Misery Index: NC State's all-time collapse brings up questions about Dave Doeren's job security
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
Dave Doeren’s coaching career is a marvel of modern college football.
In a sport where fans turn on coaches at lightning speed, Doeren has managed to survive into his 14th season by grinding out a bunch of milquetoast 8-5s and 9-4s and never having two bad years in a row.
In a way, he’s become like a tenured professor. Even though NC State fans have long since lost their enthusiasm for the Doeren era and aren’t hopeful he can raise the ceiling at this point, he’s become seemingly impossible to fire.
But the manner in which NC State lost to Vanderbilt was so insane, so egregious and such a coaching failure that it might finally be warranted.
By now, you’ve probably seen the highlight: After Vanderbilt threw an interception near the goal line while trying to drive for a winning touchdown, all NC State had to do was kill the final six seconds to escape from Nashville with a 31-28 upset win.
It’s a tricky spot because you’re at your own 5-yard line, and in that situation, a lot of coaches would choose to just take a safety so that you can kick from the 20. In the worst-case scenario (assuming you do a decent job covering the kick), you’d have to defend one play from about 60 yards to win.
And that was kind of what NC State was trying to do, hoping quarterback CJ Bailey would run around a little bit, kill a few seconds, and then go to the ground. But obviously something got lost in translation because Bailey ran into a swarm of defenders, coughing up the ball in the end zone and handing the Commodores a win they didn’t deserve when they recovered the fumble.
The only ending like it that immediately came to mind was the 2015 Michigan-Michigan State game where the Wolverines had the game wrapped up and only needed to get off a clean punt to win (though there were other options Jim Harbaugh could have taken as well). Instead, Michigan botched the snap, the Spartans picked it up in a scramble and Jalen Watts-Jackson got to the end zone for a highly improbable win.
How improbable? In the last 20 years, according to ESPN Stats and Info, it’s the only time a team has lost while leading in the final 10 seconds and having possession of the ball in 1,047 games.
Until Saturday.
And frankly, this one was much dumber and much more of an indictment on the head coach.
Doeren’s explanation: “It’s a play where you roll out, and you don’t get tackled and try to burn as much time as you can and fall to the ground and protect the football. He got hit and didn’t protect the football. The plan was to take the safety, try to run out the clock if we can, but there was no intent to run the football and get hit on that play.”
So Doeren is essentially blaming the player, which is lousy because the way NC State tried to run out the clock that close to the end zone was inherently riskier than Bailey just taking a snap, backing up a couple steps and taking the safety right away. And if Bailey didn’t have clarity on what he was supposed to do, that’s a coaching issue as well.
It was simply a dumb call that blew up in NC State’s face in the most embarrassing way possible.
Besides Vanderbilt, there’s another winner out of that mess. In 2023, Miami had a chance to run out the clock against Georgia Tech by just taking a knee with 33 seconds left. For some reason unbeknownst to anyone who has ever watched football, Mario Cristobal chose to instead run a play. Miami fumbled, Georgia Tech drove 74 yards in 25 seconds and Cristobal had the worst coaching blunder in ACC history.
Well, it looks like you’re off the hook for that humiliation, Mario!
NC State is now 1-2 and doesn’t look like a very good team, but don’t be surprised if Doeren finds a way to patch together enough wins in ACC play to hit the seven- or eight-win mark. It’s kind of what he does.
But he also coaches at a school where the term “NC State s***” is canon. It’s defined by the Urban Dictionary thusly: “An inevitable chain of events where a blatant bad call or bizarre unlucky play causes a total collapse of confidence , resulting in multiple, unforced and devastating errors.”
Sounds about right. And Doeren is now responsible for setting a new bar of “NC State s***.” That’s why the Wolfpack reigns as America’s most miserable fan base in Week 3.
Conference Champions of Misery
Big Ten: There was a lot of preseason hope that hiring newly minted College Football Hall of Famer Gary Patterson to be the defensive coordinator would be a seminal moment for USC’s program. But just like every other team Lincoln Riley has put on the field through his nine-plus seasons as head coach at both Oklahoma and USC, this one appears destined to struggle on that side of the ball. USC’s 42-35 victory at Rutgers was the same brand of slop we’ve grown accustomed to with Riley. Against a Rutgers team that scored just 21 points against both Boston College and UMass, USC found itself trading scores for most of the game and giving up touchdowns on three of Rutgers’ final four possessions. Riley has had three defensive coordinators at USC, but this looks like more of the same — and it’s not championship football. USC is 4-0 but will get its first real test next week at home against Oregon. After a game like this, it’s hard to feel confident that they’re ready to turn a corner on defense.
