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NC State sports podcast hosted by Griffin Cunningham, Stone Boylan and Patrick Simon of WKNC.
Griffin Cunningham 0:09
Welcome back to light. It read today we have, I wouldn't call it a depressing episode, but
football definitely is the anchor of our podcast, and it's getting to a point where it's just like kind of sad to talk about. Yeah, very bad. This is going on two years now, but we have some updates regarding the team stone, if you just want to start off with that.
Stone Boylan 0:32
Yeah, football, obviously, there have been we weren't able to post last week, but there's been three games since we last posted an episode, Tennessee, Louisiana Tech and Clemson, and a lot has happened for the main stuff. Two other smaller notes. Just to start with
our defensive end, one of our starting defensive ends, Red hibler, who kind of had a pretty good game in terms of his first two outings, is not even listed on the roster anymore. I've tried to look up why? Maybe it's academic. That's my guess. I don't think it's any sort of other issues, but maybe there is. But for some reason, he is currently just not even listed on the roster. And then our starting left tackle and probably our best offensive lineman, Anthony Belton, is going to be benched next game versus Northern Illinois, which we'll quickly get into a little bit later, after he had an ejection versus the horrendous Clemson game, one of two just brutal performances versus orange teams that we had over the past few weeks, which was very bad, which you ended up going to one of them, the Tennessee game. You can talk about your experience there, because it wasn't Charlotte, wasn't it was anywhere else, yeah, like at Tennessee. Did we? Do we play Syracuse this year? Just, do we play Syracuse? I don't think we. Sure hope we don't. But because they Oh no, we do, yeah, we do play because they look pretty Yeah, our right, our record, or our roster, or record, our schedule, looks a little bit harder in some areas than it did at the beginning of the year, which kind of sucks.
Griffin Cunningham 2:04
We don't have to get into what Syracuse, I mean, Kyle McCord is a quarterback for Syracuse, and he's played Ohio State, so their team looking a little bit better than people expected. So that's probably going to be another, well, not, I'm going to say probably another elder in orange at home, luckily. But maybe it won't be. It's not a gimme.
Stone Boylan 2:21
Georgia Tech, they haven't been bad, um. Cal actually looks pretty good. We're at Cal so that, you know, but UNC, maybe we win because they lost the GMU 70 to 50 at the home sure did JMU. Those were like, simultaneously, yeah, on. I was like, Oh my gosh. Blowouts go heels. What a great game for them. The triangle suffering. Yeah, terrible.
Griffin Cunningham 2:44
Well, yeah, with the you got through the roster updates, did you want to talk about Yeah, Tennessee game first?
Stone Boylan 2:50
sure, yeah. Let's get into that, and then we can kind of flow, because we did have a, at least our projected starter for quarterback at the beginning of the season. He did play in that game, and I normally watch every game, especially with football. I do, that's how I try and know a lot of stuff, and with college, but I watched the first half and then didn't watch the second half, but you were at the game. So what was your experience like there, outside of just obviously us getting steamrolled by an SEC team, which I do think shows kind of the clear difference in the ACC and the SEC, unfortunately for us. But what was your experience like there?
Griffin Cunningham 3:29
Yeah, I agree with what you're saying about the SEC. It's just a different level of football.
First of all, Bank of America Stadium, the entrance, from the parking deck to the stadium was really confusing.
If you're listening, Bank of America Stadium.
Stone Boylan 3:45
Take notes. Tepper changed the worst owner in the entire world. He needs to start with the entrances. I think they are doing, or trying to do a renovation in the future, but they said it last year. They were like, we want to do a renovation because we want to have better experiences. The first thing they said was concerts. That was the first thing they brought up. Not the football team that they don't give a crap about. It was the concerts that they're really focused on over there, at PNC, which or not PNC, at Bank of America, PNC, PNC anymore, right? Yeah, Lenovo wouldn't even talk about that yet. But, yeah, it's not. I mean, it's not. There's really not much to talk. Yeah, that's the story. The neighborhood's changed.
