BREAKING 🚨: NC State Hiring Philip Rivers As New Head Coach | Reaction, Expectations & MORE!

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast with your host, Chip Patterson, Tom Fernelli, Danny Cannell, and Bob Elliott. It's your call for the best college football coverage from National Signing Day to the National Championship and everything in between. CBS Sports presents the Cover 3 podcast. And welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast. Here on CBS Sports, this is Tom Fernelli, I'm Chip Patterson, coming to you live, youtube.com/.com/. And everywhere you get your podcast on the man, thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe, smash that like and come and join us in the chat, AKA the Cover 3. Tell you OK, where you see those sirens in your feet. You know exactly what that means. Things are moving fast yet slow, Tom. Fast yet slow. Yes, as you can see by the headline of this video on youtube.com/cover3. Thanks for all the subscribers who have helped us reach our subscriber goal and get us out on the road so that we can be together in Bloomington, Indiana, this coming weekend, but also to those of you who understand that sometimes these things go through a process. Here's the news. NC State is expected to hire legendary quarterback Philip Rivers as the 37th head coach of the Wolfpack program. Now in terms of the news and the timing, Tom, I don't know how much you've been dipping your fingers into the board of trustees bureaucracy over here in the North Carolina school system. Non-stop. Non-stop. I don't know if we're going to get a full press conference, shoot the balloons and fireworks off until a little bit later this week. We got to go through some hoops here. But the news is being widely reported, including by our own pack power 24/7. Is that NC State and Philip Rivers are finalizing a deal? That they were waiting until the conclusion of his high school season where he's being the head coach at Fairhope St. Michael High School in Fairhope, Alabama. For the last six years, they lost 42 to 35. I never thought Fairhope against Glenwood School would be a high school score that I cared about, Tom. But it is because as it was projected and discussed here, the end of Philip Rivers high school season, then meant he would allow himself to truly begin negotiating best I can tell. That means NC State says, hey, Phil, let's do it. Phil says, let's do it. And we'll spend the next couple of days getting all the fine details ironed out. But we felt comfortable for the purposes of the discussion. And for the purposes of being there for the audience, who is obviously seeing these alerts across their phones all day, we are headed in the direction. NC State expected to join the ranks of others who have brought back a legendary player in recent years. This one with its own set of prior experiences and also what he means to the program. - What round of the playoffs did they lose in? - This was the second, I think. - So we're hiring a high school coach. You couldn't even get out of the second round of the playoffs. - He didn't, listen, you got to put college football playoff selection committee adjustment here. Gunner wasn't playing anymore, right? He was coaching everybody but Gunner. So really, I think that you got to understand that without their star player, they just weren't the same 11 seed that they would have been otherwise. - Did Gunner quit on the team? Did he quit on his dad? What's going on there? There's, oh man, locker room, just a whole ready and shit. - Does this get you, does this get you going? Are you excited about it? - No. - Okay, I'm excited. - Tell me why. - Okay, because when you are operating in the world of NC State football and college football is changing very rapidly and it feels like everyone around you is making changes. They're not always the right steps, but they are different steps that what Duke has done with his football program under both Mike Elko and Manny Diaz has suggested that Duke football said, hey, college football world might be changing, but we're not going to get left behind. And North Carolina was like, hey, listen, we are going to try something. We're not just going to keep running it back. And it didn't go great. And it still is TBD on the overall grade for the billbellicic experience, but that if you are Jake Dickert at Wake Forest, Virginia having the success that it had, if you're the NC State wolf pack and you've been rolling along with the same old plan, but you're watching UVA and Duke make it to the ACC championship game, and NC State has never made it to the ACC championship game, whatever you've got in terms of traditional thinking, whatever you've got in terms of like the old notebook, the old plan, throw all that out. That this is the type of swing at the right moment where Gunner is the number four quarterback in the 2027 recruiting class and is already committed to NC State, where Philip has already been through the head coaching hiring cycle at the NFL level, therefore having already had an idea of what he needs to be thinking of in terms of the next steps. Then yeah, you just in the old status quo is just going to leave you left behind. So you might as well try something inventive. And so yes, this does get me going. This is more exciting than year 15, Dave Doran. And I think that whether it leads to better results than Dave Doran, I'm sure Dave Doran might be interested in, but that's at least as a school, I understand why they're doing this to capitalize on the moment and the time. Okay, but other than the fact that it's Philip Rivers, how is he qualified for the job? What do you mean? He's been