NC State, Goebbel turn attention forward after Doeren’s midseason firing

RALIEGH, N.C. (AP) — Todd Goebbel had spent the past eight seasons working under Dave Doeren at N.C. State. It’s no surprise then that his former boss’ influence remains as he takes over as the Wolfpack’s interim head coach following Doeren’s midseason firing.

“Each Saturday we will field this team that Coach Doeren will be proud of, which will be hard, tough and most importantly together,” Goebbel said Monday evening.

N.C. State announced that it had fired Doeren on Saturday, less than a day after a loss at Stanford. That brought an abrupt end to a 14-year tenure that had made him the program’s winningest all-time coach and the fourth-longest tenured coach in the Bowl Subdivision ranks. Now it’s up to Goebbel to get the Wolfpack through the final five games of the regular season, at minimum, as the program turns its attention forward.

Goebbel has been on the staff since 2019, working most recently as running backs coach and special teams coordinator. Now he’s in charge, starting with Saturday’s home game against California for the Wolfpack (3-4, 1-3 Atlantic Coast Conference).

Goebbel said he had reached out to some peers who had to take over programs in interim scenarios to pick up whatever advice he could.

“But to be quite honest with you, I’ve relied on the players,” Goebbel said.

“The players have been unbelievable in support, they’ve been unbelievable in showing up and being who they are. And a lot of that is the foundation that’s been laid for over 14 years by Coach Doeren.”

Doeren’s ouster wasn’t the only change. Defensive coordinator DJ Eliot was also fired, coming after the Wolfpack gave up 31 points in a loss to a Stanford team picked to finish last in the Atlantic Coast Conference and owning one of the nation’s worst offenses. Assistant Charlton Warren will take on defensive playcalling for the rest of the season, while special teams analyst Zac Roper would take on Goebbel’s previous position duties.

“It was kind of a shocker to me, thinking it wouldn’t happen during the season and things like that,” said quarterback CJ Bailey, who said he got a call from Doeren letting him know the news. “It was like unbelievable to me. I really was not thinking of it like that. But once it kind of settled in, it was just like, ‘What is the next good thing to do? What is the next positive thing I can do for my guys and the team?’”

Goebbel said Doeren was able to address the team after his firing.

“Obviously we’re going to take accountability for everything,” defensive tackle Isaiah Shirley said. “This is a game where you take accountability for what you did and what you did not do. So obviously there’s talk of us doing that, private talks amongst the team that quite frankly everybody doesn’t need to know about. So yeah, we’ve done that, we’ve owned our part of it.

“Like what you just said,” Shirley added to a reporter, “it’s time to move on, we’ve got more games to play, there’s more life to live. There’s so much more to this.”

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