RALEIGH — Ruffin McNeill, the Lumberton native and popular former player and coach at East Carolina, is back on Tobacco Road.
The veteran coach has been hired by N.C. State’s Dave Doeren as a special assistant to the head coach.
Doeren and McNeill have worked near each other before, but not together. Doeren was a graduate assistant at Southern Cal in 1999, when McNeill was coaching the defensive line at Fresno State. Doeren was at Kansas from 2002-05, a time period when McNeill was at Texas Tech for 10 years.
And during Doeren’s first three years at State, McNeill was head coach at ECU.
In a statement released by N.C. State, Doeren said, “I’ve known Ruffin since the beginning of my coaching career. Not only is he one of my closest friends in the profession, but he’s been a mentor to me since I was 24 years old. We’ve crossed paths on the recruiting trail many times over the past 22 years and have been friends and competitors. Having a former head coach on our staff who I can trust and have known for almost my entire career is a huge benefit for me personally, as well as for our entire program.”
McNeill’s role will be advisor to Doeren, contributor and leader of special projects, and a point of outreach for Wolfpack football to campus, alumni and community groups on behalf of the program. He’ll also provide player development analysis.
McNeill comes to State after having served as assistant head coach at Oklahoma. He coached defensive tackles and outside linebackers during his three seasons there, working with head coach Lincoln Riley. He left Norman in January in order to be back in North Carolina helping take care of his elderly father.
Oklahoma won the Big 12 championship each of his three years there and advanced to the four-team College Football Playoffs each season.
McNeill played for ECU in the late 1970s, recruited there by the late Pat Dye. He returned as head coach for the 2010 through 2015 seasons, going 42-34 and playing in four bowl games. His 2014 team started 6-1 and was ranked in the AP Top 25 for six weeks.
McNeill got his first coaching job at Lumberton High School in 1980. From there he went on to work at Clemson in 1985-86 under Danny Ford. He’s also coached at Austin Peay, North Alabama, Applachian State, UNLV and interned with the Miami Dolphins of the NFL.