Doeren to NC State fan base: 'Needs to be financial commitment' to recruit, keep players

By Brian Murphy, WRAL

NC State coach Dave Doeren didn't waste time trying to capitalize on the euphoria surrounding the Wolfpack's throttling of rival North Carolina or his program's strong close to the season.

In his post-game remarks, Doeren called on Wolfpack fans to donate to the team's collectives ahead of the opening of the transfer portal window this week.

He called it "maybe the worst week in college football."

NC State has two collectives — the Pack of Wolves NIL and the Savage Wolves NIL Collective — which pool money from fans and offer opportunities for players to make money through appearances or signing autographs. Pack of Wolves promised last year that each scholarship football player would be eligible for $25,000 in 2023 through charitable work.

"For all you folks that want us to keep winning, I would tell you to get on Savage Wolves, find that link," Doeren said.

"I’d love to see 5,000 people donate $1,000 to our NIL and get us to a point where we can recruit, retain and develop and have a program in the NIL world where the guys on our roster are able to benefit from that."

Doeren, echoing what many other coaches have been saying, claimed that there is "illegal crap going on in recruiting. People trying to poach our players."

A player like true freshman receiver KC Concepcion, the Wolfpack's most dynamic playmaker, is likely to be approached by other schools. Concepcion had seven catches for 131 yards and two touchdowns and rushed 11 times for 55 yards in the victory against UNC. He has 767 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns on the season and has played a major role in the Wolfpack's offensive turnaround.

"I think in this space right now, there’s a lot of bad stuff happening, there needs to be a financial commitment from our fan base to Savage Wolves and Pack of Wolves and our NIL deal so we can take care of these kids that play so hard for us," Doeren said.

Doeren is not the only coach going public in his call for more support. Duke coach Mike Elko said it would take "a lot of support" to keep his Blue Devils' program headed in the right direction.

"It's literally open free agency for all of college football and so our guys are no different than anyone else's that are going to be in that conversation" Elko said last week. "I think, again, our ability to continue to elevate our program or continue our ability to move our program forward and continue to provide an elite student-athlete experience is critical.

"I think our involvement in NIL is going to be really important. I think continuing to support the Durham Devils Club and doing the things that we can do to try to help continue to grow that is going to be really important. It's a piece, it's not the whole thing when you talk about a retention strategy, but it's certainly a piece of the retention strategy."

Elko, who is 16-9 in two seasons at Duke, said no program is exempt from the pressures and demands of the transfer portal.

"No program is immune to this," Elko said. "I've heard it talked about that there are certain programs that are more prone to losing guys. If you got guys moving from the No. 1 ranked team in the country to the No. 3 ranked team in the country nowadays and not to call out any names but like, that's happening everywhere.

"So, I don't know that anybody is immune to what's going on right now in the transfer portal. It just is what it is and you've got to put together a really strong strategy to retain your players and NIL is a big part of it."

UNC coach Mack Brown said his program doesn't have the NIL money from its collective to compete with some other schools for top transfers.

"The ones (transfers) that you all know about are all asking for money," Brown said last week. "That’s a problem. We don't have much money. That’s why we got ours from Kent State and East Tennessee State."

UNC landed wide receiver Tez Walker from Kent State and defensive back Alijah Huzzie from East Tennessee State last year in the transfer portal. The two have been key contributors all season. Last season, Brown said star quarterback Drake Maye was offered money to leave UNC.