NC State hires Syracuse wide receivers coach George McDonald

Dave Doeren is making a minor change to his coaching staff, replacing wide receivers coach Frisman Jackson with George McDonald, who worked in that same role at Syracuse. McDonald also spent time as the Orange offensive coordinator this season before getting demoted to position coach.

Why was McDonald demoted from OC to WR coach at Syracuse? You would have to ask head coach Scott Shafer. Syracuse was coming off a six-point effort against Louisville at that stage of the season, though the Orange would have hit double digits if a certain individual caught the dadgum football in the hotdanged scorin' zone. Syracuse went 1-6 after McDonald's demotion.

McDonald was hired by Syracuse from Arkansas prior to the 2013 season. He did not take his demotion well. He was brought on board by Shafer as offensive coordinator and associate head coach, so yeah. Nobody in that situation's going to take a demotion well.

"If I would've known I was only going to get 18 games to be offensive coordinator, I would've stayed at the University of Arkansas," McDonald said on Tuesday night. "I would've never came here."

McDonald quickly apologized for that remark, but the writing was obviously on the wall--he wanted out. Dave Doeren offered him an eject button and he took it.

So why did Doeren feel the need to make a change at wide receivers coach? There are two things in play any time you are talking about a position coach: the performance on the field by that coach's position players, and recruiting. The performance bit can be something of a factor, but really it's more a handy excuse in situations like this, because recruiting is everything.

Jackson was one of Doeren's guys--worked with Doeren at Northern Illinois, came with him when Doeren got the NC State job. Maybe they didn't get along this year, maybe Doeren wanted to make a change as a result. This is probably motivated by recruiting, though.

And incidentally, McDonald spent a lot of time in the midwest, dating back to his playing days at Illinois. He was even an assistant at NIU, though that was a decade before Doeren got there. He also has experience working in the NFL, where he served as the Browns' WR coach in 2009 and 2010.