a high school coach. So sit down and pitch me on your program. He's never been an assistant at the college level. He's not coached at the college level. He was literally in the NFL like 12 months ago, playing. Like, how is he qualified for this gig? Other than the fact that he played quarterback for you, how do you not go through a full interview process trying to find a coach to take over your program? I have no idea if this will work out, it might. He might be the perfect answer. It might be a swing and it might be a home run. And oh my God, and everybody will say it was genius. In fact, it'll just be they got super lucky. Like to me, it's a very dangerous time for NC State. It's a very dangerous time for the ACC. The elephant in the room is five years from now, we don't know what that conference is going to look like. The PCSA, which had the provision in it to like, capped leagues as far as they can expand, how many schools probably isn't going to get passed, but there will probably be a new version of it. And it might still have the cap on realignment. So guess what, the big 10 in the SEC are going to be doing here in the next few months. They're going to be looking to grab any schools that they can before they're no longer able to. The ACC might be picked apart when the television deal is done. If this blows up in NC State's face, is NC State going to have a life raft when the ACC collapses and Miami gets taken and North Carolina gets taken and Virginia gets taken and all these schools get taken, is anybody coming for NC State? - I don't think that that decision-making should be part of it. I think if Philip Rivers can come in and sell you on what he thinks with who he's going to hire and what he wants to put in place, if he wants to come in and do that, then yes, you absolutely take a chance on it. You're not going to be able to get the kind of financial commitments or the kind of financial motivations to be able to field a competitive roster. If you just continue to go like a- - There's not a coach out there that would have fired up the boosters outside of Philip Rivers. - Not more than Philip Rivers. I guarantee you that. Not more than Philip Rivers. This is an emotional hire. - Yeah, and that's a terrible way to make a hiring decision. That's my point. You don't hire with your emotions. You don't run a program with your emotions. You get a coach. You get somebody who's proven their competent and able to do it. And you say, you don't worry about the future. How the hell do you not? - No, I'm saying you don't have the distant future. It's the very immediate future. You might be a non-powerful program in five years. - I think that the conference realignment stuff NC State has its lot in life. You understand what life raft you are on. You understand what shift you are going to be. You've got to make a decision to be able to try and make yourself be as attractive of a football program as possible. That the thing that you have as your power is the passion. Okay? That is what makes sense. Everybody talks about Carter Finley Stadium and NC State and the passion. Well, this is absolutely rewarding the fans that have made that attractive. Because otherwise, when you think about the competition that you've got within your own neighborhood, and when you think about where you sit in the overall landscape in terms of what kind of roster you can put together, the things that make NC State exciting are the passion. And if you lost that, if you lost that because you hired someone that no one was excited about and it started to decay a little bit, then NC State would lose the thing that it's special. The thing that makes that job in that program special. - Okay, I just, here's a weird question for you. If Will Wade doesn't leave NC State after one year, they make in this hired football. - Justin Gainey was hired because of the way that Will Wade left. 'Cause also, don't forget, this is literally the same administration that just hired a former men's basketball player. Yeah, just go for it. - But at least that one had experience as an assistant coach at a very successful basketball program. This one doesn't even have that. But he is an NC State alum, so damn it, he's not going to abandon us like Will Wade did. I'm excited about it. I think that it will provide NC State with an opportunity, which it could fall right on its face with. I mean, this, this is coming right out of the Bill Bellachek year one experience because Phil and NC State football are going to be treated and propped up and given the extra attention the same way that Bill Bellachek in North Carolina was. And if they have another TCU game, it's going to be very, very public. But I think that if Phil is interested and if he has a good idea and if he's motivated, then yes, you give, you give him the opportunity, you give him the opportunity, you at least don't tell him no Phil, we're not interested. You can give him the opportunity, Chip, you don't just hand him the job right away though. You go through a process, you interview other coaches, you find out who's interested. What's Philip Rivers' coaching staff going to be? That's part of the, that's what's happening right now. Yeah. It's not like he has a long history of guys he can call and bring with him to Raleigh. I mean, like people, people will compare this to Deon because you know, big player, big name, Hall of Famer, coach. But Deon was coaching at Jackson State. Deon had experienced coaching before he went to Colorado and he brought his son and a five star Travis Hunter with him. Philip Rivers is bringing his son who's a highly ranked recruit and he's probably got 75 more