Molding NC State’s Dave Doeren: Inside his early years as Northern Illinois’ head coach

By Noah Fleischman

Dave Doeren knew he needed to hit the road. A job interview to become Northern Illinois’ head coach was scheduled on the Huskies’ campus, but the then-Wisconsin defensive coordinator had a slight issue — a snowstorm dropped 8-14 inches of snow on Madison, Wis., with blizzard-like wind conditions. 

But Doeren, a career assistant coach, was not going to let Mother Nature get in the way of a big break in the coaching profession. He spent two hours digging snow off his driveway and, with his family in tow, undertook the 100-mile drive to DeKalb, Ill., making the meeting in time.

For Jeff Compher, who was in his fourth year as Northern Illinois’ athletic director at the time, that confirmed everything he knew about the up-and-coming coordinator. 

“Someone that was willing to do that,” Compher told TheWolfpacker.com recently, “I knew they were committed to the next step in their career.”

In the interview, Doeren impressed his future boss with his intelligence — both in football and off the field — and his knowledge of the midwest region. Compher was sold on Doeren, and the two made the hire official shortly after. 

On Dec. 13, 2010, Doeren was introduced as Northern Illinois’ 21st coach in program history. He took over a team that had won 11 games the year before under Jerry Kill, who departed to coach Minnesota, but there was an opportunity to raise the bar with a Mid-American Conference crown. 

Doeren found a way to do just that — and some. He took the Huskies to new heights with a 23-4 record in his two seasons at the helm of the program with back-to-back MAC titles and a berth to the Orange Bowl. 

Although he was at Northern Illinois for just two seasons, Doeren evolved from career assistant to head coach, before departing to lead NC State’s program in 2012. In his pair of seasons with the Huskies, Doeren became who he is today, using those years to refine his coaching skill set to use on a bigger stage. 

“I learned a lot about doing things with less,” Doeren said Monday. “The motto of that school is ‘The hard way’ and it’s real. They have very few amenities there. You have to do a lot with a little, and I think I’ve always been good at that because of that experience.”

Now, as NC State’s winningest coach with 83 victories in his 12th season, Doeren further developed his coaching style during his time leading the program at Northern Illinois, which visits Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday afternoon. 

Ready to lead

When Doeren arrived in his first head coaching position, he didn’t have to rebuild the program. Kill had led the Huskies to the conference title game, but he didn’t win it, so it was more of an opportunity for Doeren to make it his own. 

That was the sales pitch Compher gave in his communication leading up to the job offer. And that seemed to pique Doeren’s interest, who was preparing for the right opportunity to come along as a first-time head coach. 

“I thought he’d be able to relate to our team and be able to instill his vision without taking away the momentum that we had as a football program at the time,” Compher said, reflecting back on the coaching search. “He wasn’t walking into a rebuild. He was walking into a ‘let’s make this thing even better than it is.’”

Doeren arrived in the interview with a list of assistant coaches he would like to hire if he got the job. And he did just that after serving as Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator in the 2011 Rose Bowl — a 21-19 loss to TCU — to close his career as an assistant. 

When he arrived at Northern Illinois, Doeren was eager to touch all facets of the program, instilling his vision of football throughout the entire building. 

“Even though he had never been a head coach before, he was very prepared and ready,” Compher said.

Doeren’s new boss was not the only one that thought that.

Jay Niemann, Doeren’s first defensive coordinator of his head coaching career, had known the coach since his days as a tight end at Drake. Niemann was the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator then and added the title of associate head coach by the time Doeren joined the staff to coach linebackers in 1995. 

When Niemann was asked to team back up with a former player and staff member 16 years later, he jumped on the opportunity. Why? He knew Doeren was ready to lead. 

“He’s a guy that was mature beyond his years,” Niemann, now an assistant defensive line coach at Iowa, told TheWolfpacker.com. “I just felt like he was a guy that came into that role and performed like someone who had been in that role for four or five years.”

“It didn’t seem like somebody who was coming from being an assistant to head coach,” Niemann continued. “He’s a sharp guy, and he carried himself that way. Very intelligent, intentional, paid his dues to get to that spot, and he was prepared for it when he got it.”

Once Doeren built his first staff, which included a future head coach, two collegiate defensive coordinators and an NFL defensive coordinator, he was vigilant about what went on within his program. Everything had to follow the plan he laid out before even taking the job to lead the Huskies. 

Doeren dreamed of this opportunity and it was going to have to follow his blueprint. That scheme was followed by everyone in the building, and Doeren was going to be involved in every manner he could. 

“He was a defensive guy, but he was in almost every offensive meeting,” said Rod Carey, the Huskies’ offensive line coach in 2011 before becoming the offensive coordinator in 2012 and the head coach for six seasons after Doeren left. “He wanted to know, he wanted to have input and he wanted to have a say. That’s because he had been planning to be a head coach, and he knew how he wanted his team to look.”

It was a first for Carey. He never saw Ed Meierkort or Todd Strop at Wisconsin-Stout or Denver Johnson at Illinois State check in on every position group each week. But there was Doeren, sitting in whenever he had a chance. He also wanted to have a competitive meeting room — for the players and the staff every day, pushing everyone to be at their best in each area of the program.

It also helped keep Doeren well-informed about what was going on within game preparation. And that allowed Doeren to manage the game at a high level. 

In turn, it helped the Huskies become the gold standard of the MAC during his tenure. 

