NC State Football Preview 2025: Can Dave Doeren and the Wolfpack Finally Win 10 Games?
Seriously? SMU played for the ACC Championship last season?The ACC didn't have a football championship until 2005, but NC State has the dubious negative of being one of two current ACC teams - Cal and Stanford don't count yet - that hasn't played in the title game.Syracuse, the other team that hasn't played for the championship, is relatively new, joining the ACC in 2013. NC State has been in the conference since 1953, and hasn't won an ACC title since 1979.
X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN NC State Offense BreakdownNC State Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to SeasonEven weirder, the school first started playing college football in 1892, and it still has just one double-digit winning season, going 11-3 in 2002.SMU is one-for-one as a double-digit winning ACC school.The program continues to be solid under Dave Doeren, with a team and schedule that were both good enough to have produced something fantastic. Instead, injuries were an issue, the lines struggled, and …There's a positive in all of this. The fundamentals of the NC State football program are strong.
Doeren hasn't stopped being a great college football coach. The lumps taken last year should pay off with a more experienced team, and with a great young group of reserves waiting in the wings. And the schedule isn't that bad - several Big Ten and SEC schools could only dream of having a slate like the Wolfpack will enjoy.Yes, one play here and there is what it's all about, but four of the seven losses were by one score, a fifth against Duke was tight into the final few minutes, and the two others against Tennessee and Clemson were blowouts against College Football Playoff teams.
But again, if SMU was able to figure it out and put together a special season, NC State can do it, too. It's way overdue to catch the right breaks, with four nine-win seasons and two eight-win campaigns in the last eight years. And it should be good enough to create its own good luck.So even if it would be nice for NC State to do a little more, over the 12 years under Doeren, assume eight or nine wins are coming, and you'll probably be right. NC State Offense BreakdownNC State Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season
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