NC State Football 2025 Preview
- Lewis Huston
- Aug 19
- 8 min read
Growing up in the state of North Carolina, I’ve come to learn all about the “Law of the Wolf”. When you expect the most, you get the least, and vice versa. Well with a ton of returners on defense and a flashy portal haul, NC State entered '24 ranked 24th with big aspirations. Those were wiped away by October after nearly losing at home to Western Carolina and getting bent over a chair by Tennessee and Clemson on national television. They would stumble to a 6-6 regular season before an embarrassing loss to lesser in-state rival ECU. Is the flip side of the LOTW in store for Dave Doeren in his 13th season? He has a returning starting QB for the first time since '22 and a re-tooled defense to try and bounce back.
Offense
G5 legend Grayson McCall’s career came to a premature end just a few games in last year, and if any positive came out of that for NC State it was that they got to see what they had in true freshman CJ Bailey. It was clear almost instantly that they had something to work with in the 6’6” gunslinger. There were obvious growing pains, but he performed plenty well in 11.5 games throwing for 2,413 yards (64.9 cmp%) with 17 TD and 10 INT. He flashed impressive arm talent and I believe he’s the most underrated QB in the conference this year. Sometimes he was a little too confident in his arm with 18 turnover worthy plays (compared to 14 big time throws), but that should improve with experience and better decision making. The tools are certainly there for him to have a big year if he can harness it a little. He’d better stay healthy though because there are 8 career pass attempts behind him.
Former OC Robert Anae couldn’t seem to settle on a running back early on (and ran CJ Bailey way too often), but once he decided to utilize OU transfer Hollywood Smothers midway through the year the offense seemed to click. From Week 7 on, Smothers reached 100 yards from scrimmage in 5 of 7 games with 457 rush yds (6.8 ypc), 262 receiving yds (16.4 yds/rec) and 8 total TDs. With the other two backs he fought for touches with both gone, the RS sophomore is in for a massive year. RS Fr Duke Scott is behind him and has received rave reviews since getting on campus prior to last season. The stocky back will get a chance to play a major role for the Wolfpack. There’s little else here, so it sounds like their top ’24 recruit Jonathan Paylor could slide over from WR. He was unable to crack the rotation as a true freshman but has plenty of experience running the ball from his high school days. This feels eerily similar to former local star Nyheim Hines’ career arc, of whom Doeren made comparisons to recently.
I typically start with WRs here, but TE Justin Joly is the dude to know. After starring at UConn, Joly burst on to the national scene last year with 43 rec, 661 yds (15.4) and 4 TD. He had the highest contested catch rate (84.6%) amongst tight ends that had 10+ contested targets. As Bailey’s favorite target, he’ll be an All-American candidate. Stud wideout KC Concepcion transferred to Texas A&M and another starter Dacari Collins is with Louisville now, but there’s still plenty of talent back in this group and at times it felt they were just trying to force feed touches to Concepcion that weren't within the flow of the offense.
A valid argument can be made that there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen last year, and now they can focus on the quartet of Noah Rogers, Wesley Grimes, Terrell Anderson and Keenan Jackson. A former 5-star that spent his freshman year at Ohio State, Rogers is the most exciting of the group and really flashed at times last year with 34 rec, 474 yds (13.9) and 1 TD. A 2.04 yards per route run hints at a big jump with more opportunity this year. Grimes (25 rec, 323 yds, 1 TD) is the veteran of the group as a senior with good size/speed combo. Anderson and Jackson were both 4-star signees that got solid burn as true freshman and should only improve. These are all primarily outside receivers, so keep an eye on under the radar true freshman Teddy Hoffman in the slot, especially if Paylor moves to RB full-time.
The offensive line was really good last year ranking 11th in PBLK and 24th in RBLK, but lose three starters to the NFL. Even with all that talent, RT Jacarrius Peak was their highest graded lineman and will flip over to protect Bailey’s blindside. With two-year starter Anthony Carter Jr. back at LG they’ll form one of the best left sides in the ACC. That’s a great foundation but there are obviously questions elsewhere.
Teague Andersen started 18 games the last two seasons at Utah State and will take over at RT allowing Peak to move. He had an 81.3 PBLK grade with just 10 pressures allowed, but had a poor performance against USC so it’ll be interesting to see if his play can transfer over to this level. Jalen Grant (Purdue) is the other noteworthy transfer. He fell out of the starting lineup last year, but the 6th year senior has played 2,754 snaps in his career and slots in at center. He’s having to fight for it though as it sounds like like 4-star true freshman Spike Sowells is pushing for early playing time. Starting RG is a battle that likely comes down to Kamen Smith and Valen Erickson.
