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Dave Doeren hired to be N.C. State’s next coach

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 Friday 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.

[Update: Northern Illinois is in the BCS; it will play Florida State in the Orange Bowl.)

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