Former Foe Wiles Feeling Right at Home With Wolfpack
Every now and then, Charley Wiles still does a double take when he looks down and sees a Tuffy the Wolf logo stitched on the front of his gray pullover instead of the Virginia Tech Hokie he wore with pride for the past 24 years.
But it's happening less frequently with each passing day.
After a little more than a month as a member of Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren's staff, Raleigh is already starting to feel like home for the veteran defensive line coach. It's a realization that began to dawn on Wiles recently when he returned to Blacksburg to sell his house.
"I'm looking that way," Wiles said, waving his arms in a forward motion. "It felt a little weird in Blacksburg, I'll be honest with you. After being there for 24 years and change, this is fast feeling like home now."
Wiles had become a fixture at Tech, working hand-in-hand with coach Frank Beamer and legendary defensive coordinator Bud Foster since 1996 to build the the Hokies into a national power while helping to produce 13 NFL draft picks and five defensive line All-Americans.
But when Foster announced his retirement, effective at the end of last season, current Tech coach Justin Fuente decided to "part ways" with Wiles after the team's Belk Bowl loss to Kentucky.
Unlike Foster, the 55-year-old Murray State graduate wasn't ready to walk away from the game he loves.
It took less than a month for him to land on his feet in Raleigh, where he said he's impressed with what he's seen so far -- both from the people with whom he's working and the place at which he works.
"It certainly is exciting," Wiles said during a meet-and-greet with the media at the Murphy Center on Thursday.. "I haven't made a move in a long time, so I couldn't be more fired up about being in Raleigh. I mean, look at this place.
"I'd never been in here. I'd been by a couple of times, played here three or four times. But (State) is cut from the same cloth (as Tech). It's an ag-engineering school with the same kind of down-to-Earth people. It couldn't be a better fit. We just have to go out and play defense, stop people and win some games."
Wiles and the rest of the Wolfpack's newly revamped defensive staff will start working to accomplish that goal next week when State begins its annual spring practice.
In addition to Wiles, the new members of Doeren's staff are nickels coach Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay, safeties coach Joe DeForest and cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell. Tony Gibson, who was co-defensive coordinator a year ago now has sole control over the defense.
Although Wiles swears he's "never worked a day in his life" doing what he does working with young people, he has a big job ahead of him rebuilding a line that will be the least experienced unit on the Wolfpack's defense.
But even with the loss of starters Larrell Murchison and James Smith-Williams to graduation, along with the transfers of Joseph Boletepeli and Jeffrey Gunter, Wiles said there's still plenty of talent on hand -- regardless of whether Gibson ultimately decides to go with a three- or four-man front this fall.
"Alim (McNeill) is perfect. Josh (Harris) is perfect," he said. "Josh got a litle heavy and we're trying to get him down a little. Those two are good ones. Val (Martin), he can play nose. C.J. (Clark) can play nose, C.J. can play end. Savion (Jackson) is an end, (Ibrahim) Kante is an end.
"It's going to give us a whole lot of versatility in covering people and blitzing people. I think it's going to be great."
