If NC State won't wait for Philip Rivers to finish his high school season, it doesn't deserve him

NC State should wait for Philip Rivers, and it shouldn't sulk about it. The detail in Saturday's ESPN report that everybody's treating as the complication, that he's told the school he wants to finish his season at St. Michael Catholic in Fairhope, Ala., first, is the best line on his résumé.

Here's where things stand. Rivers has had serious discussions about replacing Dave Doeren, who was fired Oct. 24, but sources told ESPN a deal isn't close. He hasn't met with school officials in person, and there's been outreach about building a front office around him. After St. Michael lost 53-32 to Foley on Friday night, he told AL.com that NC State is special to him and that "you never say never, but there's nothing imminent."

I spent a long career blocking for guys whose names were on the marquee, and the coaches I'd still run through a wall for had one thing in common. When they said they were with you, they meant through the last snap of the year. Players keep track of who leaves. Teenagers keep track faster. A coach who tells a Power 4 school "after the playoffs" while it's holding the job out in front of him is showing every recruit in the Southeast what his word is worth.

The other side has a real case, and I'm not going to wave it off. Rivers has never coached a college game. He's in his sixth season at St. Michael, where he's taken the Cardinals to the state semifinals the last two years, which is good work and also Friday night work. In January he interviewed for the Bills' head coaching job and then pulled himself out of that search. And the job in Raleigh isn't the one Chuck Amato had when Rivers threw for 13,484 yards and 95 touchdowns there from 2000 to 2003. It's revenue sharing and the transfer portal now, and charisma doesn't balance a roster.

Here's why I'd still wait. The part of the job a first-time college coach can't do yet is the part NC State is already talking about handing to somebody else. Hire the best general manager the school can afford, let that person run the portal and the revenue-sharing math, and let Rivers coach quarterbacks and sell the place. He broke nearly every NC State and ACC passing record, he led the Wolfpack to four straight bowl games, and his son Gunner committed there in February. That's a recruiting pitch you can't build from scratch.

As for the Bills, I read that one the other way from most people. He looked at an NFL head job and took his name out. He hasn't explained why and I'm not going to guess. What I know is that he's still coaching high school kids, still standing in front of reporters after his team gave up 53 on a Friday night, and still talking about being excited for "this postseason with these guys here." That sounds like a guy who likes the job he's got.

I'll own the risk. If NC State waits and Rivers says no anyway, the Wolfpack will have burned weeks on a search that went nowhere, and I'll have been one of the people telling them to. I can live with that. What I couldn't live with, if I ran that athletic department, is leaning on a man to walk out of a locker room in the middle of a playoff run and then asking him to teach my players about commitment. Let him coach those kids until their season ends, and have the contract on the table the next morning.

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