
“But I didn’t have Jacoby Brissett until Jacoby Brissett wanted to transfer. So you just never know how things are going to play out. I like the guys we have and we’re excited to see them this spring.”
▪ On the exit of a couple of key players in the transfer portal and if there was a thread to the group of players who have decided to leave:
“There’s 2,700 people in the (transfer) portal (across college football). So it’s part of what we deal with now. They leave for a lot of reasons. A lot of it is, ‘Am I playing enough?’ ‘When am I going to get to play?’ ‘What’s the depth chart look like?’ ‘Do I get the ball enough?’ things like that.
“Some of it is family related. Sometimes you have a kid that just want to go closer to home. You know that happens. Each kid that comes in those situations, we have one-on-ones and try to figure out the whys and sometimes it’s just not the right fit for them and you help them find a place to go.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 6:57 PM.
