Balance!

How can NCSU balance the poor performance of their football team with the star-studded expectations? How can Men's Soccer and Volleyball continue the momentum they've built? All of that and more will be answered here. 

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Creators and Guests

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.

00:00
Logan Brumley
Hello and welcome to WKNC official sports podcast in a den. Today we're going to be going over the Virginia Tech game over the weekend and the Campbell game coming up. This weekend we're going to be going over men's soccer vs. Virginia, women's volleyball vs. Miami Florida, and we'll finish with a preview of the wrestling season. So I guess get your headphones on and let's get straight to it. All right. I guess we're going to start with the football game last night that was pretty tragic of us. We lost 23, 21. Honestly, I thought it was an opportunity to kind of get our head back in the game after to Duke loss, but it ended up being anything but.

01:00
Logan Brumley
You know, NC State, they had three touchdowns, but VTEC had two pass touchdowns and three field goals and were able to completely shut down NC State's rushing game. The team averaging only 1.8 yards per rush and only 67 yards from FULL. Jaden Scott got the ground touchdown, but C.J. Bailey had negative 19 rushing yards with also only five rushing first downs and three of them coming from third and fourth down. So while I do appreciate the running game in third and fourth down situations, it seems like it has been pretty effective. I would like to see more of kind of the ground and pound when it comes to getting the big plays and getting the scores because that was something that we definitely needed and I think that was key for Virginia Tech when it was just shutting down the rushing game.

01:54
Logan Brumley
And that's kind of a problem because I think it could in the future kind of be the formula to beat NC State is just like what I mentioned with ECU at the very start. Just let these young receivers and quarterback just throw and play in the air. The Virginia Tech running back Terrion Stewart has now has the most amount of running yards against NC State in the game with 174 yards. Jamari Taylor only got 150, but he got three touchdowns and Terion Stewart did not get a rushing touchdown. And this kind of hurts our idea of having a solid rushing defense. VTech was able to kind of churn first downs and was able to move the chains with both the legs and the arms. It did take some late mistakes from us to cause us to lose.

02:53
Logan Brumley
I think there was that drop that in that final drive that cost us the game. And I mean it's like Virginia Tech got blown out by Old Dominion and yet we could barely. If we did win, we would have barely won, but we lost by two and this was the most amount of points that Virginia Tech scored against a Power 4 team. I think they only scored 11 against South Carolina, 10 against Vanderbilt. They played Wofford and Old Dominion, which are not Power four teams. So I guess, I mean, yeah, it's, you know, they've only played three games against Power 5 competition, but that's about as many as NC State has played, I believe. And NC State has given up a lot and has scored a lot.

03:49
Logan Brumley
So while it is only 23 points and Virginia Tech isn't really a scoring team, they under Philip Montgomery, they have kind of figured themselves out and this team is not in as much of a disaster mode as I thought they were. Either that or NC State is in a bigger disaster mode. Some other things to note. The offensive line was an absolute failure with that negative 19 rushing yards for CJ Bailey and 5 sacks given up compared to our team only getting 2. The defensive line was unable to put enough pressure for Drones to force mistakes, which I thought he would have considering that some other veteran quarterbacks like Robbie Ashford made mistakes under NC State. I guess that just wasn't really meant to happen that night. I'm happy seeing the passing defense.

04:43
Logan Brumley
I thought it got a little bit better with only 58% accuracy and five passes deflected including you know, defensive MVP for me is Brian Nelson. I believe that he got two. Jamel Johnson I think has three. But I just wish we would have seen more because while were able to stop and we didn't stop them when it mattered and if you can't do it when it matters, you might as well not do it at all. But this weekend, Campbell FCS team, it's going to be a good way to kind of clear our heads. Especially since looking into the rest of the schedule there is a real possibility that NC State could miss the bowl game they have at Notre Dame, at Pitt, at Miami and then home with Georgia Tech and Florida State who are both ranked.

05:36
Logan Brumley
They could the only game here that I feel like is a shoo in to win is UNC. So the worst case scenario is like going 4 and 8 on the season which would I think would be ncsu lowest record. I think it could put him in a hot seat our where else where was I? And especially if we lose the Campbell this afternoon, I mean we could start seeing some names being called and some heads rolling and we could start seeing like CJ Bhatia FULL weave for the transfer portal. The clock is ticking to kind of close down our mistakes and the best approach is just to try to juice out as much offense as we can. I think the offense is our strength.

06:28
Logan Brumley
I think Smothers and Bailey as a ground duo complemented by the aerial attack with Anderson Joly and Keenan Jackson according to last night, not last night, but that night is what is going to help us win because the defense hasn't really done too much itself I think maybe force the pressure so the quarterbacks can make bad throws on their own. But I mean look at the quarterback, Haynes King could be this Carson Beck. I mean it could probably force mistakes against like Castellanos, maybe the young CJ Carr, but I don't know. It's just kind of. The schedule is very iffy and I think we're kind of starting to enter panic mode for NC State. But Campbell is not good. 1 and 4 record, couldn't blow out loss at ECU and their only win coming in double overtime against conference rival Bryant.

