How to Dump Dave Doeren

Dear Doeren Detractors:

Worst loss in CFB history? Most cursed team in collegiate sports? Copy, paste, repeat. The war cry for the “Doeren” to hit Dave on the way out (shoutout Technician) has never been louder—or more united.

But at some point, it stops being about Dave—or Boo or a slew of bad decisions. And it starts being about the fans.

Because why would the university care about all that backlash when Carter-Finley keeps selling out and the stands stay full? You can boo and give them the business. You can fire shots in the comments. You can make memes and call for heads to roll. But if you want the university to listen, stop showing up. Period.

Look at the Panthers. For years, they scraped along the floor of the NFL under temper-tantrum Tepper—an owner fans increasingly loathed. Coaches came and went. Losing became the culture. But once fans had enough and Panthers stadium was full of opposing fans, change finally came. Now, Dave Canales and Dan Morgan are rebuilding a team that went from two wins before their arrival to five, then eight with a playoff berth—and Tepper has largely disappeared to his rightful place behind the scenes.

The lesson isn’t that empty seats magically fix a franchise. It’s that organizations respond to what hits where it hurts: relevance, reputation—and yes, revenue. Clearly, money talks—and in the college NIL era, it’s practically howling.

Look, State ain’t for soft people. But at some point—aka now—Wolfpack fans have suffered more than enough. And we’ve certainly earned our right to be pissed.

To be fair, it wasn’t always Doeren. There was T.A. McLendon’s knee in 2003 on the Ohio State goal line in a triple-overtime loss. And a year later at UNC, a McLendon TD was signaled and taken off the board after another official ruled his knee down, followed by a fumble and another gut-punch loss. (Side note: UNC later said its game film showed his knee down but didn’t make the video available—and the ACC adopted instant replay the following season. But that’s a rant for another day.) There was the missed 33-yarder at Clemson in 2016 that would have knocked off the eventual national champs. I could go on and on—and on.

And it hasn’t always even been football. There’s the (almost) magical 2021 College World Series run that ended not on the diamond, but via a 2:10am. no-contest announcement that sent State packing—and Vanderbilt to the championship series instead. And don’t even get me started on basketball.

And now: Vanderbilt. Again. A 31–28 lead. A game won for 59 minutes and 59 seconds with hundreds of ways to win and only one to lose—and the Pack found it. A 99.9%-ish certainty that this one was over—and somehow, impossibly, a 35–31 loss instead. The college football world was shocked. State fans were not.

Call it State Shit. Call it a curse. Call it whatever makes decades of finding new and increasingly creative ways to rip out your own heart make sense.

But right now, at Carter-Finley, the question isn’t whether Wolfpack fans are angry. Duh. The question is whether they’re angry enough to make the people with the power to change something feel it.

Because as long as all that backlash still comes through the turnstiles to sit in the sun, wind and rain, what exactly is the incentive to listen? And Dave won’t be going anywhere. In fact, they’ll probably reup his contract.

Sincerely,

A Wolfpack Fan Who Has Seen This Film Before

This rant has been lightly edited for style and space and is not endorsed by Raleigh Magazine. GOT A RANT OR RAVE? Email it to [email protected] for consideration