NC State football offense assistants receive new responsibilities

Although NC State football has not made a formal announcement on coaching assignments for the staff, the updated roster on GoPack.com provided the information many were wondering following the hire of new offensive coordinator Robert Anae. With Anae’s arrival, 2 assistant coaches have shifted to new position groups.

Anae replaced Tim Beck, who had also coached quarterbacks at NC State. Beck took the head coaching job at Coastal Carolina in December. Anae, however, has no formal experience coaching the quarterback position. Anae’s background includes leading the offensive line and inside receivers.

According to GoPack.com, Anae will coach tight ends and inside receivers at NC State. That also suggests that changes on offense are coming. NC State has never previously had an inside receivers position group under head coach Dave Doeren, who will be entering his 11th season in Raleigh.

The former tight ends coach, Todd Goebbel, will shift to running backs. Goebbel also retains his title as special teams coordinator, where NC State has traditionally been a strong unit since Goebbel started in 2019. This will be the first time Goebbel has formally coached running backs in his career. He previously coached both wide receivers and tight ends at Marshall and has experience as an offensive coordinator at smaller programs Quincy University and Ohio Dominican.

For the past 3 seasons, running backs had been led by Kurt Roper. He arrived at NC State in 2019 however to coach quarterbacks, and Roper will now shift back to that position group.

Roper has an extensive background leading signal-callers. He coached the position group from 1999-04 at Ole Miss, leading No. 1 overall NFL pick in the 2004 NFL Draft Eli Manning during Manning’s entire career in Oxford.

In 2005, Roper coached quarterbacks at Kentucky for a season before matriculating to Tennessee for two years as a running backs coach. Then in 2008, he reunited with former Ole Miss head coach David Cutcliffe at Duke and was the Blue Devils’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for 6 seasons.

In Durham, Roper helped mold Thaddeus Lewis and Sean Renfree into NFL quarterbacks. In 2013, Roper coached signal-caller Anthony Boone and the Duke offense to a surprising appearance in the ACC Championship game. Boone received an undrafted free-agent contract with the Detroit Lions and then played in the CFL.

Roper left Duke to be the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Florida in 2014, and after a year in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns returned to the college ranks as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at South Carolina for two seasons before a one-year stint at Colorado.

NC State football also welcomed a new offensive line coach in Garett Tujague, who arrives after spending seven years coaching the unit at Virginia, the first six of which were with Anae, who was the Cavaliers’ offensive coordinator/inside receivers coach.

The lone offensive assistant to retain his title was Joker Phillips, who continues to be receivers coach/assistant head coach, a position he has held for the last 2 years.