NC State Football: Dave Doeren facing make-or-break 2020 season
After a surprisingly terrible season a year ago, can NC State football have a bounce back season and make a bowl game in 2020?
NC State has always felt like it’s cursed to a degree. For a program that has put Hall of Fame talent into the NFL, the Wolfpack have one double-digit win season in program history and have not won a conference title since 1979.
Torry Holt, Phillip Rivers, Mario Williams and Russell Wilson all have cases to be ranked among the best to ever play their positions and yet NC State can never seem to break through and realistically challenge for an ACC title. They haven’t had a team capable of that since Phillip Rivers was the quarterback nearly 20 years ago.
Wolfpack head coach Dave Doeren looked like he was building a consistent team that was challenging Clemson after back-to-back nine-win seasons and some near-misses in the past few years where NC State nearly took down the Tigers.
Then 2019 happened and it’s unclear where the program is headed from here.
NC State started off the season 4-2 and looked to be headed back to the postseason at the very least, but then a six-game losing streak occurred and they lost five of those six by at least 14 points.
The quarterback play was some of the worst in the country and that was a surprise considering Doeren’s reputation as a coach that can get the most out of his gunslingers and had done so in recent seasons with Ryan Finley and Jacoby Brissett.
The Wolfpack have some experience returning on both sides of the ball, but have a challenging schedule that could make it hard for this team to return to a bowl game and it could put Doeren on the hot seat heading into the 2021.