The turnover from former football head coach Tom O’Brien to the current leader of the Wolfpack, Dave Doeren, has brought other new faces to the program as well.
As Doeren filled the positions once occupied by the old regime, he took the team’s past performance into consideration. Last season, N.C. State allowed 25.6 points and 404.7 yards per game. Both stats fell in the middle of the pack of the Atlantic Coast Conference — fifth and eighth respectively.
Defense also struggled in defending aerial assaults. State allowed 249.9 passing yards per game, which ranked it ninth in the conference.
Dave Huxtable, the Pack’s new defensive coordinator, is ready to elevate the expectations of a defense that some would have considered mediocre last season. He will bring 31 years of experience on the sidelines, three conference championships, 10 bowl appearances and a 4-3 defensive scheme to Raleigh.
In his previous stint as Pittsburgh’s defensive coordinator, the Panthers were ranked 16th nationally in total defense and 21st in scoring defense.
Huxtable said he will stress getting back to the basics during spring practice.
“We want to be fundamentally sound,” Huxtable said. “We want to be sound in our structure. There’s 11 guys between the white lines that [have] to do their jobs, be where they’re supposed to be.”
“Those are the things that we’re going to stress defensively as we install the defensive package,” Huxtable said.
Huxtable has experience in the state of North Carolina as well as in the ACC. He served as linebackers and defensive line coach at East Carolina for two years, as well as defensive coordinator at rival North Carolina. He also made a stop at Georgia Tech.
However, his experience in the conference was more than 10 years ago. Huxtable said he is focusing his efforts toward improving his players in the spring before planning for conference opponents.
“Our focus has to be on our players here and what we do, teaching them the things we want to get done as a defense,” Huxtable said. “We’ll start game planning some of those [opponents] this summer.”
One major issue last year, led by defensive coordinator Mike Archer, was the tendency of the Pack’s defensive backs to give up big plays. State has lost three defensive backs to graduation and the NFL. He said he is already working with the current crop of defensive backs to transform the new Wolfpack secondary.
The linebackers will also lose its leader in Sterling Lucas to graduation, making another hole on the defensive end that Huxtable is working toward filling.
He said he plans on getting the young defensive unit to believe in his scheme through repetition in the spring practices.
“We’ll go out there and get these guys as many reps as we can to teach them the proper fundamentals, technique and the scheme of the defense,” Huxtable said.
State will officially hit the field to begin its spring practice schedule March 19 and the 2013 Kay Yow Spring Game will be held April 20.
