Prove It Weekend

This episode goes into previews for Richmond Spiders football, and notable opening matchups for conference play in Men's and Women's Soccer.

In The Den is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2, student-run radio from NC State University. Like what you hear? Consider supporting it with a gift to the WKNC Enhancement Fund. Visit our podcast page to hear more and follow us on all social media platforms @WKNC881. Thanks for listening.

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Host

Logan Brumley

What is In The Den?

"In The Den" with host Logan Brumley covers everything from the NC State Wolfpack's NCAA, intramural and club sports. "In The Den" is a podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 at NC State University.

ProveItWeekend.mp3
Meeting created at: 8th Sep, 2026 - 3:42 PM

00:00
Logan Brumley
Welcome to WKNC's official sports podcast In The Den! Today we have a preview of this weekend's football matchup against Richmond. We also have some soccer matchups to look at with women's facing off against Florida State in the ACC opener and men's soccer ACC home opener against Duke. And we'll finish with a brief preview of the cross-country season. So, get your headphones on. Let's get straight to it. All right, I'll start off with football with the Richmond Spiders coming up. After a sloppy opening matchup which I went more in depth about last week, this game has kind of become a crucial course correction for NC State and working out some of the kinks that they have had in this last week.

00:57
Logan Brumley
And this preview is going to be more looking at how Richmond could exploit those flaws and what NC State needs to show compared to last week in order to consider the game a success because a win is very likely, but I would not consider win a success if we see a similar team performance. So I start off with on the running side, Richmond does not have an elite rushing offense. They do have one pretty good running back with Aziz Foster-Powell who is at 122 yards and three touchdowns and their offensive line hasn't given up many tackles for loss. NC State's rushing defense couldn't handle the duality of Middlebrooks and Pribula, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here. Although that Richmond offensive line does have a preseason all conference player in let me pull up his name, Ronald Anderson.

02:11
Logan Brumley
It's going to be something where you'd expect. This is going to be kind of like the umbrella coverage of this is that you'd expect even a middle tier power four conference team should be able to dominate against the top of the FCS and that's what I'm expecting to see. That's why I think we will see it would better for this NC State rushing defense to show some tackles for loss or at the very least keeping them to let's say below five rushing yards per game. I would even argue maybe even a down game in rushing yards per game for Aziz Foster-Powell. Right now he is sitting at 5.7. So yeah sub 5 would be nice to see on the passing side for Richmond's offense.

03:18
Logan Brumley
They do have quarterback Ashton Snow sire he's given he's got 460 yards in the air, six touchdowns, zero interceptions on a 57% completion rate. It's not elite but it's good enough to keep that offense chugging along in the air four sacks, they've given up four sacks which isn't really amazing in these two games. But NC State is probably not going to be a sack Bratusen mega squad in this matchup. Maybe we could see something from Dyson, maybe we could see an interception somewhere. But I think the expectations is just to show that they can generate pressure because I think that was a big issue that they had against Virginia, Since Pribula could do basically whatever he wanted in and out of the pocket. And of this quarterback I don't think you really have to worry about out-of-pocket performance in the pocket.

04:20
Logan Brumley
It's going to be super important that NC State's able to generate pressure, force mistakes and on the secondary side maybe not force pass deflections or force interceptions but just do not let yourself get open and do not let passes get easy. Now that will be an issue because Richmond does have two quality receivers. Quanye Veney who has 144 yards and a touchdown. Freshman Bryce Allen with 143 yards and two touchdowns. It's a really good duo. It's going to be tough because you know you usually try to double cover your best defender or even just like have a corner go against one of the better receivers and then half that safety eye down that second guy. That's going to be a lot tougher. That could be a situation where you do have a high safety or the nickel and they do.