Defense
NC State’s sketchy defense last year was uncharacteristic under DC Tony Gibson, although he’s now the head coach at Marshall. DJ Eliot takes the reigns of the defense as his first DC job since Temple in '22. Since then he spent a year with the Philadelphia Eagles coaching linebackers and last year at Baylor as an analyst. They’ll switch from Gibson’s 3-3-5 to more of a multiple look utilizing either four lineman or four linebackers more often.
Brandon Cleveland (36 tkl, 3 TFL) is rock solid in the middle clogging up running lanes and occupying blockers. Another senior Travali Price (36 tkl, 9 TFL, 3.5 sk) is somebody they’ve been waiting on to fully breakout. His counting stats were decent but he had just a 62.9 DEF grade and 58.2 pass rush grade. A lack of a pass rush was one of the major issues for this defense a year ago. The staff has tried to address that through the portal with Sabastian Harsh (Wyoming), Joseph Adedire (Texas Tech), Tra Thomas (Temple) and Cian Slone (Utah State). All of them profile as guys who can contribute in this area, with Thomas and Slone being more DE/OLB hybrids. Isaiah Shirley and Justin Terrell are two other young returners that the staff likes and provide depth.
Linebacker is unquestionably the strength of this defense. I already mentioned Tra Thomas and Cian Slone that can play multiple spots, but the two to really know here are veterans Caden Fordham and Sean Brown. Fordham was on his way to a huge year leading the Pack in tkls (48) through five games before missing the rest of the year. A converted safety, Brown ended up leading the team with 96 tkl and 13 QB hurries but graded out poorly in run defense and tackling, two areas he was really good at in his old position. AJ Richardson was an FCS star at Norfolk State that provides another plug and play ready body, as is Kenny Soares Jr. from Northwestern (57 tkl, 6 TFL, 2.5 sk in 24 games last two years).
Just like the rest of the defense, the secondary fell pretty far from recent standards. Now they have to replace every starter as two graduated and three went into the spring portal as the clock struck midnight. CB Devon Marshall is the only returner who started any games last year, and the Nova transfer was solid with 33 tkl, 2 INT and 7 PBU. He’ll need to take another step if he’s going to be counted on as the guy. I like what they did in the portal bringing in a trio of guys that had success at the G5 level. Jamel Johnson (Temple) and Brian Nelson II (North Texas) are solid corners alongside Marshall while JJ Johnson (Georgia State) projects to start at one of the safety spots. Jaren Sensabaugh (Mizzou) is the one P4 transfer and the former 4-star could start at Nickel. Should any of them flop, there’s a plethora of guys that have been in the program who are ready for a shot, with Rente Hinton having the most experience.
Special Teams
The kicking game returns intact with PK Kanoah Vinesett and P Caden Noonkester. Vinesett didn’t miss an XP and went 18/24 on FGs in his first year on the job. Noonkester was fine but there’s room for improvement with just a 63.4 punt grade. DK Kaufman was a weapon in the return game but graduated. Smothers got some action here last year and is in the running, but I don’t think it’d be wise to have your starting RB also return kicks when it’s a thin RB room to begin with. This could be a spot where the RS Fr Paylor potentially shines as a way to get him more touches.
Schedule
The Wolfpack get a chance at bowl game revenge immediately with ECU in week one before a rare non-conference game against Virginia. They don’t leave the state of North Carolina until an October 11th road trip to Notre Dame, so minimal travel during the soft part of schedule offers an opportunity to really jump out of the gate. That’s really when schedule picks up though as their final six games are all either toss ups or games they’ll be heavy dogs in. The good news is they get byes before road games at Pitt and Miami. The success of their season could hinge on back-to-back home games to close out the season against Florida State and UNC, two teams that they have dominated as of late.
Overall Outlook
There are aspects of this team that I love (CJ Bailey, the skill positions and linebacker) while there are some that I have major concerns about (losing 3 OL starters to the NFL, a new look defense from the DC down and a completely new starting lineup in the secondary). The schedule is also Jekyll and Hyde with a possibility to start 6-0 followed by a potentially rough finish. There is such a wide range of outcomes for this team. If Bailey stays healthy and the new look defense rebounds, this is once again a dark horse team in the ACC. If either one of those keys don’t come to fruition, things could go south in a hurry once mid-October rolls around. But we all know Dave Doeren does his best work when his teams fly under the radar, so I’m cautiously optimistic.
Comments