Dave Doeren Sizes Up Memphis Ahead of Gasparilla Bowl
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RALEIGH — NC State spent the last week and a half preparing for its appearance in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl. It earned a bid to the event after finishing the season with a 7-5 record and dominating throughout November, winning three of its last four games.
The Wolfpack is slated to face the Memphis Tigers, who finished their season 8-4, but find themselves in a position without their head coach, Ryan Silverfield, who left to take the Arkansas head coaching position. Even without their leader, the Tigers pose plenty of challenges, many of which Doeren is prepared for after playing in nine bowls over his first 12 seasons.
What Doeren expects from Memphis
Doeren and the Wolfpack remained committed the spirit of bowl season, as the head coach believes team are rewarded for a season's worth of hard work by the opportunity of a postseason bowl. However, the calendar is more unique for the Gasparilla Bowl and NC State had to get to work more quickly than many other teams participating in the postseason.
"Playing earlier is a different thing for us. So it's really expedited. What normally looks like in bowls. It's almost like a bye week and then a game getting ready," Doeren said Wednesday. "And so we had our last day of finals yesterday, and so now it's all football with them for a very short period of time. We play in eight days."
Under Silverfield, Memphis went 4-0 in bowl games, with the 2021 appearance in the Hawaii Bowl canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doeren credited the Tigers for their recent success in these events and laid out some of the challenges in playing against an interim head coach. NC State already lost one game to an interim coach, as Philip Montgomery and Virginia Tech took down the Pack.
"There's going to be wrinkles. You have to expect that, but you have to also expect that they can't change their systems completely, like their DNA is going to be their DNA," Doeren said. "Will (interim coach Reggie Howard) throw the ball more or run the ball more? Because he's not the guy that called it during the season. We'll have to find out on game day."
Memphis and NC State both have dynamic talent at the quarterback position. Tiger quarterback Brendon Lewis kept his team in the hunt for the College Football Playoff while also dealing with injuries throughout the year. He finished the regular season with 2,567 passing yards, 15 passing touchdowns, six interceptions, 618 rushing yards and nine scores on the ground.
"We played a lot of athletes this year and he's very similar...," Doeren said. "I don't know if we've played a stationary quarterback all season. This guy runs the ball a lot, QB draws and zone read... keeps and things, and he's their leading rusher. If you take his sack yardage out, he's got 860 yards rushing."
Doeren and the Wolfpack will try to limit Lewis and the explosive Tiger offense in the bowl game on Friday. The Gasparilla Bowl will be on ESPN on Friday at 2:30 P.M. EST.
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Tucker Sennett graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Sports Journalism from the esteemed Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. A former basketball player, he has gained valuable experience working at Cronkite News and brings a deep passion for sports and reporting to his role as the NC State Wolfpack Beat Writer On SI.
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