As NC State (2-0) travels to South Florida (1-1), it will also prepare to do something no NC State team has done in nearly two years now -- win a road game.
"One thing that we haven't done well as a football team is play well on the road, and that's one thing that I'm geared up to go change," Doeren said. "It's a challenge to do it for any team. I think in college football, the best teams are the ones that play well at home and on the road, so that's going to be our mantra this week is to be able to take our focus on the road and be able to play four quarters of football somewhere else."
The road is not a friendly place to most college football teams. But it's particularly adversarial to NC State as of late, and not just to Doeren in his first year at the helm last season, where NC State went 0-4 on the road and 3-4 at home against Division-I teams. NC State averaged 25.7 points at home and 19.5 on the road.
In four road games last season, in fact, NC State scored nearly as many points (78) as it has in the first two weeks this season (70).
But Doeren's road woes were something that dated back to the previous head coach, Tom O'Brien (2007-12).
O'Brien was 10-20 on the road and 28-13 at home during his time at NC State. And against (current) Power 5 teams, he was 14-11 at home and 7-18 on the road. But it was his final few seasons, as NC State was 16-3 at home (9-3 against the Power 5) and 6-10 on the road (4-8 against the Power 5).
Taking out the FCS opponents, as they might skew NC State's averages, NC State was 19-13 at home and averaged 26.7 points, outscoring opponents by a total of 16 points in those 32 games (+0.5 per game) and allowing just 26.2. On the road, NC State was outscored 891-697 in 30 games (-6.5 per game) and averaged 23.2 points to the opponent's 29.7.
Not a huge difference, but again, in the last few years of O'Brien's tenure, there were a lot more noticeable inconsistencies. And 2011 was the worst example, as NC State outscored opponents 35.8-24.6 at home and went 4-1 at Carter-Finley while being outscored 15.8-28.0 on the road and going 1-4. It wasn't much better in 2012, O'Brien's final year, as NC State averaged 21.8 points at home and 30 on the road (not to mention allowing just 16.3 at home and 34.8 on the road).
All of that, of course, is in the past. And that makes it irrelevant, for the most part. But Doeren has always shown a strong understanding of NC State's history, both recent and far-removed. And he knows how important it is for this program to take the next step for them to start playing better on the road.
Even though he undestands it, though, he's not going to make it a thing with his young football team. Because if he makes it a thing, it WILL be a thing.
"I'm not going to talk about it to infinity, because sometimes you create a problem when you do that. I think it's more just 'hey guys, here's the reality of what we're doing'," Doeren said. "For us, I think it's more about just focusing on what we control and controlling the controllables, I guess, not worrying about all the things that we have nothing to do with and not letting the change in atmosphere change our focus or how we attack the day. We did not do a good job of that a year ago."
He's not going to perform an exorcism or a road-game dance or anything like that. He made up his mind about that when he arrived in Raleigh last year, vowing not to make changes to the way the team travels that were too significant. He had (and has) a relatively young group, and he knew it would be a bad idea to change their routine too much.
"With our team being so young, I think it's really focusing on our individual players and having our leaders, because we have some great leadership right now, just keeping the guys where they need to be mentally," Doeren said.
South Florida is not an easy place to play for a lot of teams, even teams that are (on paper, anyway) better than the Bulls. South Florida is not the same program that it was five years ago, but it's a rebuilding program with a lot of young talent. Home-grown talent. Which sounds awfully familiar.
NC State has won its first two games, but neither have been without adventure and both relatively close wins were against teams still transitioning to the FBS level. The Bulls are 1-1 after barely edging FCS Western Carolina at home before turning around and losing 24-17 to Maryland the next week, even though Maryland had SIX turnovers (USF had just one).
The key to winning on the road, so say the football soothsayers, would be to not beat yourselves. It's never that simple, but NC State did plenty of that last year. Doeren pointed out, though -- and accurately -- that the Wolfpack beat themselves everywhere. Or at least made life more difficult on itself than it needed to be.
So to Doeren, it's a good sign that his young team is not only more offensively explosive with Florida transfer Jacoby Brissett at quarterback, but that it's also making fewer mistakes. In a defense-optional win over Old Dominion, the Wolfpack had no turnovers and just one penalty.
He hopes, as most coaches do, that pattern continues. But it's especially important for the Wolfpack's first road test this season.
"Maryland turned it over six times on Saturday and won down there, which is a miracle. But we can't turn the ball over on the road, No. 1. The game we just played, we had no turnovers and one penalty. You're going to be in every game if you play like that, every game," Doeren said.
"We've got to play like that on the road. I think part of that is having leadership on your team to keep the guys locked in and focused. You're going to have fans now yelling at you instead of cheering for you and blocking that out, the crowd changes when you're on offense it's loud and when you're on defense, it's not. So just being able to block out the distractions and clear the clutter and focus on the game plan and execute.
"We didn't do that well last year. The year before that, they didn't do that well. So for us to take another step would be winning on the road. So this is a great challenge for us this week."