quarterbacks in the pipeline ready to come on down, but it's, it's a completely different situation. And I just, and look at how Colorado has worked out since Shadour and Travis left. Hey, check the transcript, by the way, cover through tailgate. Thanks for hanging out YouTube.com/cover3. I do not think I've said the words. I think this will be a good hire. I think the only thing I've said is I'm excited about it. You can check the transcripts on this and I could be wrong. But the only thing as I've said is does this get my juices flowing? Yes. Am I excited about this? Yes. Do I see how this is happening? Yes. Do I see why this is happening? Yes. So do you think it's a good hire? I think the timing is going to give him as much advantage as possible that James Franklin having the extra time to put together his staff and begin to work on portal and begin to work on those things with a mid-November hiring, which is what we're looking at with the board of trustees meeting scheduled for the 12th and the 13th. So board of trustees meeting coming up a little bit later on. The timing of that would give Philip Rivers in C state year one the best chance possible. And that if you had waited until after the conference championship games, for example, to interview a Glenn Schumann or to interview, you know, name your other coach who might be somewhere. Maybe they're coaching in a group of six championship game. If you had waited until December the 6th to try to move on this, that that time is lost. And that especially if you were going to wait to interview those guys before eventually hiring Philip Rivers. If you thought that this was going to end at Philip Rivers, then the best thing that you could do for NC State football was allow him to in earnest begin to really start getting the program put together. But when you hired James Franklin early and give him that extra time, James Franklin already has all the connections. James Franklin already knows the coaches he's bringing with him. Now most of them were working with him at Penn State. He already has the relationships with the recruits that he is bringing in the transfer portal with the players at Penn State and guys he'd already been recruiting. Philip Rivers doesn't have any of it. He's got his son, he doesn't have a coaching staff, it doesn't have any resistance to come with him. He's going to go in the portal and the recruiting thing. He hasn't talked any of these kids, he hasn't been in the high schools recruiting yet. He's been coaching his own team. I wait until his staff is released, I think you'd be surprised that Philip Rivers might have some connections in football and that he might have, I know he has some, it's just he might have some former teammates Tom in player personnel offices at big two power two schools that could be coming to join the party. So there we go. This conversation is going to be wide receiver coach offensive coordinator. We bring it. Tory Holt doesn't do, it's not, it's not that, but who is the coach Indianapolis while he was there? Was it right? Is he bringing Frank Reich? No, no, no, there are no, there are former teammates and there are former NFL teammates and connections who are working in college front offices right now. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see as the staff has put together that some of those, some of the people are bringing with them experience, they're bringing with them more than if we, if you filled out the whole staff with just former NC state greats, then I think, you know, that might be a little bit different, but he's gotten to surround himself. You wouldn't believe this Tom. In an extensive NFL career, he's surrounded himself with a lot of individuals who are now across the country working in various coaching and personnel jobs. So this is his chance, right? I mean, yeah, this is, this is absolutely your chance. He played, he is the first NC state player to be head coach at NC state since Chucamato, RIP, who he played for. Your one Chucamato, I believe, was Phillips freshman season. Joe Pate was on the old staff and he was in charge of holding the recruiting class together and he was able to help make sure Philip did end up enrolling after the coaching change. Chucamato gave Chucamato and Philip Rivers those, those four years were, were a special, special time for NC state, a time when the school decided football is going to be our thing. Like as a university, they said, okay, Duke and Carolina are playing a different game in basketball. We are going to be the football school in this triangle and the higher of Chucamato, the backing of Marion, Marion Fox, who's the president at the time. You know, it was a, this, this is what they're trying to tap into before it, before the recipes are truly lost, right, that the decay of the attendance and the involvement and the apathy, you got, you got to find a way to be able to relight that fuse. It's just across the board, one of the, one of the things that does make NC state a fun football spot in the national landscape. Remember how excited Chapel Hill was for Bill Bell to check that first game? Oh, yeah. I was there. Remember how quickly that died out? Yeah. I would not have that first game or coach and we're, we're, we're, we're chasing endorphins. Yeah. Well, look around, Tom. It's kind of the game. I just, yeah, but you can, you can find endorphins. I, okay, I mean, this was always this, my, my opinion is very much on the record here. I don't expect this will go well. Okay. Gotcha. Coming up on the other side, predictions for the rest of the college football coaching carousel and more next. Hi. I'm Tony DeCouple and as anchor