The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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36 ■ THE WOLFPACKER SPRING FOOTBALL PREVIEW Gibson was previously at West Virginia, which played against Virginia Tech in the past. NC State will be playing a 3-3-5 defen- sive alignment for the second year in a row, and Wiles doesn't think he'll have that much of an adjustment to make. "There is a lot of overlap," he said. "The technique stuff is not changing. Schemati- cally, we are lining up a little different. I know this league and we were evolving with Bud to playing some three-down stuff." Wiles is already looking forward to work- ing with junior nose tackle Alim McNeill, and recruited several of the Wolfpack de- fensive linemen while at his previous job. "Alim McNeill is pretty ideal [at nose tackle]," Wiles said. "He's big, athletic and he can run. He's just finding out how good he could be. Alim is exactly what you are looking for at that position." Finding two defensive ends will be one of the priorities this spring. "There won't be any [differences] with right or left [defensive ends]," Wiles said. "There are more bodies in America that can be that hybrid D-end, D-tackle, can they be big enough to be a D-tackle in a four-down or are they stuck in that 260 [pound range]? "I think there are a lot more kids who can fit into a three-down [defense] than a four-down." Safeties Coach Had Unique Journey To NC State DeForest had a bit of an unusual path reaching Raleigh. He was a two-sport player in college. He was drafted out of high school to be a pitcher but chose to go to what was then called the University of Southwest Loui- siana (now Louisiana at Lafayette), so he could play both football and baseball. He played well enough on the gridiron to get a shot with the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints in the NFL coming out of college, and then he played a little bit with the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL. From there he moved to Titusville, Fla., and like many in the town he went to work for NASA. "I was a logistics engineer at NASA," De- Forest told GoPack.com. "Titusville, Fla., is like a coal-mining town for NASA. Fifty thousand people, 40,000 work at NASA or a subsidiary of NASA." While doing that, DeForest began as a volun- teer assistant at Titusville High School and, as he described it, "got the bug" for coaching. He took a friend up on an offer to become a gradu- ate assistant at Rice in 1990 when Fred Gold- smith was the coach. Goldsmith went to Duke in 1994, and DeForest came with him as the linebackers coach/special teams coordinator. In 2001, DeForest was hired as the de- fensive backs coach and special teams co- ordinator for Les Miles at Oklahoma State. Miles left after the 2004 season to take the head job at LSU, and DeForest had a deci- sion. He decided to pull off a rarity in col- lege football coaching. "They gave me an opportunity to be the assistant head coach [at Oklahoma State], and I decided I was going to stay," DeForest recalled. "When I did stay, I told my daugh- ter, I promised you I would keep you in the same school if I can help it. "My greatest coaching accomplishment is she went from the first grade to 12th grade at the same school." After stops at West Virginia, Kansas and Southern Cal, DeForest was hired in Decem- ber to become NC State's new safeties coach. "I'm excited to coach the secondary again," he added. "The last couple of stops I was a special teams guy, outside linebackers guy. I love coaching the secondary." Cornerbacks Coach Has Built-In Chemistry With The Staff On a defensive staff full of newcomers, Mitchell may be the one that ties everything together. From 2013-15, he worked as the corner- backs coach at West Virginia. The defensive coordinator and his boss the last two seasons there was Gibson. The two have what Mitch- ell said goes beyond being simply coaching friends. "The friendship has always been there, a great friendship," Mitchell explained. "We know our families. We started working to- gether about the same time at West Virginia. Having the opportunity to help him put a defense together at West Virginia was awe- some. "The guy is first-rate person, but he's got a chip on his shoulder every time he steps on the football field, and I love that about him." Also coaching at West Virginia at that time was DeForest. After Mitchell left WVU, he was hired as the cornerbacks coach at Virginia Tech, where he worked alongside Wiles for the past four seasons. The two worked under Foster, the legendary defensive coordinator who re- tired after this past season. Mitchell gleaned a lot from Foster, who Mitchell believes deserves to be in the Col- lege Football Hall of Fame. "It's not every day you get to go to work with a living legend, and Bud is that," Mitch- Joe DeForest worked as a logistics engineer at NASA before embarking on a coaching career that has now spanned three decades. PHOTO COURTESY USC SPORTS INFORMATION