Griffin Cunningham 4:24
So, yeah, I went to that game. It was very boring. It was very boring. It's hard to even remember every detail from that game. All I know is that, like the not all I know. But the biggest takeaway, I would say, from that game is that Nico
Elia lava dude, something like that. He's very young, though, but he looks like a stud. He's very good. He's a freshman quarterback for Tennessee, and he is in the Heisman conversation right now. So Tennessee, I believe, is ranked fifth, fifth, yeah. So climbed a little bit. They are a very.
Good team, and we are not so much. So, yeah, that was a blowout.
Not really. Much else to say about that. Stayed the night in Charlotte over there, all for that nice my hotel. Well, the Tennessee football team stayed in my hotel. Oh, yeah, that's right, which was kind of funny. Did you, like, walk up to them or anything? No, their bus got there, like, really late, because obviously I had to stay back and do interviews and stuff, so they got there late, and the only they weren't loud or anything, I didn't I didn't even see any players. They were all on the bus. So yeah, fun experience to go to Charlotte, not a fun experience watching the game.
I did go back to Charlotte the following weekend to watch the Panthers home opener. Also, I did, yeah, Panthers versus Chargers last week and last weekend. Yeah, little over a week ago,
and that was the last game Bryce Young will ever play as a certain quarterback. Yeah. So, a lot of losing in Charlotte for North Carolina.
Stone Boylan 6:00
You know, it's funny, just not getting off topic, but for that game on my own podcast that I do, I that was, like the biggest point was because I watched the whole game and I was telling people like, Bryce young just sucks right now, like he's just, like, the offensive line is good, the weapons are fine, like the coach is there, like he's just bad. And then I'm like, they'll be at least a little bit better with Dalton, but then dude throws 303
touchdowns and like, Wow, maybe we actually are a competent organization, yeah. But still, didn't take the fact that you mentioned Bank of America, just that the whole thing just encompasses how horrendous the ownership is, and hopefully they don't move the team out of there, because that would really suck. Like, I feel like the egg and the Hornets are the same thing, yeah, for basketball. So Charlotte, you know, to get it together, NC State was there, but maybe they'll move it to Raleigh, maybe, which Raleigh, like we had mentioned earlier, with the new Lenovo center, they have some plans coming up in the future. Look awesome. And if you've seen that in front it's the whole brickyard in front of Lenovo. But also, like, in between part of Finley and and looks like a really cool way area that we can go to. They're putting apartments in there, though, yeah, which is weird, really weird. But the like, I know the bottom area will have just a bunch of, like, Hangouts, stuff, shops and all that. So we can go there when we're 30 years old together, because it'll be done in 2030 probably, or 2032 I know it's gonna start after this season. Yeah, so it'll take a minute, but should be cool. But that was NC State's trip and Griffin's trip to Charlotte. Yeah. Engine a lot there, yeah. So you went to the Tennessee game, and then I went to the Louisiana Tech game. A little bit different, but I still didn't come away feeling great at all. And we that was the game where we had the biggest kind of change in terms of the football team and that quarterback
in that game. I can't remember exactly when it was, but it was sometime in the first half,
towards the end of the first half, Grayson McCall got hit. He was running a good amount, probably a little too much for kind of his profile, and he got hit and just didn't come back in. They didn't say what it was, but it looked like a concussion, and it turned out to be a concussion, as that was what kept him out for the rest of the year, last year, when he was at Coast to Carolina, that was his seizing, ending injury. So that was a little scary. But did the offense you saw? It was a concussion. It kind of looks like it, because it was saying, like, okay, maybe it's some kind of just pulled thing that we just can't see, but it didn't look like it was anything that, you know, but you said there's no official statement. No, there was after, but, like, it was a few days after, okay, like, right after the game, he didn't tell us anything. Dave was like, I'm not talking about it. I'm not saying anything. We didn't, you know, we'll go whatever. But everyone upstairs was like, just assuming it was concussion, because that was what he suffered last time. And the hit, it didn't look like it could be anything else aside from that. So that's that did end up being what it was. I don't know how major it is. They like rumored that he was gonna maybe play next game, but most likely not. So I guess it's not like tua level was gonna concussion point. Because I think I mean in 2024 and with concussions and concussion history, I think usually people err on the side of caution.
