The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1547338
50 ■ THE WOLFPACKER Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu. PACK PERSPECTIVE BY TIM PEELER W hile unusual, it is not unprece- dented for a college football pro- gram to make a coaching change in the middle of the season. Clemson did it with Tommy Bowden, and Dabo Swinney went on to win two national championships and nine ACC titles. North Carolina did it with John Bun- ting in late October 2006 but allowed him to finish out his final season. Most recently, Virginia Tech fired Brent Pry three games into last season, and Georgia Tech let Geoff Collins go at the end of September 2022. NC State's Oct. 24 dismissal of Dave Doeren during his 14th season, after a loss at Stanford the previous evening, might have caused a disruption to its 2026 season, but it's not something un- heard of. It might have happened to popular head coach Chuck Amato two games into the 2006 season after the Wolf- pack's loss to Akron, but he finished out the season and was let go after ending the year with seven consecutive losses. Still, you have to go all the way back to the crazy 1930 campaign to find a time when NC State fired its coach before the final game of the regular season. Tom O'Brien was let go at the end of the 2012 season after beating his previ- ous team, Boston College, at Carter- Finley Stadium. Offensive coordinator Dana Bible coached the Wolfpack in its postseason loss to Vanderbilt in the Mu- sic City Bowl in Nashville. Hard-luck defensive coordinator Al Michaels was given a one-year interim position as head coach in 1971 when his longtime boss Earle Edwards un- expectedly retired on June 25, 1971, but athletics director Willis Casey already knew he was going to move away from nearly two decades of Edwards' program by hiring young William & Mary head coach Lou Holtz in 1972. Michaels' only team finished at 3-8, though it ended strong with wins over Miami and Clemson in its final three games. Going way back, NC State did make coaching changes before the end of the regular season on other occasions. In the case of former Notre Dame player John "Little Clipper" Smith, the school administration told him before the 1933 season began that it would end his three-year contract after it was over. Seems Smith had skipped the first 14 sessions of spring practice and the ad- ministration was unhappy with the structure of his program. The Wolfpack finished Smith's final season with a 1-5-3 record. Nothing beats the half-season tenure of John Van Liew, the Knute Rockne- recommended high school coach who was hired for the 1930 season. Some- thing was off from the very beginning with Van Liew, who had coached briefly at Western State College of Colorado in 1927. He took a high school job at East High School in Des Moines, Iowa, in between. From the moment he stepped on NC State's campus, Van Liew's weird of- fensive system — his quarterback lined up facing his tailbacks, with his back- side touching the butt of his center — and strange behavior created problems with his team. After the Wolfpack's 12-0 loss to Davidson in Charlotte, players threatened to go on strike. They were convinced that Van Liew didn't know what he was doing. He forgot his players' names and re- fused to change his offensive style, even though, by then, every opponent had figured out how to stop it. After a 34-0 win over High Point, the Wolfpack was shut out in its next four games, losing to Davidson, Florida, Clemson and Wake Forest. Oddly enough, it was State's second — and final — win of the season that ended Van Liew's tenure with the team. With his team leading Mississippi State at the half, Van Liew wandered away from Riddick Stadium. The players scurried all around to locate him before the second half be- gan, finding him sitting on the banks of Rocky Branch Creek, daydreaming. The next day, Van Liew was demoted from his position as head coach to as- sistant coach by the school's president and replaced by R.R. "Doc" Sermon, who was already serving as athletics di- rector, basketball coach and head ath- letic trainer. The Wolfpack did not win another football game the rest of the season, which ended with a 2-8 record. Though it's not reflected in the cur- rent school record books, Sermon should be listed as the head coach of record for the final four losses of the 1930 season, in which the Wolfpack was outscored 52-6. That includes a 2-0 loss to Presbyterian in a game played in Asheville. Yes, that was a different time in col- lege football. Then again, so is now in the NIL and transfer portal eras. Back then, head coaches argued over salaries that fluctuated between $5,000 and $6,500, with four or five assistants. When Van Liew was fired in the spring of 1930, NC State's athletics depart- ment was more than $10,500 in debt on an annual budget of $25,500. Today's head coaching salaries are in the multimillions, with additional millions spent on staffs numbering in the dozens. Though on a larger scale, coaching decisions are still made with overall athletics spending in mind. ■ Dave Doeren's dismissal during his 14th season marked NC State's first coaching change before the end of the regular season since 1930, when John Van Liew was replaced after six games. PHOTO BY LARRY BLANKENSHIP A Rare Midseason Reset