The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1266731
JULY/AUGUST 2020 ■ 27 but what emerges this fall may be a simpli- fied version of his vision. "I think what's going to be new is you have to be careful how much you give them," Beck noted. "You didn't have spring. In my 30-some years of experience, what I have found is that the offenses that work the best are the ones where the guys feel good about the plays and know what they are do- ing. You have a better chance to win. "It's like a pitcher in baseball. I always equate it to that. I played catcher. It was re- ally interesting calling pitches. If I wanted a curveball and the pitcher wanted a fastball, if I was stubborn and was like, 'No, I want a curveball here,' what do you think the chances of that being a strike were? Probably not re- ally good because the pitcher didn't like it. "It's the same thing with the kids. You've got to make sure the kids feel really good about the pitch being called, the play being called." Gibson admits he never heard of Zoom, the now-popular web-meeting platform, until this spring. A nearly three-decade vet- eran of the coaching profession himself, he found a whole new set of concerns he never dealt with before. "You have to worry about Internet con- nection, you have to worry about guys drop- ping your call, what they're hearing, their computer freezing," Gibson said. "Those are the simple things that a coach worries about, and obviously the bigger picture is, are they really understanding what you're saying? Without being in the room with those guys and seeing their eyes and seeing their reac- tions to a lot of those things, it's difficult. "I think the best way to teach them is we watch it, I draw it, we watch it some more, we go walk through it and we go rep it. Trying to build in and teach install on Zoom calls is difficult. That's the biggest fear I have." Gibson, though, can bank on his expe- riences at smaller schools where they did not have football players enrolled in summer school doing off- season conditioning work- outs and his prior working relationships with Mitchell and DeForest, who both coached with him at West Virginia, to help smooth out the defense. "The base package, I feel really good about," Gibson noted. "Our base fronts and coverages, I feel good. What bothers me and worries me is the sub pack- ages, the goal line and red zone stuff, your third-down packages, things that we didn't get to." Focus On Turnovers Doeren did not make the changes to his coaching staff in the offseason lightly. He knew he had to balance trying not to overreact or underreact to a 4-8 season marred by a con- stant strain of injuries plus some fluky turn- over stats, like recovering only four fumbles. He noted that making changes to his staff is "the worst thing you have to do as an executive." "For me it was more about stepping away and making sure these decisions weren't made quickly," Doeren said. "In some cases, they were, [but] I tried not to make emotional decisions. It's really sitting back and evaluat- ing scheme, personnel, staff and trying to do it in a way that I'm not exhausted making these decisions; I'm not an- gry, mad or pressured." What he is hoping to see are fundamental improve- ments on both sides of the football. "Offensively speaking, the ball security piece of our offense is as bad as it's been, in my opinion," Doeren said after NC State finished tied for 94th out of 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivi- sion (FBS) in turnovers lost (21). "We need to take care of the football. We can't win games turning the ball over." Both Doeren and Gibson agreed that on defense, tackling and creating turnovers need to be better. The defense only gained eight turnovers a year ago (four interceptions and four fumbles), tied with Kansas for the fewest in FBS. Overall, NC State's nega- tive-13 turnover margin was tied for 126th. "I think if you looked at our team overall, if you take care of the football and create more takeaways, we would have won more games, those two things," Doeren said. "We were bad in both areas. As a football team, we've made a huge deal about that and will continue to as hard as we can." ■ 2020 NC State Football Schedule Date Opponent (2019 Record) Sept. 2 at Louisville (8-5) Sept. 12 Mississippi State (6-7) Sept. 19 at Troy (5-7) Sept. 26 Delaware (5-7) Oct. 3 Florida State (6-7) Oct. 10 Duke (5-7) Oct. 17 at Clemson (14-1) Oct. 31 Wake Forest (8-5) Nov. 7 Boston College (6-7) Nov. 14 at Syracuse (5-7) Nov. 21 Liberty (8-5) Nov. 27 at North Carolina (7-6) Junior safety Tanner Ingle and the Wolfpack defense will look to improve upon the unit's eight turnovers forced — tied for the worst in the Football Bowl Subdivision — and minus-13 turnover margin in 2019. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN