The Wolfpacker

January 2013

The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports

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Looking Ahead Taking Stock Of The Wolfpack's Roster For 2013 Freshman running back Shadrach Thornton emerged as a potential feature back in 2012, rushing 142 times for 655 yards and three touchdowns, and also catching 25 passes for 233 yards and another score. photo by ken martin D By Matt Carter uring his introductory press conference, Dave Doeren told those assembled in the team meeting room at the Murphy Center that the schemes used by NC State will largely be determined by whom he hires as his coordinators. "I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel with our players either," Doeren added. That said, odds are good that Doeren already has an idea in mind for what offense and defense NC State will run when he starts breaking down the systems to his team in that same meeting room. Doeren, a defensive coordinator at Kansas and Wisconsin before taking over as a head coach at Northern Illinois, acknowledged that his background has been with the 4-3 defensive alignment. "That's what I've always done," Doeren admitted. "I'm not going to run the defense, but I want to understand it extremely well." Under former head coach Tom O'Brien and defensive coordinator Mike Archer, the Wolfpack also ran a 4-3 base defense, although the increasing popularity of the spread offense led NCSU to also run a nickel defense with four down linemen and two linebackers quite often. Offensively, under coordinator Dana Bible, NCSU ran a pro-style scheme with a pass-heavy attack. Under Doeren, it's possible that State may join the trend of the spread system. At Northern Illinois, the Huskies ran some spread and relied heavily on both the arm and legs of star junior quarterback Jor- dan Lynch in 2011. Lynch set a Football Bowl Subdivision record for rushing yards by a quarterback by carrying 271 times for 1,771 yards, and he also ran for 19 touchdowns. Lynch also completed 62.9 percent of his passes for 2,962 yards with 24 touchdowns and just five picks. "The best way to explain what we did there was a blend of Oregon and Wisconsin," Doeren said during an interview with SiriusXM College Sports Nation. "We could go fast, we could spread you out, we could run our quarterback, but we could turn around and run power zone and stretch and play-action you, too. "I really liked that form of offense." Doeren acknowledged, though, that at Northern Illinois his best runner was Lynch, but that will not be the case at NC State. 26  ■  the wolfpacker 26-28.FB Look Ahead.indd 26 12/11/12 2:38 PM

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