05:23
Logan Brumley
You kind of have to watch and take over whichever one of those two has the vision because this is a quarterback that does have a little bit of an iron down thing. There's a potential here where this is a non factor but for right now I am worried that it is going to be a factor. How about NC State's offense? Duke Scott, he needs to show some of that weight season promise in this game. He only has 20 rushing yards. Two quarterbacks have more rushing yards than him and I do expect them to be probably bigger assets. I think this is going to be a system where they're going to rely heavily on Bailey's arm, Bailey's legs and Wilson's arm, l. ike kind of similar to what I'm picturing - l.

06:16
Logan Brumley
ike our running game could become a very watered down version of like Tim Tebow and Chris Leek. I know that's kind of crazy to say but there's just none of these quarterback running backs have really shown what they could do at that kind of level. And I am concerned that, I mean this Richmond rushing defense isn't amazing. They do have some good tacklers especially on the linebacker front with Blake Howard. For sure there is an opportunity for them to get shut down, but I just can't imagine it and it's really just going to become a true running back by committee where maybe they just are trying out different guys on the depth chart just to find any kind of juice.

07:10
Logan Brumley
Right now they have two notable running backs on the roster, Davion Gause and Jayden Scott, so they're probably going to be the ones that get the reps. It would be interesting to see what Gause does because he just hasn't touched the ball yet. There are some other guys DeAndre Desinoir could definitely get touches, see Jonathan Paylor could maybe get some. We'll see. We'll see how it looks but for right now I'm not too optimistic on run inside the passing side. There's also a lot of variables. They could be something where they try to find that number one receiver as soon as possible. I think that they were definitely very diverse, which is always nice, but there's no star power to lean back on. They could be something where tight ends got a lot of reps: Vanderploog, Preston Douglas, Hunter Providence, t.

08:13
Logan Brumley
hey all got touches. So maybe this is something where our offense shifts to being more tight end heavy, kind of doing like a two, three front or was it's like maybe a 31. I don't know. I can't think of a good three tight information, but they're definitely gonna have two out there. I don't know if that's gonna be a permanent fixture or just for until they can find an elite receiver, especially on the slot. But again, time will tell. I don't know what we're going to expect. I'm kind of pulling for, I mean JoJo Traitor still good. I think he's probably going to be the number one guy but it doesn't really matter too much as C.J.

09:05
Logan Brumley
Bailey and whether or not he is capable of creating open opportunities for the NC State receiving Corp. Because that was a big issue in the last week's game that there were a lot of opportunities where A the guys couldn't get open or B the guys were partially open and there were throws that required acrobatic skills to get and we'll see how it looks. It definitely needs to be cleaned up. If not, there's going to be a lot of questions, maybe even the coordinator firing. But let's see, they do have the ESPNU matchup. The special teams for the Spiders are isn't too great. Their kicker hasn't made a field goal yet this season. The punter gets inside a 20 yard line a decent amount.

10:09
Logan Brumley
I do expect NC State probably going to be pinned back a few times next game which may hurt the spread at least. But what's it at right now? The spread is not out as of recording. I hope they would win by hold on, I'm checking last year how they did against their okay at Campbell. They won 56-10 and Campbell is a mid to low tier FCS squad if I am remembering correctly. Yeah, I don't. I mean let's see, I would put the spread at like 20 points but still expect a blowout. I hope for a blowout. I hope that we can see improvement numbers and I hope that we could just have something to look forward to when we play Vanderbilt who are coming off okay so they have two weak opponents before they face NC State.

11:27
Logan Brumley
They won 28 to 9 against Austin Peay. They have Delaware coming up. We'll see how things look but I both am and am not confident I'll move on. I'm a little bit more confident about the women's soccer. They're going to have their first truly tough opponent with Florida State. In case you don't know Florida State women's soccer, they are the current reign in national championship teams, but they have had a rough start. Things started strong where they had like about three wins, but then things kind of hit the fan after they were demolished by Florida who is now sitting at 21st.