Griffin Cunningham 9:19
Yeah, so like your chances of having brain damage after having one concussion goes up, like, exponentially. Yeah, so I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't play again. Concussions are
Stone Boylan 9:31
for the whole season? Yeah, wow. I mean, those are just really serious.
I mean, people are calling for tua to retire. They are, which he's not. Apparently, he's, like, guaranteed, he said he's not going to maybe next time. I don't know, but it's just, it's a dangerous thing to play. I don't that sport with brain injury. You're right. I just don't know this is I just, I wish I had more. I just don't know the severity or what I would assume he'd play again first state, but I don't think he would definitely play next game. I think that's definitely.
Notre Dame, yeah, so I was gonna get it.
Griffin Cunningham 15:03
We can get into that now.
We didn't really talk about the stats from the Clemson game, and it's hard.
Stone Boylan 15:09
I stopped watching after the first quarter. First half Tennessee game. I stopped watching at the first quarter because I'm like, There's I don't need to see anything, and there's nothing I need to see more.
They scored, I think, four touchdowns in the first quarter. Yeah, insane. Yeah, I turned it off as well. They were perfect. Actually, I don't even need, I saw people's, you know, my mom was even like, Hey, you guys scored 35 I'm like, Yeah, against Clemson's, like, true freshman bums, you know, that they put, you know, like they set everyone, like Cade Klubnik, Nick looked amazing or deep. I think the biggest disappointment was the defense, the offense. I kind of expected it's, you know, true for two freshman quarterbacks first start. You know, hey, it's gonna be a little tough, but the defense was horrendous. They were terrible. Yeah, I was looking at some stats just from the season as a whole this year.
I think so. So
Griffin Cunningham 38:24
They have several players scoring the ball too. They have Healy and karimoko with four and three goals. The office just looks really good. Yeah, I'd say karimoko would be the one that I looked at the most in terms of a player that you had to point out. But they don't. They don't really seem like this superstar studded, like, we this guy's gonna carry us kind of thing. Like, they do seem more like a team, which I honestly prefer. Um, it might be harder to follow for fans and stuff, because there's so many people, but for the team itself, I think that's just better when you have just a lot of good people. Yeah, I agree, yeah. And their defense is solid too. Um, they've only given up seven goals this season through the what is eight games? I mean, only giving up. I mean, sounds weird, but only giving up. I know we didn't score, but only giving up two goals to UNC, like UNC can beat people seven, nothing so, or five, nothing. So, that's a pretty good sign, at least relatively. If you want to put it in perspective against against how good of a team we just played, only losing oh two at UNC, you know, yeah, I think the only thing that they could do better is just converting on more scoring opportunities, which is, you know, almost redundant to say, because that's how you win, yeah, soccer. And then they also have a lot of fouls that they've committed. They're at 85 so far, which is a little hot. I didn't have a ton of cow. I don't remember too many. Yeah, probably on the road, maybe five through eight games. Yeah, that's a lot. There's a lot. But the players have complimented the new system. That's good, that Mark Hubbard's put them in. So yeah, I like him. He's cool. Long as the players are happy, the coach is happy, usually you're gonna win games. Yeah? Realistic.
For example,
Stone Boylan 10:00
The new quarterback, which, who stepped in, which was CJ Bailey, who is a true freshman, and he my biggest thing after the Louisiana Tech game, which, what happened was we were down 17 to six at the half to at home to Louisiana Tech horrendous. The game I was like, we might actually lose, is so bad, then they turned it around with a collective effort defense, run game, and then spreading the ball around offensively. And if you were an NC State fan last year, obviously this was, this sounds very familiar, because it was a very similar scenario. A transfer quarterback comes in, gets injured, Ben slash, benched, or whatever. This one was injured, but grace and McCall, obviously the offense wasn't look wasn't looking great when he was in the first few games, you know, Tennessee. I don't even want to think about because that I already knew that was going to be a blowout. I didn't think it'd be that much. It was a little, you know, 40, whatever points. I thought it'd be like 21 or something, but double that. But even the first half of Louisiana Tech game. They were still trying to figure stuff out. And so then he comes out. And I think a lot of people obviously see that we come back and win and all that stuff. And I'm like, Oh God, here comes the stuff. Because last year that was the case with MJ Morris. MJ Morris comes in and, you know, the biggest thing in the whole campus being posted everywhere. And I just was not for it. If you watch the games, I was like, this is just not, like, we're not winning because of him, like, this is kind of why we're winning. But with CJ, I kind of actually like more, a little bit more definitely, I know it's weird because he's lost, you know, obviously the last game, the first game that he started, whereas MJ Morris had that kind of few game stretch of, you know, a little bit of wins and stuff. But CJ, I just like his demeanor way more. I think he can throw farther down the field with better accuracy. He's more athletic, which is good.
