It didn't even take 24 hours for Northern Illinois coach Dave Doeren to parlay the Huskies' MAC championship into a new job.
N.C. State announced that it had hired Doeren, who has led NIU to a FBS-best 21 wins in its last 22 games, including a victory in last night's MAC Championship Game.
Doeren's recent success made him a hot candidate. He was also getting interest from Auburn and Purdue. NIU is 23-4 the last two seasons, including 17-1 against MAC teams. The 12 wins the Huskies earned this year are a school record. Before that, Doeren was the co-defensive coordinator at Wisconsin for five years. The Badgers had a 49-16 record during those five seasons.
And that's the problem for a school like Northern Illinois. Making a grand slam hire like Doeren isn't a permanent solution. NIU has been fantastic the last two seasons - too good to realistically hope to keep Doeren. He won't even coach Northern Illinois - which still has an outside shot of getting a BCS bid - in its bowl game, which is really a shame.
N.C. State seems to have made a very nice hire in Doeren. NIU won't have an easy time replacing him.
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