Elliott Avent’s tenure at NC State was on life support.
It was late April, and his Wolfpack baseball team had just been drubbed by the Virginia Cavaliers. The team’s pitching staff had been torched, surrendering 12 hits and eight runs. It was State’s ninth loss in 12 games, dropping them to a lowly 9-12 in ACC play.
With the Pack’s tournament chances slim and the team playing its worst baseball of the season, it appeared that Avent would not be in the NC State dugout much longer.
Avent has been the Wolfpack’s coach since 1997, amassing more than 600 wins and leading the Wolfpack to Omaha in 2013. However, he was the only remaining revenue sport coach not fired since Debbie Yow took the Athletic Director’s position in 2010.
On top of that, his team was not performing.
It seemed administration was about to pull the plug.
It was, unquestionably, a rebuilding year for the Wolfpack. The team had lost seven players to the MLB Draft the year prior, including first-rounders Carlos Rodon and Trea Turner.
In addition, the Wolfpack had lost its entire pitching rotation, with Rodon, Logan Jernigan and the Peterson twins, Eric and Patrick, all departing for the Draft.
State was entering the season with only two seniors. The pitching rotation had a combined 30 innings between all three weekend starters. Avent had plenty of excuses for a bad season, but he hadn’t delivered with all the MLB talent in 2014, so he didn’t have the luxury of chalking up a season as a rebuilding year.
Yet everything changed when senior outfielder Bubby Riley hammered an elevated 2-0 fastball with two outs in the ninth inning to walk off Virginia in the second game of the series.
Freshman third baseman Joe Dunand followed Riley with a two-run walk-off home run in the extras in game two of the double-header, igniting the Pack on a wild run to finish the season.
The Wolfpack proceeded to reel off nine straight wins and earn a bye in the ACC Tournament, a pleasant surprise for State faithful. But Avent and his crew weren’t done there, not by a long shot.
NC State shut out No. 20 Notre Dame behind freshman ace Brian Brown, rallied to tie the game against No. 6 Miami in the ninth inning before winning the game in the 12th on sophomore Preston Palmeiro’s inexplicable little-league home run and then pasted No. 24 Virginia, 10-2.
Although the team fell to Florida State in the ACC Championship, 6-2, the Wolfpack was named the 2-seed in the Fort Worth Regional with No. 4 TCU staring down at them. The Wolfpack won two games in the Regional, coming six outs from advancing to a Super Regional for the second time in three years.
It was an inspiring run for a young team that, if not for two bad innings, would almost certainly still be playing. At the head of the Pack was the seasoned Avent, his job safe. One of the only coaches still standing would survive another day because of his actions at the end of his season.
However, to say that Avent is here only because of the last two months would be selling short the amazing things he has done at State. Avent proved himself well before the Fort Worth Regional. Here’s how.
When Yow took over the athletics department at NC State, she brought with her a high standard for Wolfpack sports. The 10 head coaching changes that came during the next five years were proof.
The NC State basketball team finished 15-16 in 2010-11—well outside the top 25. Head coach Sidney Lowe was promptly fired after the season: Yow’s first major casualty.
After a 7-6 season, which saw former Pack quarterback Russell Wilson lead a different team to a conference title in 2012, Yow again brought down the hammer, firing head coach Tom O’Brien after six seasons with the Wolfpack.
In total, Yow has fired 10 coaches, from men’s soccer to women’s tennis, all with the commitment of achieving top-25 caliber programs in mind.
All the while, Avent was quietly putting together the greatest recruiting class in the history of NC State at a crucial time.
His 2012 recruiting class was ranked No. 11 in the nation by Baseball America, and featured names that have been integral in the best four years of NC State baseball history.
In addition to Rodon and Jernigan, Avent signed second baseman Logan Ratledge and center fielder Jake Fincher, guys went on play a large part in the maturation of this season’s club.
While other coaches shuffled and sputtered, Avent produced results with the 2013 team, riding the left arm of Rodon and the speed of Turner all the way to Omaha. The ride was cut short by eventual champ UCLA, but Avent had made his mark, and Wolfpack Nation was talking about its baseball team once again.
Expectations were raised in 2014, as the Wolfpack had several pieces of the College World Series team coming back. However, Avent failed to deliver even one ACC Tournament win.
Which led to 2015, the make-or-break year for Elliott Avent.
Before the magical run to the Fort Worth Regional, Avent was saving his job in the offseason. He had built another stellar recruiting class, headlined by Dunand, the nephew of Alex Rodriguez, and Brown, who would become the ace of a stellar pitching staff.
For a college coach looking to speed up a rebuild, the transfer market is usually the best option — Avent utilized that option and found success.
Avent found South Carolina transfer Curt Britt, the starter for Game 1 of the Fort Worth Regional, Tallahassee Community College transfer Ryne Willard, a mainstay in the Pack’s infield, and Vanderbilt transfer Joel McKeithan, who started 32 games for the Pack, driving in 14 runs.
However, the boldest move by Avent this off-season was the move of sophomore Andrew Knizner from third base to behind home plate. Catcher is by far the hardest position to learn, especially for a player who has never caught before during his playing career.
Taking into account the fact that Knizner was a freshman All-American at third base last season, it was fair to wonder if the position switch would negatively affect not only Knizner’s defensive ability, but his offensive ability as well, as he would be mentally occupied with learning a new position.
Yet Knizner performed masterfully at the position, stepping right into the shoes vacated by Austin. There were some lumps along the way, but Knizner threw 22 runners out in 43 stolen base attempts on the basepaths. For comparison, former Wolfpacker Brett Austin, a third-round pick in the 2014 Draft, only threw out 14 batters in 45 attempts.
Knizner also produced at the plate, hitting .317 with five home runs and 42 RBI on the season, showing that the switch hadn’t adversely affected his offensive abilities. The move gave the Wolfpack a rock behind the plate and someone to handle to the young pitching staff.
Using his recruiting prowess, the transfer market, and a little position shuffling, Avent had rebuilt his team from the ground up. With any young group of players it takes time to mature, but when this group did, Pack fans saw the benefits.
One move that most people overlooked came in the Wolfpack coaching staff. On June 30, 2014, NC State hired Scott Foxhall to become the next pitching coach after former pitching coach Tom Halliday jumped ship. Foxhall had been in the same capacity at Auburn, spearheading the Tigers’ recruiting success.
The hire was largely overlooked in the off-season but was perhaps the shrewdest move Avent made in the offseason. If there was ever a man to mold the inexperienced Wolfpack pitching staff into a championship contender, it was Foxhall.
Foxhall has mentored 29 pitchers who have been selected in the MLB Draft during his career and improved their draft position by an average of 28 rounds. All seven pitchers he has helped place in the first 10 rounds were undrafted coming out of high school.
The numbers show Foxhall did wonders with that group, turning out a 13-11 record with a 3.37 ERA in 253 innings. Freshman right-hander Tommy DeJuneas also benefited from his tutelage, posting a 1.82 ERA and six saves.
Avent had put the pieces together for a winner, now he just needed to let them mesh. If it happened one week later, it would’ve been too late for the Pack to undo the early season slump.
Expectations will be understandably high for the Wolfpack next season as Avent returns most of the cast responsible for the Regional run in 2015. We’ve heard this narrative before.
If Avent and company repeat history and underachieve again, administration may get antsy again. Only Yow knows how much time this Regional run bought Avent.
Knowing Avent, though, he has already set into motion the steps that will allow him to keep his job in 2016 and beyond.