Griffin Cunningham 11:57
He's six foot seven. Yeah,
Stone Boylan 11:58
he's, he's more, I definitely like the build and the potential of him more than MJ, even if it might be weird, because you remember MJ Morris having these big wins or whatever, quote, unquote, but objectively, I think Grayson still gives us the best chance to win football games. CJ is the first true freshman to start at quarterback for NC State since Philip Rivers, but Philip Rivers was a giant prospect, and so this CJ is just not. He's definitely raw, for sure. But if he's this year wasn't supposed to be, let's develop the raw quarterback year like that. It doesn't it's not going to happen overnight, and they got so many offensive transfers to try and compete this year, and I think I'm just insanely disappointed at how they've looked so far. But let's assume CJ starts the next game, maybe Grayson comes back that, or maybe even after that. I think from what we've seen so far, I do still have hope that he could be better. Just because he's a transfer, he's having to play against, you know, he's having to learn a new playbook everyone around him. He's playing with his brand new and he has to play against kind of more consistent defenses with the ACC compared to what he had at Coastal Carolina. So while it's been super disappointing. He's not been, objectively, just straight up bad, like, he's been fine. But I do like the I like that we're seeing CJ, and people aren't worried about what he's going to be. I just don't, I don't want people saying that he needs to be the starter for the next four years. Like that. He's like, he needs to sit if anything, like, just, I like that. We've seen him here, have him do it. He got, I think that Louisiana Tech game really amped him up, and he was just, like, super hyped for it. And hopefully that means he's committed to the team. But I totally would want to see him against NIU. I think that'd be good as well. Because, like you said, concussions are real, and Grayson probably needs to if you you'd have, you'd rather have him sit another week than come back a week early if they're saying, Hey, he's fine here. So I think that's, that's fine. I know we have this. I don't know, I can't remember his name, but I know we have that other quarterback that is coming in, and he just like, had some kind of record for touchdowns or whatever, yards, and he's committed to NC State. He's from North Carolina. I can't remember his name, but I saw a clip of him after the game saying, like, Wolfpack Nation. I'm coming, like, next year, blah, blah, blah, you know. And everyone all the comments, like, the first time I saw it, we're like, No, we have CJ. Like, he's there. And then after the Clemson game, they were like, Oh yeah, man, we need, you know. So they change their mind all the time, but you know, for the future, at least one of them will be cool. But for right now, I feel like Grayson's the best, and I just hope he's there. But again, NIU is our next game, which they should not be taken lightly either, because if
Griffin Cunningham 15:58
So we've been outscored 151 to 113 this season. Geez, we're also losing the turnover battle. Opponents have 31 points off turnovers to our 20. And then also our offense has been outmatched. We have less rushing yards and less passing ours in our opponents as well. So nothing's really clicking yet. I think the defense I mean this. I don't think this is a hot take at this point. I think the defense is worse than the offense for the first time, they're missing. I mean, for the longest time we had elite linebackers on this team, which
Stone Boylan 16:34
Caden Fordham's been good. He's not elite. He's not Peyton ready. That's
Griffin Cunningham 16:38
what I'm saying. It's like pain. Well, we
Stone Boylan 16:39
