Dave Doeren had 14 years of thoughts to share on Tuesday. He covered most of them in about 18 minutes, and he didn't take a single question.
Three days after NC State fired him, Doeren held a final press conference in Raleigh, making his first public comments since the school announced the move on October 24. Over the weekend, we shared the news that the Wolfpack had parted ways with the winningest coach in program history less than 24 hours after a 31-28 loss at Stanford dropped them to 3-4.
"This is not how I wanted to go out," Doeren shared. "But, you know, the more I thought about it, honestly, how many coaches get to go out the way they wanted?"
"I know this year was disappointing, and I take total blame for that. This is a great job, NC State, and this is also a very hard job."
When pointing to what wrong, the NIL and portal were among the first things out of Doeren's mouth.
"Pre-NIL transfer portal, when I took this job, I knew what it was, and I felt like we had a plan," he said. "I was able to thrive, developing players often under times, underappreciated players, diamonds in the roughs."
"It really changed in a tough way when NIL and transfer portal started, not just at NC State, but for a lot of schools," Doeren said. "Retention and acquisition is expensive and very competitive in this space that we're in now. And everybody has different money. They say there's a cap, and they say there isn't. And I think that's the one thing that people need to understand. There's haves and have-nots when it comes to how much money schools have in this space."
Then Doeren shared something all coaches should keep in mind when choosing a coaching destination, especially a head coaching role.
"For this program to become what is wanted and expected, the resources need to match the expectations," Doeren said.
Even predating his time with the Wolf Pack, Doeren was known as a coach who built his program at Northern Illinois on development, and his message leaving NC State was telling the next guy exactly what he's going to need. Plenty of coaches at schools outside the top tier of the revenue chart would say the same thing if they had the job security, or the lack of it, to say it out loud.
"Since so many of the media have so nicely and eloquently critiqued me over my 14 years, I wanted to do a nice reporter-by-reporter critique back to you. I was going to go through your names one by one and put your pictures up and have T-shirts about all of you, but I decided not to do that," Doeren said.
"But maybe later in a podcast down by the river with a bottle of bourbon, that's going to happen."
Doeren also thanked reporters for covering his players and staff, then added, "This is my press conference, and that's the last time I'm gonna talk to any of you for a while."
"I've coached 32 years, and I've never been unemployed," said Doeren, who is 54.
Doeren went 98-74 in Raleigh with 11 bowl-eligible seasons, and he passed Earle Edwards as the program's all-time wins leader with a 2023 victory over Miami. He came to NC State in December 2012 after going 23-4 with back-to-back MAC titles at Northern Illinois.
He is owed $9.75 million for the three years remaining on his contract, according to multiple reports.
Running backs coach and special teams coordinator Todd Goebbel is stepping in to lead the Wolfpack as interim head coach, starting Saturday at noon ET against Cal.
"I leave here with no grudges. I completely love this place, and we want to see this program shock the world," Doeren said. "I'll always be cheering for the Wolfpack, I promise you that."
If that podcast down by the river ever happens, we'll be among the many listening.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.