12:32
Logan Brumley
It was like an unranked Florida they've been beating up for past eight years and then they kind of just got tumbled and since then they've had one other win in a tie and it has dropped them down all the way from 3 to 15th. I think is where they're sitting right now though. As of recording it has not been crazy updated. But you know they come in with a solid record. They have a ranked tie or a ranked win against Georgia. So this is still going to be a challenge even though right now their offense isn't elite. They have about 5.38 points per game, which is bottom five and about 53% shot and goal accuracy. They don't really have like this major offensive anchor. However, they have the former most valuable offensive player in the 2025 women's soccer tournament, Wrianna Hudson.

13:46
Logan Brumley
She has two goals and a transfer fixation savior. Sam Erbach has three goals and three assists so far. So they do have an offensive engine. They do have players that you need to stress about and watch out for it's just that the amount of tangibility of it is not strongly consistent, especially against stronger power conference opponents. I don't really know conference power. I think it's the same as the. Yeah, I mean women's soccer ACC is a power conference. On the defensive side they have a goal against average of about one, which isn't too bad. They have 17 saves, 78% save rate from the defensive MVP goalie Kate Okene. They also have preseason ACC first team defender and former NC State alumni Janet Okeke who is the anchor of this defense. And I mean NC State, they could have a chance to win it.

14:59
Logan Brumley
Their numbers match up pretty similarly to Florida State right now and this is going to this could be a situation where NC State, all their momentum is halted because Florida State form a national championship. They're at home. It's time to get serious. And Florida State I think has a better promise at getting serious right now than the Wolf Pack do. There's a potential Jade Bordeleau. I think she still leads the conference in goals. There's definitely an opportunity for her to get one in and for this offense to keep chugging. There's been a lot of work for Kate o' Kent to do and she is still a really good goalie. There is reason to be nervous, especially with them giving up a lot of shot and goals opportunities that require this huge amount of saves that the goalie is dealing with right now.

16:00
Logan Brumley
I mean there is definitely a chance to put on some stress and to dominate on that side. Defensively, I'm a little suspicious. I would wish to minimize how much the goalies have to do because again this is like their toughest opponent for this goalie court yet. And while Emily Earles is a great goalie, Ellie Breech has been really good so far. I personally just feel really worried about it because of just again workload. I don't think Pitt was like this elite team that could like really handle playing against the top dogs. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I just don't think of them too much. But they missed the ACC tournament last year or the ncaa. But there's a possibility for NC State to win this Friday. There's a chance that they could get blown out. I'm really hoping.

17:01
Logan Brumley
I think it's going to be a high scoring match that NC State could squeak by and it could mean the entire world for this program. Another team that is really needed win a conference win right now is NC State. They tied against Virginia Tech 1-1, but sorry they're going to be hosting Duke this weekend. Duke. They made it to the Sweet 16 last year but lost to number 15 Akron. But so far this season it's been pretty rough. They lost against Furman, they got blown up by Georgetown and they got demolished by Wake Forest too. So it's just been. They have been stumbling at the gate. They're at the bottom of the ACC stand ins and they need every chance they can get to get back to where they were. But they're not a bottom tier offense.

18:10
Logan Brumley
They get about 5.8 points per game which isn't bad, 47% shot on goal rate. It's just that they don't have an elite score behind Ulfur Bjornsson who has three goals, two assists so far on 12 shots which is really good there. I mean they do have Jack Ottley who has four assists for the club. It's just that I mean if you can shut down Bjornsson, I feel like you're in pretty good hands. I do have a lot of players who can score. Maybe that utility can stress NC State, but I just have to believe that this defense is not that bad. Right. Because a lot of these teams did have like a second score that you could trust for these teams that was really good and was able to just squeak by.

19:19
Logan Brumley
But so far we haven't really seen anything of that sort of yet. Sorry, I'm trying to pull up defensive stats right now. They on the defensive side. Duke is not that bad. They do lead the conference in yellow cards and red cards which I think is a huge advantage for NC State who also has nine yellow cards. So I guess not a huge one. But it does say that this is going to be a messy game. Both of these defenses aren't really in the top. See they've given up about three goals a game. Just not great. They have a save percentage of about 50 so it's definitely going to be some trouble there. They don't really have a elite goalie. They've been using Max Disenhofer, we'll see if he starts.