07:30
Logan Brumley
They have one of the worst defenses in their conference, given up roughly 41 points a game compared to 26 that they score on their own. Let's see. Randall King is a pretty good wide receiver that they have scoring five of their nine total passing touchdowns from. And their star quarterback is probably Camden Sixkiller who leads the team in passing and is a close second in rushing with their running back J.J. cowden. They averaged 3.4 yards per rush and about 5 yards per pass. So while. And they have roughly equal touchdowns so it feels balanced. But I would say the passing is a bit stronger. The rushing defense is not good. 3.8 yards per rush and 13 total on the season with just same amount of passing touchdowns. They've given up with nine yards per attempt.

08:33
Logan Brumley
Some notable players on the defense are Donovan Philord with five passes broken up and Dafanyer Pettis with I think about three tackles for loss. Their punter Aiden Bond gets up like 40 yards per punt with six inside the 20 which is one a game, not too bad. And their kicker has a 71% accuracy C with the Longa 40 which is. I mean that's better than what we have. Who is our kicker finiset? The rookie Nick. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. I'm just gonna say Nick for sake of easiness. It's gonna be a really good win. Hopefully. I'm not even gonna dig into the matchups because this is a must win now I'm getting tired. We were expected to win against Duke and lost.

09:25
Logan Brumley
Expected to beat Virginia Tech and lost, I mean three consecutive games where you're the favorite and you lose is just frustrating, especially since I thought this team was going to be eight wins, maybe even 10 that could push themselves into the argument being one of the best teams in the conference. But you can't say that anymore now. I just hope that they can be stay in the middle of the road at least. Oh well, we'll figure things out. But it's just it's getting pretty rough and apologize for this kind of being a quick segment. I didn't really watch too much film for Campbell just because the FCS opponent. Maybe I should give them a respect, but I don't feel like this is going to be an FCS upset to watch out for anyways.

10:16
Logan Brumley
Coming up next, men's soccer versus Virginia where we're kind of on the opposite end of the coin. I will like to warn you all before I head into men's soccer that there is going to be a good amount of praise in North Carolina States men's soccer team, but I think it's deserved. They are, you know, dominant. I think they're still number one I the time of recording they're six in the conference stand ins however, with one win and two ties, Philip Donovan has been lighting up the NCAA with 2.89 points per game, just about a whole half a point above the runner up with 13 total goals in nine games, making him the only ACC player who scores one goal per game and is the highest in the country overall. Regardless of Donovan, however, this offense is still churning.

11:10
Logan Brumley
They have three players notching five or more assists, including Maloney, Haley and Canton, and 12 other goals are evenly dispersed throughout the team, which is second in the conference. So this offense is just really electric. And the defense is playing great too, creating a margin of 3.13 compared to 3.25 goals per game. Only one goal given up this season, which was their last game against Pitt where they would eventually come back to tie. Their defense front with Markovich, Maloney and Heffess averages up to about 0.56 shutouts per game. Inter goalie Logan Erb, who is second in the league when it comes to shutouts and is one of the most efficient saves producer in the league. However, his sample size is very small.

12:12
Logan Brumley
I think the next highest person probably has like a whole 10 extra saves compared to him and the only other team in the conference with a higher showdown rate is Virginia, who is who they're playing next. Virginia is top six in goals and they're okay, so they're eighth in goals and fourth in assists. There it is, six in points. Their unexpected star, Nicholas Simmons leads the team with nine points of four goals and one assist while their teammates and I think preseason all conference player Marco dos Santos with six assists. Shot producer Luke Burns, who has a 60% shot on goal rate. Interdependent Alex Parvu, who is one of the more efficient defenders on the team. They have a high shutout percentage, but also 2.86 saves per game and a 69% save accuracy, which isn't the most efficient, but they're pretty good.

13:24
Logan Brumley
And they had a pretty good streak of beating strong teams, which I did not write down. I remember when they went unranked and they beated a lot of good teams to jump up to the top 10, I believe. Okay. But today Virginia, they play Milwaukee, which should be a easy win considering that it's a kind of a lower conference rival. Okay. Yeah, they beat Louisville, beat Wake Forest, and let's see, they beat American tied against Virginia Tech. So I guess not the strongest, but they really have been playing better and they have served their way into getting it high in the rankings and they'll be a tough opponent. I believe that we are hosting them, which is also another great thing to have going for us. But even if we don't. Yeah, it's in. Yeah. Okay.