of the CBS evening news, I am filled with endless curiosity about our world and our society. Maybe you are too. My new podcast is called Great Question. It's an effort to capture that curiosity and to answer the question you haven't heard a satisfying answer to or maybe haven't even heard asked. Follow and listen to Great Question with Tony DeCouple wherever you get your podcasts. Back here on the cover three podcast as it is beginning to look like we should soon hear an official announcement that will have Philip Rivers hired as the 37th head football coach of the NC State Wolfpack, a couple of Board of Trustees meetings scheduled for later this week to be able to finalize things, but pack power 24/7 among the many reporting that that yes, NC State Philip Rivers finalizing their deal. He was one of the top candidates from the beginning and with his high school football season over in Pharaoh, Alabama that happened on Friday. Now they are working towards finalizing that deal to bring the Wolfpack legend and Wolfpack Hall of Famer home as the programs next head coach. So that would be a now NC State sort of they were open and we would slide them back off. What else are you looking at in terms of Maryland, Florida State, Baylor, what timetable do you think we could see things pick up at what predictions would you have for those jobs or what else could be opening. Well, I mean now that Rivers is off the table, I'm sure they're all scrambling like all their plan A's are gone and they have to start moving quickly before Plan B goes to. I don't know. I don't think that we're going to see any of them make a hire too quickly. I think we're probably going to wait. Obviously, there is the impetus to get things done before signing day, which is in about a month from now, I think, but a lot of the targets I think for those schools are guys who are still coaching and there are some names out there that aren't currently coaching right now that will probably be attached to them. It's just I don't know. I don't know what the urgency is at any of those places to get the hire done immediately. Because if you look at Florida State, I mean, look at how patient they were with Mike to begin with, give it all the time and all the losses they were willing to eat before finally making the move. I just wonder if they are going to really rush into a hire or if they want to take their time because there's so many other things going on there that aren't just the football coach that needs to be hired. I couldn't tell you. There's really not a whole lot of buzz. It's like the names that you hear for every single one of these jobs are all names of coaches that are still coaching their teams and many of them are still in the playoff hunt. Like Jason Eck is huge. He comes up in every single coaching search in New Mexico. goes in the playoff hunt. I don't think Jason X out there looking for a gig right now. - If I was to make a prediction, this is a prediction. I think that Florida State will introduce a new athletic director and then new athletic director will get to make or at least have his or her name on the hire. - Mm-hmm. - So I could see that. - That's my prediction. - And that athletic director will be Danny Cannell. - And so to your point, I am not even ready to start taking guesses seriously if my prediction is correct until FSUAD is announced. And then I would think it could happen swiftly. Like that's when I would start like a maybe a seven to 10 day kind of clock going. When coaching searches get serious, you can typically wrap up business in a week or so. And if it extends longer than that, I mean, someone was dragging their feet in the process. You get one weekend to think it over with your family. But we gotta circle back to this. So I'm gonna wait until FSU's athletic director is announced before I really start to take seriously the different options in terms of the candidates and where that could go. For the Baylor job, do you have any sense of how are the different members of the Texas high school mafia? G.J. Kenny got another big win on-- - Yeah. - I got a big win late Saturday night. I know that's probably something we would've included in a pun for the review for tomorrow. We're gonna have a beefy a pun for the review, right? Is it just you and me? - That's just you and me. - Just kicking notes back and forth at each other. I've got, I get so many notes cut from a pun for the review for time. You guys are cooked, just empty in the notebook. You're all about the ACC slop from this week. You know who might be next to make a hire? Just if we look at this week's results, it might be Baylor. You TSA lost by 31. - I, somebody might have been busy doing something else this week for all of you. - Well, you said Jason Eck and my mind went to trailer. It's probably why I was thinking about Baylor, but I don't think trailer, I don't think trailer's gonna resign before November. - No, but I do think a 31 point loss to FAU might take you out of the playoff conversation. - Yes. - So we might have less to worry about in San Antonio. - Let's see, TCU fought. And like we mentioned had the lead. So I don't know where TCU's at. Is there anybody else where you're watching? - I, I'm kind of, I woke up this morning wondering if we'd get the emergency pod going for winning him. I know Michigan fans want it to happen. I feel like it's going to happen. But as we discussed last night on the reaction show, they could just let it play out. But I don't know how, if they want to deal with that because again, they've got three tough games left and things likely aren't going to improve. So I don't know. - Would they then let, just