have to be fair, they've had, I think, I don't know if it was last game or the game before, I think was the LA Tech game that started it. They've had a lot of secondary issues, like to the secondary Aiden white, Devon Boykin, Brandon sissy. I forget he says name, but I'm not, yeah, I think one of those, but all of them are starting corners slash safeties, and they've all been injured. And I don't know if I think only one or two of them played in the Clemson game, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that they've just been terrible. And I think when you have that kind of stuff, like you just need other guys to step up, but they can't afford to really just, like last year, lean on the defense, because they don't have that kind of superstar player. That was Peyton Wilson. I mean, I don't think people understand he was literally the best player in college football. And defense, that's not even, like, that's not even, we're not even being biased in saying that. No, you're Jay awards are there? Literally, it shows for itself. And we won a lot of those games because of the defense, not because of the offense, or MJ Morris, it was the defense in Casey, that was that was it. And now we got more weapons on offense, which is good, but the defense, yeah, like you said, it's just not playing up the snuff. And I think they really need to have some kind of reset against NIU, because NIU, like, you know, they beat Notre Dame. I think it was more of Notre Dame sucking than NIU playing pretty well. Didn't really seem like that was kind of the didn't seem like NIU was a world beater. But their defenses looks pretty good. I think their top 15 in terms of total defense in the country so far. And, you know, you could say, hey, that's good lower competition. It's like, well, they literally beat, you know, Notre Dame, who's a ranked team. So, so, yeah, Notre
Griffin Cunningham 18:25
Dame was ranked, I believe, number five in the country when that happened. I'm not sure what the bias of Notre Dame is with the selection committee all the time, because I'm pretty sure they're still ranked. I'm not. I need confirmation.
Stone Boylan 18:40
Are they ranked like in the region of the college football playoff, which would be in the top 12? Like I'd be shocked if they still were.
Griffin Cunningham 18:47
I think they're, I don't think they're top 12. They are in the top 25 I believe, though
Stone Boylan 18:52
they're 16. Yeah, they play Louisville, ironically, who's looking like, sneakily, the second best ACC team, because Miami is, by far and away the best ACC team after the Florida State horrendous collapse, which they lost again to Memphis. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this wasn't last week. This is two weeks ago, and it was the third loss. I was like, holy cow. They're really that bad. I think they just barely won their last game. I don't even know who was against Florida State. Yeah, yeah, they
Griffin Cunningham 19:19
no clue. I forget who they beat SMU. Maybe
Stone Boylan 19:22
I don't know. I think they play SMU next. I have no clue. But yeah, Notre Dame beat Texas, A and M after that loss, and now they play Louisville, which will be interesting, because they definitely look like Louisville is what I we've thought and wanted NC State to be right now, that's kind of what it looks like. Because I'm not really surprised of a record, like, I could easily be like, yeah, we're two and two here, because we have losses to Tennessee and Clemson, but they have the wins haven't looked good and the losses have looked worse. So that doesn't really give me a lot of hope. Of like, Hey, we're gonna beat Syracuse. We're gonna be I mean, even wake for Wake Forest. Is probably the worst or second worst ACC team right now. I mean, we have to beat them. I really want to see what we look like against ACC competition. That's not that like, that's on our level, sure, as in, they're not at the top, but they're not at the bottom, and we haven't gotten that yet. No, so ideally, you know, and I don't want to jump to conclusions, because last year they really like after that Duke game where we got pounded by Duke 34 three, MJ, Morris start. Yeah, they chained. They got it all together. And that's when we beat Miami and Clemson and Carolina. And those are all huge wins. Yeah, also lost to Louisville. Yeah, before, unfortunately, yeah, that was before, which was one of the worst games I've seen. And it was so annoying. I went to that game. It was such an annoying game.
Griffin Cunningham 20:47
How many what was the win loss record last year? Do you remember? I think we had nine wins, nine wins, five losses. Um,
it's still attainable. But no, no, yeah,
Stone Boylan 21:01
like 10 wins is, yeah, it was nine and four, nine and four, um, six and two in conference, 10 wins is, is technically, like, theoretically possible, but it just looks so bleak. I wouldn't bet on it. No, I wouldn't which beforehand I would, because the schedule looks easier. Turns out, which it still is not bad, but I see not.
