The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/790572
12 ■ THE WOLFPACKER National Signing Day is the culmination of days, weeks, months and even years of work. It's always exciting when we can officially welcome young men to the Pack football family. I want to thank my staff for all of their hard work during this process. They worked tirelessly with great passion to put this class together. Our focus for this class was to find players who are the right fit for us — players we can develop in our system and who have a true passion for football. We are at a point in the program that we aren't necessarily counting on players to come in and make an immediate impact. We were looking for players who will buy into the process and what we are building. This year we celebrated Signing Day with a great event prior to a basketball game. Several hundred people joined us in a huge tent on the lawn of the PNC Arena for food, drinks, music and celebration. I hope that event can grow even bigger in the future. It's always very rewarding to me as a head coach to see my assistants move up in their careers. When you have great coaches and a successful program, it's inevitable that those advancements will occur. This year, we were able to see two of our coaches make great moves in their careers — one to become a defensive coordinator and one to the NFL. Clayton White was named the DC at Western Kentucky, while Ryan Nielsen is now the defensive line coach for the New Or- leans Saints. I want to thank Clayton and Ryan for all of their hard work and dedication to the Wolfpack football program, and I have no doubt that they will have great success in their new roles. As much as we will miss those two, I'm looking forward to working with our new coaches — Aaron Henry and Kevin Patrick, who will coach our safeties and defensive line, respectively. Aaron is a young coach but brings great passion and energy to our staff, while Kevin has been in the coaching ranks a little longer. Aaron was an All-Big Ten performer at Wisconsin, while Kevin was an All-American at Miami. They both know what it takes to succeed on the big stage. We began spring practice on Feb. 25 and will work through the month of March. This will be the most veteran-dominated squad I've had at NC State. We have 13 seniors who have played in a combined 595 games and boast 277 collective starts. All eight of our returning starters on the defensive side of the ball are seniors. Our senior class has a chance to become only the seventh team in school history to qualify for four straight bowl games. Here's a list of our returning senior starters from last season: guard Tony Adams, tight end Cole Cook, tight end/fullback Jaylen Samuels, defensive end Bradley Chubb, defensive end Kentavius Street, defensive tackle Justin Jones, defensive tackle B.J. Hill, linebacker Airius Moore, linebacker Jerod Fernandez, cornerback Mike Stevens and safety Shawn Boone. Joining those 11 will be receiver JuMichael Ramos and cor- nerback Johnathan Alston, who redshirted last season and will be back in 2017. The Kay Yow Spring Football Game will be held on April 1 at 1 p.m. We are hoping for great weather and a great crowd, so please mark your calendars! I can't tell you how great it felt to watch two of our former players, Joe Thuney and Jacoby Brissett, celebrate (as rookies!) a Super Bowl win. Joe started every game for the New England Patriots this season, and Jacoby also started earlier this year. Also, I want to say, on behalf of the entire football program, a big congrats to men's golf coach Richard Sykes on his re- tirement after 46 seasons at NC State. He is a great man who embodies the true spirit of the Wolfpack. I wish him the best in his future endeavors. 1Pack1Goal, Coach Doeren ■ From Head Football Coach Dave Doeren PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS