“There’s really nothing you can say,” said NC State football head coach Dave Doeren. “They outplayed us, and they outcoached us. It just wasn’t good enough.”
Recency bias may lead you to believe that is what Doeren said following last week’s 59-35 loss to now-No. 17 Clemson, however, that was his response to last year’s 24-3 loss at Duke. Here’s what he actually said following NC State football’s blunderous loss at Clemson:
“Clemson outplayed us, and obviously that means they outcoached us today,” Doeren said.
Ok, I lied, again. That was Doeren’s response to the Wolfpack’s 30-20 loss at Clemson in 2022 — the last time NC State traveled to Death Valley.
You’re starting to see the pattern, right?
“Not much to say when you’re outplayed and outcoached like we were,” Doeren said.
That’s what the 12th-year head coach really said following NC State’s second embarrassing loss on national television of the 2024 season. “Outplayed” and “outcoached” are becoming an all-too-familiar motto for Doeren and one Wolfpack fans would certainly like to hear less.
It’s difficult to tell which motto he prefers, “outplayed” and “outcoached” or his coined phrase for the program, “Hard. Tough. Together.” which recently has turned into hard to watch, tough to stomach and I guess the together part is still accurate.
It’s starting to become an annual tradition of Doeren’s tenure that the Wolfpack get blown out by an ACC opponent by 20-plus points. Here’s what he had to say following a 45-24 loss to Virginia Tech in 2020.
“They outplayed us,” Doeren said. “They outcoached us. We’ve got a lot to learn from this film, and we’ve got a lot of work to do. We didn’t expect it.”
Every year it’s the same ‘this is our year’ rhetoric and as the talent of the teams continues to increase, the results remain unchanged. Doeren is in his 12th year as head coach and still has not managed to amass a 10-win season.
NC State is known as a program that develops NFL-caliber talent yet for all the players who are developed here and go on to the next level, the results are underwhelming.
“I think he gets outcoached,” said an anonymous ACC coach in 2019, per The Athletic. “When we beat them, they had better players than we did.”
If the skill is there and the wins aren’t, it falls on one group — the coaches.
Is it all on Doeren? No. But as the head coach, a lot of the responsibility does, and he knows that just as well as anybody.
“They outplayed us,” Doeren said about a 24-10 loss to Mississippi State in 2021. “I thought we were going to play much better than we did. I’m not blaming it on them. It’s a team loss. It starts with the head coach, me, all the time.”
When opportunities present themselves for big wins, Doeren and the Pack are “outplayed” and “outcoached” time and time again.
Holding a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter against No. 11 Miami in 2020, the Wolfpack gave up 13 straight points to lose 44-41.
“I think they just outplayed us [in the fourth quarter],” Doeren said. “You’ve got to give them credit.”
In 2018, with a chance to finish the season with 10 wins and a bowl game on the line, Doeren and the Pack gave up 31 unanswered points in the second half to No. 20 Texas A&M.
“You’ve got to give them credit in the second half,” Doeren said. “They outplayed us.”
Boasting a 7-27 record against ranked opponents and a 1-6 record against SEC teams, in the biggest games Doeren has been “outplayed” and “outcoached.” After every game, it’s the same script, and people are getting tired.
And if you think the Doeren criticism is too harsh, at the end of the day, they’re his words, not mine.
