I hope I’m wrong about my 2024 season prediction

This season marks the 25th year I’ve been following NC State football week in and week out. I started with Philip Rivers freshman year, progressing through Russell, Brissette, Finley, Leary, and the GOAT Hockman. Along the way there have been SO MANY close chances to break through and win the ACC.

If you’re reading this, you know that being an NC State fan requires being the ultimate optimist, and telling anyone who’ll listen, “no, trust me, THIS is the year? What do you mean I said that last year?”

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Part 1: Missed Opportunities

Now, State fans are (for the most part) pragmatic and don’t claim their team will climb the mountaintop EVERY year, but Dave Doeren has had many very good teams, that bordered on being great. 2016…2017...2018…2020…2021…2022…2023… Each of those teams had their chances to break through that glass ceiling. We all remember specific moments that happened in each of those years, no need to rehash them here…But here’s just a smattering:

We were all grateful to see the Atlantic division float off into the Pacific soon followed by Cal and Stanford joining the ACC, opening up the possibility for NC State to finally take advantage of an opportunity other teams had fallen short of. For many of the past teams, there was the issue of team and specifically quarterback health. The Pack have had really rotten luck with that in the past half decade:

You could make the argument that this is just bad luck, and even with these QB injuries, Dave has dragged teams to eight or nine wins that probably shouldn’t have gotten that. And that’d be fair to say. I just know that I’ve been hurt many times, and I’m trying to reconcile that past pain with the prospect of a truly outstanding roster ON PAPER. Go through our previous posts and you’ll see how Alec has laid out in great detail why he thinks this team will separate itself from past Wolfpack teams. And he’s not wrong, this team SHOULD be different (barring injury, knock on wood).

Leading into the 2022 season, I drank ALL the kool-aid on that team being the one that will finally slay the dragons and make it to Charlotte for the ACC Championship Game. Obviously, nobody could have foreseen that the team would need to play four (FOUR!) QB’s after Devin Leary suffered a season ending injury (again). But I said to friends at the time that I was so convinced that team would break the spell that if they didn’t, I may never recover. And to that end, part of me never quite has.

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Part 2: Can the Pack win enough games?

I wouldn’t say I’ve become jaded, I still ride for the Pack from now ‘til the end of time, but I have to admit I’ve got my guard up in a way I didn’t before. I can vividly remember specific plays here and there through the years that if they had just gone differently, could have totally changed the Wolfpack’s fortunes. All these near-misses have made me skiddish, and I’m gun shy to be bullish on penciling them into a conference championship, let alone a College Football Playoff appearance.

To summarize our crew’s preseason predictions, here is what everyone thinks about how the Pack will finish this season:

	Alec Lower	Essad Malik	Trey Lower	Joel Seagle
Predicted Record	11 - 1	9 - 3	10 - 2	11 - 1
Predicted Conf Record	8 - 0	6 - 2	7 - 1	8 - 0

If NC State were to go 11-1 (8-0), they would be at worst a top 4 seed in the CFP, getting a first round bye. I WANT to believe this roster can be that good, but are they?

This whole post is not a knock on the team, and rather an interrogation on whether I can have such high hopes again after being burned so many times in the past. Dave Doeren teams have always been well coached, but we have to admit they’ve made simple mistakes at times that have caused them to miss opportunities. They rarely make HUGE costly mistakes, but the margins are so razor thin between and 8/9 win team and a championship level team. With all the changes to the college game in the last decade+, there’s a reason why that 11-win threshold is still rarified air only tasted by a few teams. Can this team make the least amount of mistakes week to week to get there?

I know that national media pundits do not follow the team as closely as we fans do, so it’s not a surprise many of them are overlooking NC State. Some are picking them as a dark horse CFP pick, but towards the bottom quarter of the bracket, not the top. I know what my eyes see on paper, and the highlight reels, so I know what I should believe, but pragmatism settles in I fall back on trending towards the mean then a breakthrough.

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Part 3: Can the Pack score enough points?

In the season predictions, the group predicted the following points for and allowed in each 2024 contest:

Name	Avg Points For	Avg Points Against	Avg +/-
Alec Lower	39.25	22.33	16.92
Essad Malik	30.17	20.33	9.83
Trey Lower	39.08	25.58	13.50
Joel Seagle	42.17	22.00	20.17
Avg	37.67	22.56	15.10

For context, here are the top 10 teams in 2023 in points/game:

For reference, NC State finished 74th at 24.7 ppg. Now, I am fully expecting this revamped offense to put up many many more points this year and with greater ease than likely any Doeren team in the past, but enough for them to be a top 10 scoring offense? The part of me that knows what’s in Dave Doeren’s DNA as a coach has a hard time reconciling what I know this team is capable of, what all the knowledgeable folks I trust telling me what they’ll do, against what I’ve seen Doeren do time and again.

Dave Doeren wins football games, that much is undeniable. But to be a top 10 offense, you have to go for the jugular and keep your foot on the gas in a way we haven’t seen him look to do. Situational questions surround my hesitancy:

1. If he’s up by 10 early in the fourth quarter, will he look to salt the game away on the ground, or keep chucking it rack more points and completely close the door on the opponent?

2. In a situation similar to what SMU faced last weekend, if he’s down two, driving down the field and making it to the border of the red zone, what does he do? To us a golf analogy, does he lay up, i.e. set up the field goal, take the points and rely on the defense to close out the game? Or does he take shots at the endzone to force the other team to have to score a touchdown in response?

3. In the past, if the QB is having an off game, Dave has sometimes taken the ball out of their hands and just focused on the run. Would he do this to Grayson McCall?

4. Will this high powered offense come out the gate firing on all cylinders or will it take a few weeks?

Now, it has to be noted that all these quirks hedging towards being conservative have led to Doeren winning the most football games at NC State than any previous head coach. But if you’re looking to really break through, can you shed your old habits and really unleash the full Anae offense on this league? It will feel risky, but I hope he’s able to push through and roll those dice. I’d rather lose a game when trying to win the game, then lose the game trying not to lose. Again, those razor thin margins are why no team since Rivers stalked the Carter-Finley field that any NC State team has yet to win double digit games.

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Summary: I want to be wrong

I don’t want to be disappointed. It feels wrong to turn my nose up at another nine win season. Most teams around the country would love to have that problem, to feel like they’re disppointed with that. In the past 24 seasons, NC State has posted five 9 win seasons (not counting the 11 win team), and Dave has four of them. But I think at this point, in year 12 of his tenure, that it’s fair for fans to ask for more.

Doeren tenure
11	Total seasons
2	Number of 7 win seasons
3	Number of 8 win seasons
4	Number of 9 win seasons

Nine out his 11 years have resulted in 7-9 wins. That’s a lot of good and very good, dare I say even very very good. But great? Or excellent? Adjectives like that are reserved for numbers > 9.

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This calendar year has been the best of my Wolfpack fan life: Final Fours (plural), ACC Championships (plural), College World Series, a National Championship, and cheese rolling championship to boot. Seeing NC State hoist the ACC Championship trophy in Charlotte would be the ultimate exclamation point.

Dave, and the team at large, if you’re reading this (and I’m sure you are), please, PLEASE, prove me wrong. Get that trophy, make it to the CFP, and prove to all the doubters and want to believers (like me) that 2024 is truly the Year of the Wolf.