After last week’s embarrassing loss to Stanford, NC State finally pulled the trigger on firing head coach Dave Doeren, halfway through his 14th season. (NCSU also fired defensive coordinator DJ Eliot, after giving up 31 points to one of the country’s worst offenses). Doeren posted four 9-win seasons, four 8-win seasons, two 7-wins seasons, one 6-win season, and two seasons of missing bowl eligibility (3-9 in his first year in 2012, 4-8 in 2019). NCSU was a perennial bowl team with Doeren at the helm, but they could just never get to that next level. Further, UCLA denied Dave Doeren’s NCSU team their only chance at a 10-win season, when they pulled out of the 2021 Holiday Bowl 5 hours before the game due to a COVID outbreak on the defensive line. This just goes to show that former Pac-12 teams continue to ruin other team’s seasons (though I’d venture a guess that NCSU fans believe Stanford did them a favor).
NCSU under Doeren was a team that was frustratingly inconsistent. In one quarter, they might play their best football and jump out to a huge lead, and in the next quarter, they’re blowing that lead away.
It’s also kind of funny that losing to Stanford was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and not blowing a 17-point lead to Vanderbilt and losing by fumbling the ball in the endzone as time expired (I put the clip in the QB section if you haven’t already seen it).
This stat refers to the fact that teams with ball and the lead in final 10 seconds of the game were 1046-1 over the last 20 seasons (the only other loss being 2015 Michigan-MSU “he has trouble with the snap” fumbled punt). But no, 1046-2 isn’t what gets you fired after 14 years. Losing to Stanford does.
With Doeren out, special teams coordinator Todd Goebbel will assume the interim head coach role. He was previously the special teams coach (among other roles) at Marshall, and impressed Doeren with Marshall’s special teams play in matchups in 2017 and 2018, prompting Doeren to hire him for the same role at NCSU. A former Kent State and Northern Iowa quarterback, Goebbel has served a variety of coaching roles—ranging from defensive quality control coach under Jim Tressel’s Ohio State to QB/RB/FB/TE/ST coach everywhere else—but this will be Goebbel’s first time serving in the head coach capacity. In terms of what we can expect from Goebbel, I’d imagine he will try to preserve the continuity they had on offense, and we can expect to see more of the same.
Although NCSU lost a lot of offensive talent to the transfer portal this off-season, quarterback CJ Bailey was able to recruit his childhood friends to transfer to NCSU, with RB Davion Gause coming from rival UNC, and WR Joshisa “Jojo” Trader transferring from Miami.
They won 3 straight state titles together at Chaminade-Madonna Prep in Florida, on a high school team that also included Ohio State standout (and soon to be an early NFL Draft pick) WR Jeremiah Smith:
Brief aside: NCSU has a kickoff tee dog:
Although a new head coach may decide to take things a different way, the NCSU offense has typically tried to run the ball or set up short passes, over and over again, until they can find their moment to strike with a big pass play. They typically do this well early in games (better prepared to find that defensive weakness in the scripted plays), jumping out to early 1st quarter leads, before floundering around a bit as they let their opponent back into games late. The NCSU offense is one that likes to gamble, and those gambles work better early on the game. So no need to panic if NCSU jumps out to an early lead; they’ve been pretty hit or miss defending those leads.
Quarterback
NCSU is led by third-year starter, junior QB CJ Bailey. I first covered him as a true freshman before the Cal-NCSU in 2024, and rereading what I wrote then confirms what I wanted to say about him here: he hasn’t grown a whole lot during his time at NCSU. Bailey looked like he improved in 2025, but I feel like he’s similarly taken a step back this year. I first attributed this to the departing talent that was around him: last year’s top rusher RB Hollywood Smothers transferred to Texas, and of their top receivers, WR Terrell Anderson transferred to USC, TE Justin Joly is now in the NFL, and WR Noah Rogers transferred to Alabama. The only top talent that NCSU managed to hang onto was QB CJ Bailey, an unfortunate reality of the modern NIL game. But after seeing my 2024 article again, I realized I am about to bring up the exact same strengths and exact same criticisms that I had when he was a true freshman.