14:48
Logan Brumley
So I think NC State's hosting and that's going to be a really good game because these are both very strong competitive teams. And if anyone can stop the dominance in the NC State, it's them because they have proven that they can beat these big guys and they can't find a way to the top. And their coach, George Gnelktivich, has been coaching for 30 years, so he knows what he's doing. This team knows what it's doing and it can catch NC State by surprise. Not that they're looking past Virginia, but this is an upset that could be something to look out for. I doubt it'll happen. I have the. My final score being a 11 tie off the top of my head. But I would say keep an eye out for Virginia. They're really good.

15:44
Logan Brumley
Benci State's amazing and that's kind of a quick little praise in soccer session. Coming up next will be the volleyball team, which I do have a good amount of grievances towards. So buckle up. Like this season has been. It's going to be a bumpy one. All right? We are going to be looking at this volleyball team who got demolished by number 25 UNC and unranked Duke at 3 and one possible momentum I thought I had seen with NT States falling apart with a 4 to 5 record September, including three consecutive losses. I think they lost to Old Dominion before the conference schedule opened up. There's a lot that's been going wrong with NC State and it's kind of all the classic elements to how you lose volleyball games. They never really took a lead, I think only one of those sets.

16:45
Logan Brumley
They led by three more scores and went on to win that set. They never really dominated except one against Duke, I believe. But it's been mostly back and forth and whenever it does become that back and forth, they always are unable to close out and the opponent usually gets either some timely dominant success or can even outright just run away with it. And it's not even just about errors by NC State, but it could be just one dominant player that we couldn't shut down like Taylor Williams on Duke or Safi Hampton for unc. Like as long as one player is able to figure out the system and it's just able to bam, bam. NC State just cannot do anything about it. They just kind of do like the fake dead thing that goats do and sometimes the errors don't help.

17:50
Logan Brumley
I think they were kind of lower than I was expecting, which is a good thing. However, there's no one on our team who can make the big necessary plays and changes. It's never about dominance. Just doing enough to keep our head above water when in order to win we need to kind of just get up there and do something and you know, just kind of looking at all of the stats, team stats. With the conference heading into it, we're kind of bottom middle if that makes sense. Like lower middle of all the major ACC stats with offense and defense, which just kind of makes us one of the worst teams in the conference. Don't really have any big stars. Bryant, she's seventh in overall points and WKNC is ninth in blocks per game.

18:53
Logan Brumley
So we do have some players who can kind of stand out, but no stars, no firepower. We do have good young players, but they're inconsistent. I think Sushi is the only one who's consistently good at a nightly basis. But let's see. Rebecca Ring isn't doing too good. Dorsey's not doing great out of rotation. Jordan Smith, while she's kind of broken out a little bit, I think she's starting to come back down to earth as we head into face tougher competition. Ashley Mullins hasn't produced the assist like I was hoping. It's been kind of valar who's been doing it and a defensive star power is just not there. Like we don't have stars. We have good service players and not strong enough of a team to kind of be the difference maker.

19:53
Logan Brumley
Like I'll go into Miami because they have difference makers and you know as I mentioned before Safi Hampton she has been a difference maker for UNC that has helped them become a ranked team. NC State the closest thing we have is Courtney Bryant but she has never been at that level before.

20:11
Logan Brumley
Even last year I think she was a. I don't want to call her a backup because I don't know for sure but if anything you could argue that this is starting to look more like a transitional year which I guess is not fair to our seniors which we do have a good amount But I do worry that once these older players go to younger players gonna have to step up and the time and experience that they need to get better just might not be there because of the inconsistencies and trying to figure out like are we serious contenders or not? And I don't know if they are anymore. They used to be a dark horse but now they're kind of just not a horse. They're a. Hold on. I'm trying to think of a funny comparison.

21:02
Logan Brumley
They're a just a blob of darkness some optimism that we have going on. At least Courtney Bryant she's still playing well. I've still kind of given her kudos but I just would like the mistakes to be cut down because there have been some late errors from Duke that kind of caused some sets that should not have been given up. As I mentioned before the younger players I hope they can start kind of coming up and I thought with Villar and Francom I enjoy how they are providing in their supportive roles. I was a bit worried about them early in the season because I didn't think they were great but now I am sure that they are doing just enough to prove their worth and keep NC State in it every night. What's next? We won't know.

22:00
Logan Brumley
Hopefully they can get a strong transfer portal or another big loaded recruiting class but there is just a lot of question marks for the future. And by the future I also mean this Friday against Miami Florida who are ranked number 22 will be our second ranked opponent if I recall correctly because UNC was our first Miami Florida has 12 consecutive wins at the time of recording including wins versus Clemson, Georgia Tech, Indiana they lost against that was the only loss of the season they beat Ole Miss. They're yet to face a ranked squad, but Georgia Tech and Indiana did get votes. Miami has a really strong defense, being one of top teams in blocks, opponent kills, opponent assists and opponent kill percentage. Their stud defense is led by their defensive stars.

