Football coaches often lament the idea of one game weighing in importance more than another. All games count the same in standings, they claim.
Without taking these coaches to task philosophically, let’s agree that certain games over a coach’s career are pivotal, either to his success or detriment. One such pivotal game is approaching for N.C. State and its coach, Dave Doeren.
Doeren enters his fifth season of a rebuilding project with a 25-26 record that includes a 9-23 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The season-opener against South Carolina in Charlotte carries all the earmarks of a game that could steer N.