20:30
Logan Brumley
It's just kind of been using the offense to get ahead and the offense hasn't always been able to get the team ahead. So there's definitely the opportunity for NC State to win in that terrain. This could be another one that is a really high scoring matchup. Just because of the quality of these defenses does not excite me. I want to say NC State has the advantage of just. I think Duke actually does have the offensive advantage just slightly because they have Bjornsson. But who knows maybe there's someone. I'm waiting on this offense for someone to break out. And I don't know when that time is going to be, but it has to be soon. And if it happens in this game, it would be absolutely amazing. But make sure to come by for that game too.

21:25
Logan Brumley
That's going to be this weekend, I believe, this Saturday. See, I'm checking the schedule. It will be on the 10th, which is a Friday, so make sure to stop by for that game. I think it's going to be really good and I hope, desperately hope NC State can get a win here. All right. I finished with a sport that has way more optimism that you can put onto it and that is cross country. They're set to the women's at least is set to return to dominance. They see they are preseason ranked number one in the nation. They're ranked number one in the region or ranked number one in the conference. Everything shows promise. And they are the only team, now that I'm looking at it, to have first place votes.

22:28
Logan Brumley
I mean, this is however, going to be a last run for a really good quarter. They have the top 10 finishers in Nationals with Hannah Gapes and Grace Hartman, who are graduates. They have another graduate, Brooke Robert, who's out the door. Angelina Napoleon is a senior. Maybe she also takes a grad year, but time would tell on that. They have junior Bethany Mishalak, she finished 29th in nationals. And Sadie Engelhardt is 51st in national. So just a lot of good players in top 50 who are upperclassmen. This is the time to get another national championship and I think that is really possible, especially with this really big transfer grab. in Rachel Forsyth, she comes from Michigan state.

23:19
Logan Brumley
She finished 16th in nationals in 2024, 48 and 2025, which just adding that to the point system, it just kind of puts them way ahead if everyone plays as good as they're expected to. However, I will say on the men's side there is definitely a lot less excitement. They are trying to find them in the rankings. They're unranked nationally in the Southeast Regional. See, where are they in the Southeast regional? They are 10th in the Southeast Regional and in the, let's see, in the conference they are ranked. Sorry, I'm trying to find it right now because this just recently got added in. They are, I mean, I think they're near the bottom of the conference rankings. I think they are like second to last behind Cal, maybe third behind Miami because they don't have like a clear conference rankings. Trying to find themselves.

24:45
Logan Brumley
They're Washington weeds. Their opponents. They had only like one really good national title contender with Noah Vaylo. He's going to be returning. They do have two seniors that are worth watching out for as well. Luke Wiley, he finished top three amongst the team in every meet. He was 74th in regional. And Elliot McArthur, who was top three in the first few matchups and will finish 111th in the ACC tournament. Way sloppier. Way worse.

25:17
Logan Brumley
I'm extremely concerned for NC State this is season, but maybe Phelo has a really pop off year and we can get at least one player and maybe Wiley and MacArthur in the last years are just really able to hone in and they're able to maybe not get the team over the hump, but able to have stronger performances that the team as a whole can qualify to events rather than just the best guy. Which is definitely a bit issue for NC State and cross country, track and field, golf. It's something that NC State really needs to hone in on is their men's athletics in these fields and it's something where just not a lot of optimism is inspired in these teams. But they do have a couple notable matchups. Their opener is going to be in Cary.

26:15
Logan Brumley
The Adidas Cross Country September 18th they travel to South Bend, Greenville, the pre Nationals is around Halloween and Terre Haute, which is where Indiana State plays and the ACC Championships is on Halloween. Terre Haute, It's a week before at Blacksburg, Virginia, so make sure to keep an eye out. I will update as we get to some of the bigger matchups, but that's all I have for you today. Hope you enjoyed next episode. I'll talk about Richmond Review Preview Vanderbilt and we'll talk some more soccer. But have a good day and go pack.

Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/