23:02
Logan Brumley
Dalia Wilson, who leads the ACC in blocks, Naylani Feliciano, who is ninth in Diggs. While their offense is a weak point, I did mention the difference maker that they have is the points leader in the NCAA. Flomarie Heredia Colon with 6.16 points per set. They're all conference setter. Ariana Rodriguez is fifth in assists per set in the conference. And while the team is kind of fifth in total points, they're in the bottom 10 of kills. I think a lot of the points kind of come from errors that are forced by their strong defense. They have the star power that if there is a team that has a strong enough offense, they can also kind of go out there and basically be like, hey, two can play at this game. Just watch us.

23:58
Logan Brumley
I think the best shot at winning is just try to get the best out of the offense. You know, try to keep this Miami Florida defense from being, I don't want to say dominant to keep them from being a powerful defensive opponent. I think that having two decent setters who can provide assists is going to be a really helpful aspect of that. I think that Mullen and Villar can help to set up Bryant, Ring and Smith and can kind of come out with, I don't want to say multiple plays because I don't think that volleyball is designed to create intentional plays. I think it is a lot off the moment, but I think it'd be great to kind of have those two as kind of back hitters and see if they can do stuff defensively. I know full art can.

25:00
Logan Brumley
I don't know about Mullen. That would be kind of a weak spot there. But having Zuzia as the libero, have no Bryant and either Ring or Jordan Smith kind of coming in rotation with Dorsey. I think there's a way that we can do this where it's just kind of keep doing different things, keep having multiple formations, keep trying to confuse Miami. I don't know how many timeouts it costs for substitutions, especially if you're doing them frequently and you do have a revolving door. But I think that is the smartest way to win is to just kind of keep making them experience new things with this squad and make them look at new formations and make them kind of try to figure out, okay, as soon as they start to figure things out.

25:58
Logan Brumley
That's when you start doing a new offense and with their defense just do the best we can. I guess. It's going to be an ugly, scrappy game, but if NC State can pull it off that would be glad great for their momentum. I think I'm going to wrap it up there. I'm not sure what else I can say about them. I'm a little worried about volleyball, but I have faith that they can figure something out and not be bottom feeders again. Coming up next, we're going to kind of do a brief review of some of the best wrestlers that we have returning and some of their top opponents next season or this winter. And now for the final segment, the wrestling.

26:54
Logan Brumley
So NC State, as of the preseason polls, they are eighth in the country and second in the ACC behind Virginia Tech at number seven. Some of their top wrestlers are okay, so they have seven that have been ranked in the top 33 for several different weight classes. You have Vincent Robinson who is third in 125, Ryan Jack who is 16th in 141, Koy Buegsens who is 15th in 147, Jackson Arrington fifth in 157, Matthew Singleton seventh in 174, Patrick Brophy who is 15th 197 and Isaac Trumbell who was third in 285. Yes, that is a lot. North Carolina State has a very strong wrestling program and it does not look like that power is going to stop anytime soon because there are a lot of good wrestlers who I haven't named who can't be considered winners and different competitions that they have coming up.

28:08
Logan Brumley
And NC State I think is in serious conduction discussions to win the conference or even more. I think Vincent Robinson could win a national championship. Hold on a second. With national championship Vincent Robinson returning and fifth place finisher Matthew Singleton also returning, there is a very good reason to believe that, you know, NC State's here to stay when it comes to wrestling dominance, especially kind of picking out of the talent pool in North Carolina. But with great strength comes great difficulty of schedule as you're expected to play against pretty good teams. Some of the toughest opponents include the national FULL Nov. 15 over in Tulsa with 12 ranked opponents, including some of the more mentionable ones. Number two Nebraska, number four Iowa State, number six Oklahoma State and number six Lehigh, number seven Lehigh. Also international FULL Ohio State.

29:30
Logan Brumley
We also visit them a couple weeks later. So Ohio State is a team that we could have probably faced twice and this is according to on3 breaking down the NC State schedule. So I'm going to jump over to January and February because there's at number 12 Stanford, home against number 20 UNC and then road trip for Cornell and at home for Virginia Tech in February. So a lot of tough teams to face, but a very strong team to face them. And that was kind of a brief review of them. I don't know if you're a huge wrestling fan or not, but there is a lot of reasons to become one with how good this NC State wrestling team is. But I figured we'd kind of do that little brief preview and that will be enough to conclude today's episode.

30:30
Logan Brumley
I hope you enjoyed the listen. In our next episode, we'll go over Notre Dame football, men's soccer, Clemson women's volleyball. Clemson, I think. I think it's Clemson. I'd have to double check. And we'll preview the women's gymnastics or women's basketballs for our fall break. I digress. Have a good day. Go pack.