Marc Hubbard hopes to continue rebuilding success with NC State men’s soccer

Marc Hubbard is no stranger to rebuilding college men’s soccer programs. 

He inherited a 5-8-5 team at Division II Southern New Hampshire in 2008, where he turned the Penmen into a 12-game winner in every season with no more than four losses in each campaign during a seven-year stint. Hubbard then took over a 6-10-1 squad at New Hampshire before guiding the Wildcats to seven NCAA Tournament appearances with four America East Tournament titles in a nine-season run. 

Now, Hubbard is looking to do the same at NC State, which opens the 2024 season against High Point on Thursday night at the Dail Soccer Stadium. 

The 16-year head coaching veteran was hired to help propel the Wolfpack men’s soccer program to success after a 6-9-3 showing, including just one ACC victory, a year ago. The Pack has not won the league tournament since George Tarantini’s 1990 team went 17-4-2 in Raleigh.

NC State’s last trip to the NCAA Tournament came in 2019, which capped three straight appearances to compete for a national title and its last campaign above .500, but the Wolfpack is looking for more on the pitch.

And Hubbard, who has a proven track record of helping men’s soccer programs right the ship, feels that he can do the same thing at NC State. While Hubbard is comfortable in retooling programs, this is a different scenario. 

For the first time, he isn’t doing it in the northeast — and it isn’t in New Hampshire. His roots are in that region, but the Colgate graduate looked at the Wolfpack as an opportunity to grow as a coach.

“You have to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, that’s where you’re going to find growth and really push your limits,” Hubbard said of leaving UNH, who he had as the No. 8 national seed last fall. “As hard as it was to move our own kids out of their comfort zone, I think it will help prepare them for their lives down the road.” 

“I think it’s similar when you apply it to the professional side of things,” Hubbard continued. “It was time to put myself out there again, start from ground zero and rebuild something in an uncomfortable scenario. Hopefully it can reach higher end potential on a yearly basis down the road.”

The ACC, which is widely looked at as the top Division I soccer conference in the land, could provide Hubbard with an opportunity to recruit higher end talent, thus helping make deeper runs into the NCAA Tournament. The Wolfpack has advanced past the first round just once since the turn of the millennium — a 4-1 win over Campbell in 2018 before losing at Maryland in the second round. 

For Hubbard to turn NC State around — which he wants to do quickly — this offseason was a crucial period of his tenure. The Wolfpack released 11 players from last year’s roster, while it brought in 15 newcomers. 

Finding a way to get a new team to gel together seems like a daunting task, but Hubbard attacked it head on. One new face he brought in was junior midfielder Taig Healy, who scored four goals (all as a sophomore) in two seasons at New Hampshire. 

Healy followed Hubbard to Raleigh because he knew the Wolfpack hired a winning coach, and he had witnessed it firsthand through his early stages of his collegiate career.

“You know what he wants from you,” Healy said of Hubbard’s coaching style. “He does a good job making sure teams mesh quickly together. He has a style he wants to play. It takes a lot for him to change. He knows what he wants and he’ll do anything to make sure we execute.”

Hubbard’s style of play, an aggressive defense that leads to offensive production is a piece of the rebuilding stage. While he wants his teams to create offense through holding the ball away from the opponent, the key in it all is the preparation process. 

Each of Hubbard’s teams have been more tactically prepared than the opponent. That comes through an immense amount of film study leading up to the match to plan a system of attack. In all, Hubbard’s goal is to never be outworked by the other team — both on and off the field. 

At NC State, his goal is to pull the Wolfpack into the winning ways it hasn’t experienced in the last couple of seasons in a rather quick timeline. Then, the hard part will arrive — sustaining it. 

But when Hubbard, who was also attracted to NC State with its investment in the athletic department as a whole, looked at his peers inside the Weisnginer-Brown building, there was winning everywhere. 

His goal is to join the success that the Wolfpack has experienced in the last 12 months, including a third-straight women’s cross country national championship, a men’s basketball ACC title and Final Four, a women’s basketball Final Four and baseball’s trip to the College World Series. 

“You don’t have to look far within the department to see other sports and their success,” Hubbard said, “so there’s good reason to believe that soccer could do it as well.”

In the meantime, Hubbard is looking forward to the support that the Wolfpack fan base gives to each of its programs on campus. 

“The home fans and the way the students and community supports NC State Athletics, it’s just something I’ve never been a part of or seen before,” Hubbard said. “It doesn’t matter what the sport is here, the support is great. People have a real passion and care for it. I’m looking forward to seeing that in action this fall for us.”