NC State’s football weekend was the kind of opener that leaves a sour taste in Raleigh, but the rest of the athletic department is giving fans plenty else to look at.
Dave Doeren tried to spread the blame around after the loss, saying, “It takes 11 guys to have a good football play,” and reminding everyone that “it’s always going to be the head coach and the quarterback” who catch the most heat when things go badly. That was his way of defending his benched quarterback, even if the whole thing still circled right back to the man in charge.
The defensive side of the ball raised its own set of questions, including whether it would have been more fun to lose 34-8 in Brazil or Charlottesville. Those questions, naturally, were not directed at Virginia’s seriously ancient offensive line.
Still, the bigger picture around NC State athletics is not all gloom. Women’s soccer is rolling with six straight wins, men’s soccer has loaded up on talent from European academies, and a few highly regarded freshmen have already pushed their way into the volleyball starting group. It’s not the program’s golden age, but it’s nowhere near rock bottom either.
Women’s soccer is off to a 6-0 start for the first time since 2008, and that’s a pretty sharp turn for a team that last year was slow to start, underwhelming and full of embarrassing losses. Head coach Gary Higgins has that same core looking completely different now, with the group coming “out of the gate flying.” Last season’s team didn’t even get to six wins overall.
Senior captain Jade Bordeleau has been the headline act. She already has eight goals in those six games, a pace that puts her in eye-catching company.
Last year, Utah Valley’s Faith Webber led NCAA Division I with 22 goals in 22 games. The ACC is a tougher neighborhood than the now-deceased WAC, but Bordeleau’s start has been loud.
Men’s soccer has not gotten off as cleanly, with two draws and a loss against opponents it probably expected to handle better. Even so, the roster has more raw talent than it did a year ago, and Marc Hubbard is the kind of coach who can squeeze more out of it. The team’s skill isn’t limited to the European imports, either.
Two sophomores from England, forward Russell Berko and left-back Riley Moloney, are names worth tracking. The talent is obvious enough that a few minutes of film probably say more than any description could.
NC State fans can catch the team for free at Dail Soccer Field, with the ACC opener against Virginia Tech set for Saturday, Sept. 5, and a rivalry game against Duke coming next Thursday, Sept. 10.
Volleyball has a similar feel inside Reynolds Coliseum: still figuring things out, but clearly not short on ability. Freshman outside hitter Britni Silver has already flashed enough to stand out, and in just three college matches she has delivered some freakishly athletic kills that would have fit on last season’s highlight reel.
That team also has a free home stretch coming up over Labor Day weekend, with matches Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
And then there’s football again, because it always comes back there. The question now is what counts as a decent year for Doeren.
Eight wins, including one over slow-to-start Bill Belichick, sounds possible, maybe even likely, and probably enough to keep the temperature down. Whatever the schedule says, eight wins is still eight wins.
That is not a call to move on from Doeren. It’s just the reality of the bar right now: for NC State, eight wins would go a long way.
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NC State Faces The Kind Of FCS Test Fans Never Trust
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Richmond brings a respected FCS profile into the game, with a national championship and multiple conference titles in its history, and it is fresh off a strong start to league play. For NC State, the concern is less about reputation and more about the kind of tidy, competitive game that can turn tense in a hurry when a smaller program arrives with confidence and nothing to lose. [Read more 🡒]