So even though I’ll be repeating a lot of what I’ve already said about CJ Bailey, here it is again. Bailey can still put some nice touch on his throws:
Bailey handles pressure well, and his mobility allows him to buy time to throw, and he’ll keep his eyes downfield for his receivers:
Bailey, for better or worse, is not at all afraid to try to fit throws into tight windows:
Here Bailey has time, and times his throw into zone coverage:
Bailey again shows nice placement on the throw, operating well out of the pocket and in rhythm:
Here Bailey makes another difficult throw into coverage, but shows great placement on the ball:
Bailey is a mobile quarterback and fully capable of running a zone-read offense:
Bailey is athletic and still dangerous in the open field:
And of course, Bailey has some speed:
On the flip side, Bailey’s accuracy has been an issue at times. Bailey’s throwing mechanics can be inconsistent, and although he often buys himself time in the pocket to find open receivers, he can sometimes miss those open receivers anyway (typically on underthrows):
And though Bailey typically does well on timing routes, he can still throw well off-target when he senses pressure:
Here Bailey again underthrows his open receiver:
Regrettably, I still see Bailey making a lot of the same mistakes as he did as a freshman. He’s not afraid to challenge tight windows, but he often doesn’t see when he has a linebacker underneath taking away that window:
This next throw, I am not sure what Bailey is seeing, or even which receiver he’s targeting in the endzone here, but neither of them are open and he should not be throwing this:
Although Bailey is dangerous running the ball, his carefree/confident play-style can sometimes come back to bite him, as (for example) he sometimes runs with poor ball security:
And you’ve probably seen this next play, but it’s an all-time mistake, the worst decision since Mario Cristobal’s Miami refused to take a knee in victory formation and ran the ball and fumbled it to set up a game-winning Georgia Tech touchdown back in 2023. Like that Miami game, all Bailey had to do was not fumble the ball. Run around in the endzone, launch it up in the air, take a knee or throw the ball out of the back of the endzone for a safety, pretty much anything would have worked better than this. All NCSU had to do to beat Vanderbilt this year was not give up a touchdown with 6 seconds left:
I don’t know who you blame that on, but it was both terrible decision-making and ball security. You have to do better than this.
The backup quarterback will likely get a number of snaps, and so I will cover him here as well. NCSU uses backup QB Will Wilson—the 6’1”, 227 lbs quarterback—as their short yardage specialist. Pretty much any time NCSU needs just a yard or two (3rd/4th down with 1-2 yards to go, or near the goal line), you can expect to see QB Will Wilson come in, and he converts these far more often than not:
Will Wilson converted a first down or touchdown on 27 of the 39 times he rushed the ball in 2025. In 2026, that number has climbed up to 53 for 85 attempts:
Unsurprisingly, Wilson leads the team with 8 rushing TDs:
3rd or 4th down, expect to see Wilson running it:
Heck, any time Wilson is in, NCSU is daring you to stop the run, and few teams have:
The only times I’ve seen QB Will Wilson play the position as an actual quarterback have been in FCS blowout games. But there was one exception, when Bailey briefly left the field with an injury against Louisville, Wilson came in to play quarterback. However, from these limited snaps, it still seemed like Wilson was more comfortable tucking the ball and running it, as he had an open tight end in the endzone here:
Here’s a better view of that same play:
Playing as a QB, Wilson showed some nice speed on this outside run:
Wilson is also patient runner, and does a good job of seeing where his blocks develop:
Unsurprisingly, Wilson is difficult to bring down, even on plays that are not designed runs:
Of course, the entire point of running the same play over and over and over again (besides the fact that it keeps working) is so that you can catch teams off-guard when you finally decide to switch things up on a tendency-breaker play:
Either way, expect to see a lot of QB runs against Cal.
Running back
NC State’s leading rusher, Jayden “Duke” Scott has missed the past two games with a foot injury suffered against Louisville, but reports are that he’s “trending towards a return soon.” He remains questionable for Cal at the time of this writing, but I figured he’s still worth covering here, especially as NCSU’s most effective running back. (Update: Scott is listed on the first injury report as OUT for the game, and will not play).