Recruiting guru

While Doeren had a plan for his program, he did the same for what type of high school prospect he wanted to recruit. 

Tough. Athletic. Versatile. 

“He knew the type of guys that fit him, personality and physically wise, what he was looking for in his scheme defensively and offensively,” Carey said. “He knew what he wanted it to look like too.”

It’s similar to what he looks for at NC State, but this was on a smaller scale in the Midwest. Doeren’s roots in the region helped, so did coaching J.J. Watt at Wisconsin. 

But it all came down to nabbing talent — something Doeren was good at doing. 

Compher watched Doeren land talent Northern Illinois couldn’t in the past. His new coach was committed to recruiting, even when he wasn’t the one on the trail talking to prospects.

There were several occasions when Compher and Doeren were together when his phone would ring with an assistant coach recruiting on the other end. He would pause whatever he was up to with Compher to answer questions or watch film of a potential recruit. 

That, in a way, proved to Compher that he made the right hire.

“He loved to recruit,” Compher said. “I think he still does. He gets as much kick out of winning the recruiting wars as he does on the field.”

Compher, who went on to serve as East Carolina’s athletic director for five years, is still impressed by Doeren’s recruiting efforts more than a decade later.

“It was one of those things where I couldn’t believe how on top of it he was,” Compher said. “I couldn’t manage keeping up with it as much as he did. He really had his pulse on recruiting, I’ll never forget that.”

A player’s coach and motivator

Akeem Daniels thought he was going to be released — or at least suspended — from Northern Illinois’ team in 2012. He got in trouble, and the running back was sure he was going to be punished pretty harshly by Doeren. 

But instead, Doeren sat Daniels down to work through the situation. He told the tailback that he was “extremely disappointed” and had “high expectations” for Daniels’ character. Doeren challenged Daniels to make it up both academically and athletically moving forward from that meeting. 

“That conversation that we had, it set a spark,” Daniels told TheWolfpacker.com. “I ended up finishing the season having the best last couple of games of my collegiate career.”

Daniels logged 124 attempts for 750 yards and 12 rushing touchdowns, while he recorded 35 receptions for 511 yards and four receiving scores in his two seasons playing for Doeren.

While that was just one story of Doeren’s ability to motivate a player, he had a knack for keeping the pulse of the team — the big picture and the microscopic details. 

Niemann, the defensive coordinator, thought Doeren’s ability to do both was unique, especially as a first-time head coach. 

“Some coaches, believe it or not, are a little bit oblivious to things going on with the team,” Niemann said. “He had a real knack to see what’s going on from a program-wide perspective, as well as the ability to see what’s going on with individuals in the program. … Some guys are good at small individual relationships, others big picture. He had the ability to do both.”

For Daniels, it was easy to play for Doeren since he knew whatever the coach said was going to pay off in the long run. 

“He was definitely a player’s coach,” Daniels said. “One guy I would compare him to now is Dan Campbell, the head coach of the Detroit Lions. He’s just overall a tough guy. … He knew how to get under our skin, and he always challenged us to be better.”

Although Doeren’s coaching style was different, it worked. And it was successful since he was able to communicate with the entire roster at a high level. 

Mike Uremovich, who coached running backs in 2012 at Northern Illinois before coaching the offensive line at NC State for three seasons, pointed to Doeren’s communication skills as being elite.

“He does a great job relating to the players, selling them on what we’re trying to go accomplish and then going and doing it,” Uremovich said. “He is just a blue collar, hard-working guy that I think the players identify with because they see him and his staff working hard. He’s always going to tell them the truth.”

“Even if you don’t want to hear it,”  Uremovich continued, “you’re going to respect the answer that you get because he’s telling you the truth.”

Driven to win

Northern Illinois opened the 2012 season against Iowa at Soldier Field in Chicago. Doeren believed he had a good enough team to beat the Hawkeyes coming off the program’s first conference crown since 1983. 

The Huskies led 17-12 with just over two minutes left in the game before Damon Bullock scored on a 23-yard touchdown to allow the Hawkeyes to take the lead. Northern Illinois couldn’t answer and left Chicago empty-handed. 

Doeren felt like it was a missed opportunity. But it also proved that he had a team that could defend its MAC title.

“We could have won that game,” Doeren told Compher, “but we’ve still got a really good football team.”

Doeren’s confidence and his team’s play on the field made Compher believe the Huskies wouldn’t lose again that year. And they were able to win 12 straight games, including a 30-23 win over Kansas, and claimed Doeren’s second-consecutive MAC championship. 

“I wasn’t surprised, but I think he realized he had this opportunity, and he’s not going to waste it,” Compher said. “And we didn’t.”

Just one day after the Huskies beat No. 18 Kent State, 44-37, in double overtime, to defend its league championship, Doeren was introduced as the head coach at NC State on Dec. 1, 2012.

Doeren wasn’t set on leaving the Huskies that fast when he first accepted the job, but after dominating the MAC, it was time for his next challenge. 

“I was really excited for an opportunity to come to NC State. I felt like I had done what I could do at NIU,” Doeren said this week. “I felt like it was time to move forward with my opportunities, and it was sad and exciting all at the same time.”

Now, 12 years later, Doeren is set to face Northern Illinois for the first time this Saturday at noon on The CW. He helped take the program to historic highs, and now he has made NC State a consistent winner. 

And none of it would have likely happened without Doeren’s drive to clear his snow-covered driveway in Wisconsin for his job interview.