Griffin Cunningham 21:22
I see those themes that we thought weren't going to be good ended up being like, medium difficulty, like the Georgia Tech or Syracuse. Well,
Stone Boylan 21:30
we look horrible. So that's why it's like, scary, like, yeah,
Griffin Cunningham 21:34
because the Georgia Tech isn't on the schedule. I'm
Stone Boylan 21:36
sorry. Georgia Tech is, it is, yeah, they're the second to last game. Georgia Tech cow and Syracuse, those are the three that I'm like, you know, these look a little better. And then NIU was literally ranked before. They just lost to Buffalo, but they were ranked 25 Imagine if, like, a ranked NIU team is coming into NC State like, I wonder what the odds of that like this? I wonder what the spread would be like. I'd be so confused and just wondering, like, how that game would look. And so that's why we could even treat it as that, because, you know, we could say, hey, this we don't want to end up like this team, but that's our next game. And then after that is Wake Forest at home. Both of these should be wins. Absolutely they need to be wins, and hopefully convincing, because the other wins have not been, I mean, trailing at halftime, I think, or trailing at any point, both to Western Carolina and Louisiana Tech, yeah, that's just unacceptable at home. It was bad.
Griffin Cunningham 22:31
It was definitely, I think that against so my game notes for Northern Illinois. I looked at this. I didn't watch the Notre Dame game. But I could see, based on the stats I just watched the fourth quarter, you could kind of tell what kind of team they are. They're kind of a defensive minded run the football type of team. So they do what we did last year, kind of like, I mean, yeah, right off the Concepcion, whatever. And they do it well. So I think that it is a winnable game. They're not gonna they're not a team that's gonna, like, win in a shootout or anything like that. You're just a well coached so it'll probably be a little boring, but it'll be boring. I think it'll two and one. I think
Stone Boylan 23:14
it'll be a good showing for for CJ, because it'll be like, Hey, this is a winnable game. I think Syracuse and Tennessee were, he didn't play Tennessee, but Syracuse was basically unwinnable off the get go. Like, no chance. And then la techie comes in the second half, and they do pull it away. But again, it wasn't because he went off or anything, but he played well. So this is kind of, I think, his first like, Hey, this is your real start. Like, this is a smaller school, but it's a good defense. And so let's see kind of what you look like here. And I think interesting
Griffin Cunningham 23:49
that you are focused because, like, I disagree with the fact that it's a CJ Bailey thing. I think it's really up to the running backs for this game to
Stone Boylan 23:59
win the game. Well, no, no. I mean, because we can run the ball pretty well, but I just don't think like we can really, I don't know, like we can pound it away, because the running backs are good, like they've looked at Jordan waters has been not great in the beginning, but has recently been like, okay, he's clearly our power back, and he can break off a run every once in a while, and then Hollywood smothers and Kendrick Raphael are just great changing pace back. So they're good. I'm just saying NIU is going to know we're going to do that. So we need to be using play action more in terms of, hey, like, what can CJ do? How? How far can we get the ball down? When can we take advantage when they have one high safety? Because they're going to be stacking, because we're going to be running a lot, because CJ is going to run a lot, because that's what we also need to be doing. It's almost going to be a slight throwback to, you know, close your ears, but the Brendan Armstrong offense that we had, you know, which technically won some games, but wasn't pretty. But CJ. Doesn't look as rattled, honestly, as Brennan did. Brennan kind of looked a little crazy in the pocket sometimes. And there's way more weapons, just way more like Jolie, obviously, Casey is still there, mentioned waters, Noah Rogers on the outside, like there's just way more weapons there. So we will probably grind a pound. But I mean, in terms of, like, when there's a chance to get the ball down the field, can you hit the guy and make that breakaway play that could win the game? Because NIU is not going to be putting up 30 on you, on your head, and they better not be putting on 30, or else we have a gigantic problem.
Griffin Cunningham 25:36
I agree. They against Notre Dame. They their quarterback only completed 10 passes. Yeah, they scored 16 points. It was more Notre Dame, less than 10 or passing yards, but they ran the ball down their throat. Yeah, they did 45 carries for 190
Stone Boylan 25:50
yards. And I mean, Notre Dame, you know, they've had, I mean, they've been rotating quarterbacks too, but they have Riley Leonard, who used to be at Duke, and was good at Duke. Maybe he's not playing it that well now with Notre Dame, but Notre Dame, obviously, they don't have a scrub team like they just don't. And so obviously, you know, some teams just win games they aren't supposed to. You know it happens, but, um, Wake Forest, I don't even talk about, should be a easy win. They're the worst ACC team, or one of right there with Virginia, but NIU is probably the biggest one. So if you want to go to a game, I say that that might be a pretty good one to go to, because it's a meaningful game, and it's one that we should ideally win.