Big 12: In Colorado’s season-opening win at Georgia Tech a couple weeks ago, nobody could question the moxie of Deion Sanders’ team. But you could question the quarterback play, which wasn’t good until Julian Lewis put together one game-winning drive at the end. Now that more information has come in, the quarterback play may turn out to be a big, big problem. Colorado’s 41-7 loss at Northwestern pretty much kills the good vibes from Week 1, and with a series of games coming up against Baylor on the road, Texas Tech at home and then Utah at home, the season is already on a knife’s edge for Coach Prime. The main issue for Colorado this week was four turnovers. Two of them were interceptions thrown by Lewis, who completed 19-of-29 passes for 168 yards. While Colorado appears to have a strong running game for the first time in Sanders’ tenure, it will not take the Buffaloes very far if Lewis is inefficient and turnover-prone throwing the ball.
SEC: D.J. Shockley, the former Georgia quarterback who is now a TV anchor in Atlanta, posted a social media video of getting to Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium early Saturday morning. He documented something surprising. A skunk was on the loose running around the field and up through the bleachers, and goodness it would be hard to come up with a more fitting piece of symbolism for the state of the Arkansas program. The Razorbacks lost to Georgia, 45-17, and it was a pretty depressing scene from the quiet tailgate lots to the huge sections of the upper deck that were empty. Arkansas fans are basically at the end of their rope with this program, which last won an SEC game on Oct. 26, 2024. The good news is Arkansas’ trustees passed a resolution on Friday directing the university president to “lead a review of the state of competitiveness of Razorback Athletics, including steps to improve the resources available to the football program.” But why let it get to this point in the first place? It puts first-year coach Ryan Silverfield — who fans were already skeptical of coming from Memphis — in a terrible spot. If Arkansas is going to pour money into the roster, it should have happened concurrent with hiring a new coach — not after getting outscored 88-27 in his Silverfield’s first two games against FBS teams. It’s hard to see how athletic director Hunter Yurachek recovers from such a loss of confidence by the Razorbacks’ fan base.
Group of Six: MAC programs like Miami of Ohio rarely get an chance to play a power conference opponent at home. Occasionally, the RedHawks get a crack at Cincinnati because the campuses are a little more than 30 miles apart. At the start of the third quarter Saturday, Miami was taking full advantage of the opportunity, opening up a 28-7 lead. While three touchdowns certainly isn’t insurmountable, the RedHawks were in a great position until the second half turned into a debacle. It started with a missed 36-yard field goal that would have made it 31-7. Then on Miami’s next possession, they threw an interception on their own side of the field. Another missed field goal from 45 yards with 10:50 left continued the spiral until Cincinnati completed its comeback with a seven-play, 85-yard touchdown drive with 1:29 remaining. To add insult to injury, Miami was driving inside Cincinnati’s 35 with a chance to steal back the win but continued its avalanche of errors with a fumble. Credit Cincinnati for taking care of business in the end, but they got a lot of help from a Miami team that should have been celebrating one of their most consequential wins in a long time.
Headset Misery
Lane Kiffin: It might be a blessing in disguise for the honeymoon to be over now. It’s been nine months of Kiffin intoxication for LSU fans, but every bender has a hangover waiting at the end. Eventually, LSU fans were going to learn that Kiffin — while certainly an outstanding tactician — is a roller coaster ride. Even when he was at Ole Miss, where he won 55 out of 74 games, there was not always a lot of consistency from week to week. Kiffin’s teams can play great, but they also tend to lay massive eggs a few times a season. LSU’s 32-24 loss to Kiffin’s former program wasn’t a total stink bomb because the Tigers certainly had chances in the second half. But LSU was so bad early, falling behind 17-0, that you had to wonder whether Kiffin was totally focused last week on the task at hand. But guess what, LSU? This is what you signed up for. Though y’all have been drunk on unlimited spending, fighting the SEC over whether you can sign former NFL players and Kiffin’s pettiness over his Ole Miss exit, losing such a deeply personal matchup was a reminder of why Kiffin’s coaching reputation his entire career has been about losing the biggest games.
