N.C. State fires football coach Dave Doeren midway through his 14th season

N.C. State fired coach Dave Doeren on Saturday, ending a 14-season tenure in which he set the program’s all-time wins mark but could not make a breakthrough leap to higher success.

The school announced the decision less than a day after the Wolfpack fell to 3-4 by losing on the road against a Stanford team picked to finish last in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Doeren, 54, had a 98-74 record with the Wolfpack and became the program’s winningest coach with a 2023 victory over Miami. He entered this year as the fourth-longest-tenured coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision and second in the ACC behind Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.

“I want to thank Coach Doeren for his service and contributions to N.C. State, and for always representing the university with pride,” athletic director Boo Corrigan said in a statement. “I appreciate his leadership during his 14-year tenure and the passion he brought to this role. We wish Dave, (wife) Sara and his family the best in the future.”

Running backs coach and special teams coordinator Todd Goebbel will serve as interim coach for the remainder of the season.

Doeren built a consistent winner, with the Wolfpack securing 11 bowl bids with eight of those teams reaching eight or nine wins — including a 9-4 mark against rival North Carolina. Yet N.C. State never played for an ACC championship nor reached the 10-win threshold hit only once in program history, creating a ceiling that Doeren’s teams kept bumping into and that led to a steady but typically low-simmering level of fan frustration.

Then things went quickly awry in his 14th year.

___

Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here. Visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full college football coverage here.