NC State Is Reportedly Finalizing a Deal To Make Phillip Rivers Its Next Head Coach

NC State seems to have its next head football coach and he comes in the form of St. Michael Catholic (AL) coach and former Wolfpack and NFL quarterback Phillip Rivers.

Rivers was 48-21 in his six seasons as a high school head coach, taking St. Michael to the state semifinals in 2024 and 2025. The program won just five games in the three seasons prior to Rivers's arrival in 2021.

I'm fascinated to see how this hire works out. Nobody doubts that Rivers knows football at an extremely high level, but you're getting a guy who has never been a college coach and handing him the reins to a Power Four program. Obviously the rest of the staff will be critical to NC State's success, but maybe this is also one of the first instances we've seen of a school intentionally hiring a cheaper coach that knows the program so that it will be able to allocate more money to the roster and hopefully win quickly. If money isn't abundant and you have to pick between coach and players, the latter should win every time.

Rivers will also head to Raleigh with his son, Gunner, a 4-star quarterback who was already committed to the Wolfpack and has been with him at St. Michael.

I really hope for NC State's sake that this experiment works. Nobody wants Phillip Rivers to go from beloved quarterback to fired head coach after 16 wins in three seasons.