Dave Doeren hopes to be back out on the football field soon

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- It was just last week that N.C. State football coach Dave Doeren and his wife Sarah donated, with help from Moe's, 100 lunches to frontline healthcare workers at REX hospital. Dave is adjusting like the rest of us to the quarantine life. He's also added a beard and displayed quite a way with words.

"God has made us stop what we're doing."

Like so many of us, Dave Doeren's been feeling his way through the quarantine dark with mixed results.

"All of us thought this would be something that wasn't long-lasting, you know, probably ignorance on our part that we'd have a quick fix to this like everything else... then I kind of settled in, got a routine. I have spent maybe more quality family time in the last month than I had in the last year and a half, two years even."

Unlike some others in his field, Doeren wasn't about to speculate Wednesday about when college football will return, only that it needs to at some point.

"We need to play football you know. I think that's the one thing that everybody recognizes and from a financial standpoint, in college athletics for universities and just for probably national morale", Doeren continued "when that happens, I don't care. I think whatever's best for the health of our athletes, and for the country."

State actually got in a few spring practices before the halt, for what it's worth. Doeren reiterated that the starting quarterback job is Devin Leary's to lose... however long the hiatus may last.

Doeren says spring was off to a good start before skiers were sidelined. "The players had tremendous energy. They were hungry to be out there. I thought they worked well together."

In the relative downtime now, Doeren and staff are doing their best to maintain a personal touch with both their current players and recruits.

"We like meeting with these guys in person, we like that and have them seeing our coaches. We think that our strength here is our people. I do think it's going to teach a lot of independence, amongst this group and I think that's a good thing. I think there's a lot of help at the college level and there's a lot of monitoring at the college level. This is going to show us who's really serious about it, when they come back here how out of shape or how in shape are you?"