Griffin Cunningham 26:27
I really hope they give the ball to Raphael more, yeah,
Stone Boylan 26:31
I loved him last year. He was great, and he's been i It's kind of like the, at least the Cowboys last year, like the Zeke Tony Pollard thing, where Zeke is more bad, that was a couple years ago. Yeah, it was, like, two years ago, where Zeke's more of, like the power back and running, and Tony Pollard, you know, takes advantage of, you know, they don't expect to run, and gets all the yards. And, like Tony Paul, she get every carry. It's like, well, Zeke leaves, Tony Pollard goes in, and he was fine, but he wasn't averaging the same stuff, because they have different, you know, looks, I think so Tony power is good, though he's good in Tennessee now, yeah, but the offensive line is a little bit better, and he does have another running back that actually helps. Last year with the Cowboys, like he was fine, but he wasn't what he was with Zeke, because he's not getting the same looks that Zeke is. And so I think Jordan waters is like our Zeke, because he just, if he's on the field, they know, okay, they're gonna at least there's a higher chance they're gonna try and run. And he's kind of a more of a pounder. And then Raphael can take advantage when there's kind of more of an open lane in the in the blocking, and just get right through. And then Hollywood has had some some breakaway carries as
Griffin Cunningham 27:42
well. Hey, you think? You think Phil Mafa is going to be in the NFL? Phil Mafa, yeah. He had seven carries for 107 yards in a touchdown before they benched him. Really? The Clemson running back?
Stone Boylan 27:55
I'd say, Yeah, probably. I mean, there's
Griffin Cunningham 27:58
no way the guy they had last year. Will Shipley got drafted? Yeah, they did eagles. So I wouldn't be shocked they
Stone Boylan 28:04
kind of pump out, which I'm I'm shocked they're doing this well after getting no transfers at all. So shout out to Dabo. I guess he actually is not, you know,
Griffin Cunningham 28:13
um, real quick for the NIU game. Keep your eyes on their running backs, antario Brown, not Antonio Brown. Antario Brown and Gavin Williams, they both had over 50 yards and over 15 carries against Notre Dame, yeah, well, so they, they that wasn't their most recent game, but that was their biggest game. Yeah,
Stone Boylan 28:31
hopefully, hopefully get the Deb. We'll see interested to see how they look there, and hopefully the defense shows some kind of semblance of anything, yep, so hopefully we improved
Griffin Cunningham 28:41
to three and two, yes, that's I do, and then maybe against Wake Forest four and two. Yeah, that'd be a good look for us. The ideal
Stone Boylan 28:46
record going in and the next episode will obviously get into the games coming up, which will be a little bit harder, so we'll see how we look from there. Um, then we can get into some other sports.