The 5’10” 220 lbs. Scott is a power back, showing good contact balance, keeping his pad level low, and running through tacklers:
Scott is known in the NCSU weight room for his lower-body strength, and that’s evident in the way he runs:
Scott will run right through arm tackles:
Here Scott shows good vision after breaking a tackle in the backfield:
Scott will show patience in letting his blocks develop:
And Scott still shows pretty good speed for his size:
Behind Scott (and the recent starter in lieu of his injury) is CJ Bailey’s childhood pal, RB Davion Gause. Gause is a similarly-styled running back to Scott, in that he’s also a big back looking to run through contact. The main difference between the two is that NCSU has had Gause a lot more involved in the passing game than Scott. Although Gause hasn’t had any big break away runs so far this season, he still reliably picks up chunks of yards as well:
NCSU will involve Gause in the passing game, such as on the screen:
And again:
Behind Gause on the official depth chart is Darius Johnson, who has only had a handful of touches this season:
The change of pace back is RB/WR Deandre Desinor. Desinor is listed on the roster as 5’10” and 186 lbs., and in contrast to Scott and Gause, is known for his speed and agility out of the backfield:
Desinor has also made some appearances at the slot receiver position:
The true freshman RB Dylan McCoy has also seen some snaps late in the game, and while a big back that also likes to break arm tackles (a la Scott/Gause), he also showed some speed:
Finally, there’s RB Jonathan Paylor, a high 4-star recruit in the class of 2024, who has struggled with injuries in prior seasons. Paylor is also reportedly known for his speed and ability as a pass catcher:
While NCSU has some solid running backs, don’t expect to see NCSU lean as hard on them as some of Cal’s prior opponents have. Well, unless NCSU happened to see the UCLA, Clemson, or SMU games when Cal gave up 250+ rushing yards after the opposing team realized Cal was powerless to stop it… then maybe we’ll see NCSU run the ball a bit more than they have in previous games. NCSU has generally been split pretty evenly between the run and the pass, so anything more than 50% rush attempts would be notable.
Receivers
NCSU’s leading receiver is Keenan Jackson, who plays the X position. Jackson is a tall, rangy receiver who excels at physical catch against tight coverage. Jackson has good hands:
Jackson can still make contested catches with a defender draped all over him:
Jackson has good top-end speed, which makes him a viable deep threat, and he can still work back through the defender to make the catch:
Jackson is also a good route runner, and can run nice routes to create separation:
Jackson’s height and route running make him a top redzone threat, and he leads the team with 6 receiving touchdowns (TE Hunter Provience has 2, and no other receiver has more than 1):
As a big, physical receiver, he’s able to break tackles and create yards after the catch:
Another good example:
On shorter throws or across the middle of the field, Bailey’s favorite target is the slot receiver, WR Victor Snow. Snow also picks up a ton of yards after the catch:
Snow has shown some really nice hands:
And here Snow does a good job of fighting for the extra yards to pick up the first down:
Another of Bailey’s favorite targets is his other childhood friend, Joshisa “Jojo” Trader. He missed the Wake Forest game with an injury, but returned to the depth chart against Stanford but didn’t play, so it’s not clear yet if he will play Saturday. (Update: he will not, he’s listed as OUT on the initial injury report).
Trader can create his own yards:
And Trader is also a nice route runner, and here he runs a nice route to get open deep:
NCSU has a solid receiver at tight end in true sophomore Preston Douglas, who is having a breakout season this year, and is currently has the second most receiving yards on the team (behind Jackson). Here Douglas runs a nice route and forces a mismatch in coverage:
The more traditional blocking tight end is Hunter Provience, a Montana State transfer who also has some nice receiving skills:
There is also the Oregon transfer TE Vander Ploog:
If Jojo Trader is still unable to play, we can expect to see more of his backup, WR Tyran Warren, a tall, speedy receiver:
Warren also does a good job of using his speed and route running to get open:
Look for Bailey to target his slot receiver Victor Snow or TE Preston Douglas on shorter throws over the middle, until Bailey can buy time to hit one of his bigger speed guys like WR Keenan Jackson or Jojo Trader/Tyran Warren deep.
Conclusion
NC State’s offense typically lives and dies with the big pass play. They have a quarterback that can run the ball well and extend plays with his feet, and Bailey can buy a ton of time for his receivers to get open. (Think: SMU’s first half strategy last week, which usually works well for SMU). NCSU is not a team that’s particularly adept at running the ball (think: SMU’s second half strategy)—they’re probably middle of the ACC in rushing, but you can be sure that they’ll definitely try after what we saw last week in the second half of the Cal-SMU game. (If you exclude FCS competition—i.e. 428 rushing yards of NCSU’s 1136 total rushing yards—NCSU’s rushing attack is 14th of 17 in the conference, with only Stanford, North Carolina, and Cal posting fewer rushing yards per game). If Cal can stop NCSU from running the ball down their throat (and I’m not particularly confident they can), then I do have faith that the Cal defense will be able to take away the big pass plays from CJ Bailey and force NCSU to pick up yards the hard way. This is not a Louisville/Boston College/Duke team that can run the ball at will against most opponents, so if NCSU does happen to have a career day running the ball against Cal, it’s just another troubling red flag for the Cal defense. It’s also a team that gives up a lot of big pass plays (and commits a lot of PI in the secondary), so this should be a good matchup for Cal on paper. I just don’t know how much that’s worth these days after Cal’s recent performances.
As always,
Go Bears.
You can find my full clips here.