Head Coach: Dave Doeren is entering his 13th season as the head coach of the Wolfpack with an 87-65 record. It’s been an up and down tenure with a lot of highs and lows. It’s been a question of whether he can finally get the program over 9 wins or is this simply where they are with him? Overall the Wolfpack are good more often than not under his watch, plus what fans love the most about him is that he’s won his last 4 games against hated rival North Carolina and 7 of his last 9.
Program Outlook: NC State is a program that can bring in lots of talent, and they’ve done so under Doeren. They really could compete for championships if they could ever get over the hump, but when will that happen. Right now NC State has long been under a pattern where they disappoint when they have expectations and then come out of nowhere to win 9 games when they don’t. Regardless of how good they are, they have a passionate fanbase and an electric home environment that no one looks forward to.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: NC State ranks 47th in the country returning 59% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players starts with CJ Bailey who came in last year and performed admirably for a freshman, he seems ready to be their next good QB. The youth movement continued at RB where Hollywood Smothers take the reigns late in the year and helped the run game have better success during the Wolfpack’s late season rally, it will be great to see what he can do with a full year as the starter. They also get receivers Noah Rogers and Wesley Grimes back along with TE Justin Joly. The defense looks good along the front 6 with DE Travali Price, Nose Tackle Brandon Cleveland, along with Sean Brown and Kamal Bonner at linebacker, Edge Tra Thomas is a transfer from Temple who could make a big impact. Corner Tamarcus Cooley is back in the secondary, which leads to their question marks, the secondary lost everyone else and they’re hoping a combination of portal and homegrown players will fill the gaps. The offense is going to struggle to replace what star receiver KC Conception brought to the table, but the biggest concern is once again the offensive line, this area has held NC State back for years now.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: NC State quietly has a pretty favorable schedule in 2025. They don’t leave the state until mid-October, and then have a FCS team that finished last year with a losing record (Campbell) or a bye week before every out of state road game. Due to drawing Notre Dame and the bizarre decision to schedule Virginia as a “non-conference” game NC State does have a pseudo 10 game conference schedule this year, leaving East Carolina as the only other non-conference game. The game against ECU will carry a lot of excitement and juice to it because the Pirates just beat the Wolfpack in the last year’s bowl game and there was a game ending brawl. Facing Miami FL on the road is a pretty tough game but overall NC State avoids Clemson, Louisville, SMU and Syracuse. Those are 4 really good teams they avoid playing so that’s a win. That’s not to say this schedule isn’t tough but it certainly sets the stage for the Wolfpack to see a nice improvement in the win column.
Final Thoughts: NC State is coming in 2025 with next to no expectations, nobody is talking about them and the schedule isn’t bad. This is all setting the stage for another seemingly out of nowhere 9 win season. If that doesn’t happen then concern will begin to set in about the direction the program is heading.
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