NC State hits first open week with mindset to improve at the forefront

By Noah Fleischman

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — NC State’s list of injured players has only seemed to grow from week to week this fall. It lost a pair of defensive backs for the year before a game was even played, and since then, it appears that the Wolfpack’s training room has gotten busier and busier. 

While the Pack has dealt with a plethora of injuries, which grew by three more as sophomore wide receiver Terrell Anderson, senior left guard Anthony Carter and senior safety JJ Johnson all departed early at Notre Dame, it will finally get a chance to take a breather with its first of two open weeks coming after its 36-7 loss to the 16th-ranked Irish on Saturday afternoon. 

NC State, which has most notably played the last two weeks without redshirt senior linebacker Sean Brown and redshirt freshman safety Brody Barnhardt, desperately needed a weekend off to regroup. Not only have several key players been out for an extended period, but it’s likely that several more are playing through bumps and bruises, too. 

And a year after playing eight games before its first off-week a season ago, Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said his team can’t wait to be able to rest and heal up this coming week. 

“We definitely need this opportunity to reset mentally and to get the guys healthy,” Doeren said moments after the team’s most-lopsided loss of the campaign (29 points). 

While healing injuries is a priority, so is finding a way to put a complete game together. The Wolfpack was disappointed with how it has not crafted a win that featured all three phases playing in unison for all 60 minutes. 

The offense, for the most part, had found a way to score at will through the first six games as it logged at least 21 points in every game (30 or more in three of them), but Notre Dame halted that with a season-low one touchdown. Its defense was the one that played well against the Irish, but it was all for naught in the critical nonconference test against the College Football Playoff finalists from a year ago. 

Before that, it was the defense that struggled in a few games, while special teams cost NC State in a 45-33 loss at Duke three weeks ago. 

Graduate linebacker Caden Fordham, who has been visibly frustrated with the team’s play at times this season, stressed the importance of finding a fix for the final five-game stretch the Wolfpack is preparing to embark on.

“We’ve got a lot of ball left,” said Fordham, who tied for the team most with 10 total tackles against the Irish, “so we’ve got to buy in.”

NC State sophomore quarterback CJ Bailey, who was 17-of-30 passing for 186 yards with a touchdown and 3 interceptions at Notre Dame, had a similar sentiment. The youngest captain of the Doeren era noted the Wolfpack was close to getting to where it wants to be, but it needs to make adjustments to play a cleaner brand of football down the stretch. 

“Going into the bye week, we’re just going to build on what we have,” Bailey said. “We have something good going on defense, and we’ve got to get better on offense, period. Our mindset is not necessarily to reset, but just to build on it. Work on scoring more on offense and work on everything offensively, and we’ll be fine.”

That’s what the Wolfpack wants to see from its main leader of the offense. NC State is a player-driven program. It leaned on star linebacker Payton Wilson for his guidance during the final season of his career in 2023, which helped turn the year around after a jarring 24-3 loss at Duke with five straight victories to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

While that outcome might not be likely with its remaining schedule — at Pitt, vs. No. 12 Georgia Tech, at No. 2 Miami, vs. Florida State and vs. North Carolina — the Wolfpack is looking for a much-improved product on the field. The program is confident that it can accomplish that, and its 13th-year coach believes that his players don’t need their hands held to get that done in the upcoming open week. 

“I’m not in there trying to tell them what to do. They know what to do right now,” Doeren said. “They’re frustrated, and they should be, because they feel it. They feel like they’re better than they’re showing. And we feel it as coaches, too. Just rally, get around these guys, try to get them healthy and have a great finish.”