NC State didn’t exactly hide its confidence on the opening day of ACC media days in Charlotte.
Dave Doeren and CJ Bailey both stepped to the microphone Wednesday and gave the Wolfpack a pretty bold public ceiling for 2026. Doeren didn’t dance around his senior quarterback’s upside.
"I think he could be the best in the country," Doeren said of his senior quarterback.
Bailey wasn’t shy either.
"Expect us to win a lot of games," Bailey added. (h/t ESPN's Pete Thamel)
That kind of talk would sound reckless if there weren’t some real numbers and schedule help backing it up. ESPN’s ACC preview pointed out that Bailey is the conference’s top returning quarterback by QBR, finishing last season ahead of Darian Mensah and Kevin Jennings, two quarterbacks who have each played in the ACC championship game over the last two seasons.
Bailey’s 2025 line gives the optimism some weight. He completed 68.8 percent of his passes for 3,105 yards, 7.8 yards per attempt, 25 touchdowns and nine interceptions. NC State finished 8-5, giving Doeren his 10th winning season in 13 years at the helm.
The path in 2026 also looks friendlier than most around the league. ESPN’s Football Power Index says NC State has the easiest strength of schedule in the ACC, and the Wolfpack avoid the conference’s projected top three teams - Miami, Clemson and SMU. Their toughest ACC opponent, Louisville, comes to Carter-Finley Stadium.
Home dates with Wake Forest, California, Syracuse and Duke only help the case, and the road slate isn’t exactly brutal either. NC State goes to Stanford, Florida State and North Carolina, and it has already had success in two of those spots. The Wolfpack have won four straight against Florida State and five in a row against North Carolina, including a 42-19 win last season.
There’s also a scheduling wrinkle that works in NC State’s favor. The opener against Virginia counts as a non-conference game even though Virginia is an ACC team.
That matters because Virginia still reached the ACC championship game last season with a 7-1 conference record despite losing to NC State on Sep. 6.
Even with all that going for them, the projections are still modest. NC State sits No. 51 in ESPN’s FPI and is projected for 6.7 wins.
But the ACC has already shown how wild things can get. The 2025 regular season ended with a four-way tie for second and only two teams finishing with double-digit wins.
So if Doeren and Bailey are talking big, they’re doing it in a conference that leaves room for surprises. And for NC State, a surprise run wouldn’t look all that far-fetched.
In Other News...
NC State Legend T.J. Warren Begins A Surprising New Career Chapter
T.J. Warren is taking a new path after nine NBA seasons and two more in the G League, signing a one-year deal for the 2026/2027 season that will send the former NC State star into his first professional year outside the United States. For a player long known around Raleigh as one of the most gifted scorers to wear the Wolfpack uniform, the move marks a notable shift in both role and setting.
Warren chose the opportunity because he wanted a bigger role and liked the location, even after drawing interest from other European teams. There is also a familiar NC State thread in the mix, with former Wolfpack forward Mohamed Diarra already in France, giving this next chapter a little extra relevance for Pack fans tracking where the programs alumni are landing. [Read more 🡒]
Dave Doeren Just Framed NC States Biggest Frustration Perfectly
Dave Doeren used ACC Kickoff to put a familiar N.C. State frustration into plain language: the program has been good enough to matter, but not good enough to finish the job. The Wolfpack have stacked up wins in recent years and have been one of the leagues steadiest teams, yet the larger conversation around the program still circles back to the same missing piece, the kind that turns consistency into something more meaningful.
Doerens point was less about hype than about the burden of being close. N.C. State has stayed on solid footing while plenty of ACC peers have changed coaches and identities, but the challenge now is turning that stability into a breakthrough season. The next chance to start that climb comes Aug. 29, 2026, when the Wolfpack open against Virginia. [Read more 🡒]
ACC Forced To Rewrite Title Race Rules After Last Seasons Chaos
The ACC spent media days doing more than previewing the season. It also rewrote the rules for how its title game field gets sorted out, a move aimed at cleaning up a system that drew plenty of scrutiny after last seasons chaos. The conference said the overhaul is designed to better handle the scheduling mess created by expansion and to make sure the two best teams are the ones playing for the championship.
The new approach also reflects how the College Football Playoff has changed the stakes for conference races, with league champions now carrying even more weight in the postseason picture. One key tweak is a clearer definition of what it means for teams to be tied in the standings, and the ACC is also preparing for a future schedule that will feature uneven game totals across the league. For programs like NC State, it is another reminder that the path to Charlotte is no longer just about winning games, but about navigating a tiebreaker system built to survive the sports new reality. [Read more 🡒]