let him coach it out and wear it? - Yeah, but I just, it's, it'd be ugly. Like they've only got, I think we just like one home game left. So maybe they're just willing to deal with it since two of the games are on the road. It won't be that big of a problem. But I just, I don't know. It feels like it's going to happen. - His post game conference, his post game commentary is not great. - No, he seemed like he has seemed be wildered by everything since the very start. Like even, I mean, this is hindsight is whatever and it could just be we're putting. But like even going back to big 10 media days, it just felt like. - Oh, this is really big stuff. - Yeah. - We're going to a lot of rooms. - Yeah. - You guys too. - Yeah. - You guys have three cameras. - You dweebs? - I thought it was just radio. You guys look more like radio row kind of guys. How'd they give you guys rooms? - Yeah, he did look be wildered in a little bit, you know? - Yeah, and it has just felt that way all year long. - So I don't know. As far as elsewhere, who else do you think is like in genuine danger of losing their job after the weekend? - No, I mean, at this point, I'm just waiting for. I'm waiting to see if you do get like Michigan in Florida state, if Michigan does open to, do they get sitting head coaches? And then like the dominoes to me there would probably be more interesting. But there's no guarantee Florida state gets a sitting head coach. - No, there's no care. I mean, let's be real like with the financial situation of the school and the buyout that they're having to pay for Mike Norvell and I mean, obviously Danny and Bud know far more about this situation than we do. But considering everything we've heard, can they afford to go get a sitting head coach? Like Bud was the one that was on here on the reaction show when he got fired talking about don't go after a guy with a buyout, just go get somebody who can coach and bring talent for him. Which I think is a situation that could work at Florida state. I think it's a situation that could work at Michigan. But I don't think at other schools where you can't just go get talent. You can just go get somebody to like be the, you know, the home room teacher. - Yeah. - Wait, hold on. The home room teacher gets talent, right? - Yeah, like you just put a coach in and then you can figure it out later. - Yeah. - 'Cause we're just gonna go buy the best players because we're able to do that because we have the brand and the attraction. Whereas like NC State, I don't think you can just, that's part of my thing with the Phillip Rivers hire. Like he doesn't have the experience, but it's not like NC State is suddenly gonna be like super attractive to five star players and not just gonna go buy any kind of talent you want for him. - No. The hope is I think that you just get to get to a different spending level. That NC State needs to be, because I think that the way that Duke's roster was reported in some of those roster numbers might not match the full financial commitment to the sport, if that makes sense. - Yes. - Okay. I think that, I think the financial commitment to the sport is going up and the Phil thing is just to help unlock some more of that. But I mean, do you know what it really is? It's really like the old subscription model, where it's like, we just need to get these credit cards on auto Renew. And then they're gonna forget about it, you know? And then they're just gonna get used to us charging them. They is like, that's what I said about Carolina. Carolina just had to get used to spend in $20 million on a roster. They spent $5 million on a roster, under Mac. They thought that was really like, whoa, whoa, whoa. - I can't rebound. What are we spending money on him for? - Yeah, like, we gotta raise this. So you just gotta get people used to spending that much. And then, you know, we'll go from there. I think, amazing times. Hey, listen, not all of us can have Brett Belema just working it out on the fly. You give me George Clooney and four tiny guys. We'll figure it out. - Oh man. - Yeah, I'm keeping my own Florida state. I think Baylor and Maryland feel very reactionary right now. Tailgate says that Klenderman could end up getting the job, the interim right now. I don't know. - I'm always, I mean, he might be the best tire, but I'm always a little cautious about hiring the interim because, you know, it's like, when you break your leg and you get that adrenaline rush, maybe you don't feel the pain right away. So like, you win a few games after firing the coach. And I mean, Klenderman was there while things were going wrong too. - Defensively too. - Yeah. - Yeah. Did Sydney Brown play at Illinois too with Chase? - Yeah. - You see them have a sweet little brother tackle? - No. - Sydney tackled Chase. - They did that every day in practice. - That's what we said. - Incredible. - As I say, I say, hey boys, you see that? - Probably not going to be y'all, you know, D&A, and A, and A. - But, that's cool. - That's kind of like what y'all do. - We are going to be back with you Monday 11th, AM Eastern time for a pun further review. We'll react to the new AP Top 25 poll. We'll take a look at all the latest from the coaching carousel and yes, we'll go under the hood with our best takeaways from week 10 and more. - And you can follow him on Twitter at the time of the day. Follow me @chip_patterson. Tom, thank you very much. - Thank you. - One of America's top true crime podcasts, 48 hours is back with a new season. - This is not scripted folks, this is real life. - And so is the official after show podcast, post-mortem. Follow and listen to 48 hours wherever you get your podcasts.