Breaking down NC State football’s 2026 schedule

By Noah Fleischman

NC State football knew what its 2026 opponents were going to be, but it didn’t know the order in which it would play them until the ACC released the complete schedule Monday night. 

The Pack’s first four games were already locked in via the College Football Brasil game and three nonconference tilts. But the final eight games appeared in full when the league announced each of its 17 member institutions’ schedules during its one-hour TV show on the ACC Network. 

Here’s a look at NC State’s 2026 schedule, including its toughest stretch and biggest challenge going into Dave Doeren’s 14th season at the helm of the program.

Easiest part

After NC State returns from Brazil and hits its first of two open dates, what appears to be the team’s easiest stretch arrives to hit its three nonconference games. 

The Wolfpack will ease back into the schedule with a Week 3 clash against Richmond, its lone FCS opponent, on Sept. 12. NC State, after all, is 18-1-1 against the Spiders with its most recent victory coming via 23-21 fashion during the 2013 campaign. The Pack’s latest loss to the Spiders was a 21-6 defeat during the 1970 season. 

After its home opener against the FCS foe, NC State will hit the road again to face off with Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn. Although it’s a nonconference SEC showdown, the Wolfpack has a chance to get a new-look Commodores squad early in the season with a likely freshman starting quarterback in Jared Curtis, the five-star flip from Georgia. NC State, meanwhile, has a veteran signal-caller in junior CJ Bailey, who will lead what’s expected to be a high-powered offense going into its second season under Kurt Roper. 

Rounding out this three-game stretch is a home date with App State, an in-state Group of Five opponent that is entering the second year under Dowell Loggains. The Mountaineers went 5-7 in the regular season this past fall, but were needed to fill a bowl spot, which led to a 29-10 loss to Georgia Southern in the Birmingham Bowl. The Wolfpack is 6-0 against the Sun Belt foe, but the two squads have met just once in the past 30 years — a 23-10 NC State win during the 2006 season.

Although the trip back from Brazil will be tough (more on that below), the open date that follows will set up nicely with this three-game period that the Wolfpack will be able to roll into the heart of its league schedule with. It’s very possible that the Pack emerges from this stretch 3-0 before it hits the meat of its schedule.

Toughest stretch

NC State’s schedule sets up well for the Wolfpack to do well — and maybe even break through the glass ceiling of 10 wins that has haunted Doeren throughout his first 13 seasons in Raleigh. But if the Pack wants to do so, it will likely need to figure out a way to win at the tail end of its schedule — a pair of road games in hostile environments at Florida State and North Carolina. 

The trip to Doak Campbell Stadium is never easy, especially for the Wolfpack, which is 6-16 against the Seminoles in Tallahassee, Fla. Florida State is expected to be improved this season, which will present a difficult test for NC State as both teams should be clicking on all cylinders by the Week 12 meeting. 

It’s similar timing to what the Wolfpack had this past season with its penultimate game against the Seminoles, which led to a 21-11 victory over a struggling Florida State squad at Carter-Finley Stadium. NC State benefitted from turnovers that seemed to plague Florida State throughout the game, earning bowl eligibility for Doeren’s squad as a result. The Pack should expect a much more competitive game this time around in Tallahassee. 

And once that battle is over, NC State will venture to Chapel Hill, N.C., for the second meeting with a Bill Belichick-led UNC squad. The Wolfpack rolled through the Tar Heels this past fall, winning with ease in a 42-19 beatdown. Belichick received a not-so-warm welcome by the fans, which were on him from the second he set foot on the field until the game was over. The Pack has won five straight over the Tar Heels, but its last loss in the series came at Kenan Stadium in 48-21 fashion during the 2020 campaign. 

If NC State wants to hit 10 wins with its revamped roster in 2026, winning on the road will be critical. Doing so at the end of the season with momentum, looking to make the ACC Championship in Charlotte, N.C., is of the utmost importance. That means taking care of business in Tallahassee and Chapel Hill to close the regular season.

Biggest challenge

Any time a team has to travel more than 4,600 miles to a new continent — one college football has never played a game before — that will present an unprecedented challenge. There’s no blueprint for this trip. Instead, NC State is the one creating it for others to use in the future, based on what the program learns throughout the planning process. 

It’s unclear what the Wolfpack’s travel itinerary will look like for this game, at the moment, but it’s likely to resemble that of a bowl trip with multiple days on the ground in the new city before the game. 

While the travel will be a big piece of the puzzle, so will avoiding distractions in a foreign country that is football hungry. Keeping the team focused and locked in for the game, while also enjoying everything Brazil has to offer is a fine balance, one that Doeren and his staff will have to balance. 

This Week 0 game will likely be the biggest challenge for the Pack going into the year, finding a way to have fun, but at the same time, come away with an ACC win over Virginia in the process.

Final takeaway

NC State doesn’t have a tough schedule, by any means. It avoids usual ACC powers in Clemson and Miami, while it won’t face off with Georgia Tech or SMU, either. The Wolfpack has a chance to earn 10 wins for just the second time in program history, and doing so could position the squad well for the 12-team College Football Playoff at the end of the year. 

A lot of things have to go in the right direction for the Wolfpack for that to happen, but this schedule is favorable. And it’s not just the opponents, either. NC State will play five of its middle six games of the year inside Carter-Finley Stadium, creating an opportunity for the Wolfpack to build momentum going into the back end of its schedule. 

Add in the fact it doesn’t have to wait more than seven weeks for an open date like it has each of the last three seasons with both of its weeks off coming before its first did this past season, and NC State should have a rejuvenated roster to close the campaign. 

All in all, this sets up well for NC State. There’s just over seven months until kickoff, so a lot can change with the health status of the roster, but the Wolfpack should like how the schedule is laid out going into 2026. All eyes could be on the red and white in Raleigh by November if it can handle business along the way.

NC State’s full 2026 schedule

Week	Date	Opponent	Location
0	Aug. 29	Virginia	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1	Sept. 5	OPEN	N/A
2	Sept. 12	Richmond	Raleigh, N.C.
3	Sept. 19	at Vanderbilt	Nashville, Tenn.
4	Sept. 26	App State	Raleigh, N.C.
5	Oct. 3	Louisville	Raleigh, N.C.
6	Oct. 10	Wake Forest	Raleigh, N.C.
7	Oct. 17	OPEN	N/A
8	Oct. 23/24	at Stanford	Palo Alto, Calif.
9	Oct. 30/31	Cal	Raleigh, N.C.
10	Nov. 6/7	Duke	Raleigh, N.C.
11	Nov. 14	Syracuse	Raleigh, N.C.
12	Nov. 21	at Florida State	Tallahassee, Fla.
13	Nov. 28	at UNC	Chapel Hill, N.C.