Bill Belichick/Bobby Petrino: Officially, North Carolina lost to Clemson during a fourth-quarter sequence when the Tar Heels only got a field goal out of first-and-goal at the 8-yard line, immediately allowed a touchdown to give up the lead for the first time all day, then couldn’t convert a fourth-and-1 with two minutes left. But you could also point to a moment in the second quarter when the Tar Heels were dominating Clemson at the line of scrimmage and had a first down at the 15-yard line. A touchdown would have given Carolina a 24-3 lead. Instead, for some reason, Petrino called three straight passes resulting in three straight incompletions. The ensuing field goal made it 17-3, but North Carolina wasn’t the same after that. The opportunity to bury Clemson had passed, and the Tar Heels never got their mojo back. Though a long thunderstorm delay in the fourth quarter didn’t help, the Tar Heels were really worn down by the end of the game. They needed all the points they could get early, and Petrino getting away from the run was costly in the end.
Alex Golesh: Unfortunately for Auburn’s first-year coach, he’s going to be directly compared to Florida’s Jon Sumrall for his entire tenure. There are a few reasons for that. One is that they both came from the American Conference last year. Another is that Sumrall is from Huntsville, Alabama, and has a lot of family connections to Auburn. And a third is that Sumrall kind of chose Florida over Auburn (and others), leaving Golesh as the next-best candidate for Auburn as the coaching carousel fell into place last winter. It’s a tough comparison for Golesh because Sumrall looks like a better coach with a more effective, defensive-minded style of play for the SEC. So for Auburn fans, losing 44-39 at home to Florida isn’t just one loss. It’s a forever reminder of what might have been had its administration handled the coaching search a bit differently. Maybe Golesh can get Auburn on track eventually, but this is not a very good team. And if Auburn fans perceive that he’s falling behind Florida and Sumrall specifically, it will hasten his trip to the hot seat.
Moments of misery
Kirk Herbstreit’s dishonesty: College GameDay’s interview last Saturday with Sen. Ted Cruz about the Protect College Sports Act reverberated throughout the week. While you can make the case that it was appropriate to put Cruz on the air given that he’s the co-sponsor of the bill, a lot of fans were troubled by the appearance of ESPN putting its thumb on the scale without an opposing viewpoint to balance the debate. That’s where Herbstreit comes in. Asked about it Friday in a group interview with reporters in Oxford, Mississippi, Herbstreit launched into a shockingly disingenuous monologue about how he doesn’t get into politics, claiming he doesn’t know anything about Cruz’s views. “I don’t really get into politics,” Herbstreit said. “I’m kind of an independent guy, right down the middle of the fairway. I’m for America, so whoever helps us as a country, I’m for so I don’t really follow it.” Not only was Herbstreit playing fast and loose with the truth — his social media history, including previous comments about Cruz, suggests he is much more dialed into politics and less independent than he proclaims — but the bigger issue is the insult to his audience. Whether you like the PCSA or not, it is intrinsically political and has been sold to the public through by a massive propaganda effort on ESPN and elsewhere. For Herbstreit to present himself as above it all, to say he just cares about America and isn’t in tune with the politics of it, is just another layer of spin being used to normalize a bill with a lot of controversial stuff in it.
Houston’s inch of pain: The Big 12 title most likely runs through Texas Tech, so anyone that can sneak out a win in Lubbock is going to be in a strong position. Houston had a great look at it Friday night, finishing an 88-yard touchdown drive with 49 seconds left. But the Cougars needed a two-point conversion to potentially send the game to overtime, and quarterback Conner Weigman’s scramble toward the goal line ended up short by about an inch. Video review showed it clearly. As Weigman dove in between bodies and stretched the ball toward the end zone, his knee hit the ground just a fraction of a second before he could extend the nose of the ball to the goal line. If he were 6-foot-4 instead of 6-foot-3, Houston may well have won that game.
New Mexico’s tough luck: For anyone who has studied Jason Eck’s history against power conference opponents, it’s no surprise the Lobos gave Oklahoma fits in a 14-6 loss. Eck has a tremendous knack for getting his teams to play over their heads in these situations. Still, it will be a bitter disappointment for New Mexico fans that they didn’t get a fair shot to tie the game late. Driving deep in Oklahoma territory in the final few minutes, running back Kiefer Sibley sprinted toward the first-down marker on the right sideline on third-and-7 and looked like he stretched the ball very close to the line to gain before going out of bounds. But somehow, the officials marked him two yards short, infuriating the New Mexico sideline. It certainly seemed like the Lobos got a tough whistle there. In that situation, the difference between fourth-and-inches and fourth-and-2 is massive, especially for a big underdog against a top defense like Oklahoma. Give Oklahoma credit for stopping the fourth-down run and effectively ending the game, but it certainly felt like New Mexico was just one more first down away from making this game really interesting.
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos