NC State head coach Dave Doeren reportedly had a lot to say about their rival this week.
The Wolfpack are involved in their annual battle with in-state rival North Carolina. There’s never been any love lost on Tobacco Road before. Not with NC State and UNC, not with UNC and Duke, and not with Duke and NC State either. The Wolfpack and Tar Heels have never spent a moment liking each other.
Doeren, the head coach of NC State for the last decade, isn’t a stranger to the rivalry. He’s no stranger to ruffling feathers in Chapel Hill either. If the comments he reportedly made this week are true, then that heat has surely not gone away.
Longtime ESPN college football voice Dave Pasch shared a wild story while he called NC State-UNC on Friday on ABC.
It should be noted, though, that Pasch paraphrased what the NC State coach said.
Andrew Carter, a longtime writer for The News & Observer in North Carolina, tweeted out the story from Pasch (via a tweet from Cory Smith).
“Doeren, paraphrased during the broadcast:
‘They don’t like us. We hate them. We’re blue collar, they’re elitist. Their coaches talk down to us, they talk behind our backs in recruiting, and negatively about our coaching staff.'”
Doeren, paraphrased during the broadcast:
“They don’t like us. We hate them. We’re blue collar, they’re elitist. Their coaches talk down to us, they talk behind our backs in recruiting, and negatively about our coaching staff.”
Well then. https://t.co/3PGco9BNhl
— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) November 25, 2022
The commentators pressed Doeren on if he wanted those remarks on the record. He matter-of-factly responded.
Also, the broadcast guys asked Doeren if that was on the record and apparently he told them: "I don't give a [bleep]." Any time the fans get a little testy with Dave, he just starts ripping on the Heels. One of his go-tos. (See: fancy belt commentary of 2014.)
— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) November 25, 2022
Coaches who play into their team’s rivalries do typically get the energy they want from fans. NC State has had a disappointing season after starting the year with high aspirations. But these comments from Doeren are likely sure to get the fans riled up.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022