Griffin Cunningham 28:58
Yeah, I've got volleyball next. Yeah, that's go for it. Okay. So, yeah, we've been waiting to preview volleyball a little bit because their season just starts a little bit slower than rest of the sports. They are five and three. They're off to a slightly worse start than last year. Little bit. They did play number 12, Creighton early in the year, and then who's number six, I think now. So they got a little bit better, yeah. So that was a tough, tough, tough matchup, and they lost that. They also lost to Missouri. And then in their most recent matchup, they lost at home to Coastal Carolina. This
Stone Boylan 29:35
is the worst one at home close to Carolina, who's four and seven right now? Yeah. So
Griffin Cunningham 29:39
that's a bad one. Terrible. They lost that. They lost their set three to two. So it was close. Yeah, at least, but yeah. So we have our first ACC match up on Friday, the 27th against Virginia Tech Hokies at home. So go out to that one. Yeah, see that one's a big game. I. Um, I think that. I don't think it's too early to kind of sound the alarm with this team, even though they have three losses already non conference, just because they still have so many players from last year. That's why I think
Stone Boylan 30:16
this is just gonna be the same as last year. They're gonna have super high highs, as in, we beat a top five team last year in Louisville, and they're gonna have really low, lows where they lose a ton of games, or lose their teams they're not supposed to, and that's because they have a lot of the same people, you know, which is not bad. It's just that's kind of what the team looks like. Maybe they can get more consistent, but that's that's just kind of what it seems like already with the lost to close to Carolina. Yeah,
Griffin Cunningham 30:40
I think definitely the team goal was to run it back, just because they felt so like snubbed. Yeah. So we'll wait to see what happens with that, but I'm just gonna read off a couple names here that are still on the team that have been they're all either juniors or seniors, Madison Williams, Ava brazar, Naomi cabello, Sky Stokes, Courtney, Bryant, Martina, leoniak, Jay Allen and Amanda rice are all running. They basically get and that's their whole team, yeah. And from last year, like at least their best three to four players are all still, Oh, yeah. So yeah, rice and brazard are two top two. Yeah, for sure, they're leading in kills. Rice has 99 already in five or, I'm sorry, eight games, and brezard trails with 72 so they're already, you know, doing work, doing what they did last year. Did you have any notes on this? Or do you want me to just, no, yeah. I
Stone Boylan 31:34
just echo, yeah. A lot of my thing was just, you know, probably going to be similar, because last year, like we said, it was up and down, and seems like they'll be this year. But if you ever, you know, if you ever look in the schedule and see that we're playing a good team, like because the ACC is very good for, you know, volleyball and so, like a Stanford or or or Louisville, or Pitt, someone like that, maybe go out and try and support because you never know what could happen. Because we literally had it happen last year. We happened to go to the wrong one. We went to Pitt last year. We should have went to Louisville. We went to the pit game after the Louisville game happened, so all eyes are on him. And you know, they were talking doing that, well, we're talking big after that. Yeah, they were like, Yeah, we're gonna beat Pitt and then we're gonna beat Miami. Wasn't the idea. I
Griffin Cunningham 32:20
think they lost to Pitt in Miami. So, I mean, it's not that sweet out there for volleyball in the ACC, but they're good. They're good. They're good in a team for sure to win. And, you know, make a run at something. Yeah, right now, they're outscoring their opponents per set about 17 to 14, so the differential isn't super high. Obviously, the record reflects that five and three. So they probably need to work on that. Clean some things up. Brazard has a pretty high error rate right now. That needs to come down, and then Jada Allen and Courtney Bryant could be a little bit more consistent on offense to support rice and brezhard, we also have cabello kind of struggling on offense. She has a negative hitting percentage, which isn't super typical. I mean, she She's more of a defensive assist player. She leads a team in assists, so she's having an okay season, but obviously you don't want that negative hitting percentage. Stokes also has a negative hitting percentage, and isn't starting this year, which I thought was interesting. She started last year. So I actually, I need to go to a game and check out kind of what the situation is. Yeah, obviously the stats aren't going to
Stone Boylan 33:34
tell the full story. But Well, ACC, like we said, starting up soon, so there'll be at least a good amount of of good games to go to, because, like we said, ACC is very hard for volleyball. But yeah, I agree. I think we're a good team. Anything can happen, but, you know, I think it's similar. Probably expect some good highs, and hopefully we can capitalize on those. But you know, the lows kind of seem to be showing already. Hopefully we can just try and post it. A lot of
Griffin Cunningham 33:59
it makes me mad. Yeah, that was not great, yeah. Well, let's, uh, sorry, did I get you? No, no, yeah, no, yeah. So let's shift to something a little bit more positive. Our men's soccer team is good, yes, which is actually the first time that I've been able to say that as a student here, which
Stone Boylan 34:14
total shout out to the coach. I mean, it's his first year in there. I mean, obviously some just ride a high a little bit and then come back down. But either way, I mean coming in already, and they look very good and and, you know, I think they kind of echo that, because the, like we said, I mean, I went to the Cal game and everything they, they, it was their first ACC game. They beat cow. It was like a last second or not last second, but kind of like towards the end of the game, they got the game winning goal and everything. And then one of the first games I covered last year with you was a soccer game, and the two coaches are, like, totally different. They're like, night and day. Like, the first coach, we asked him about a game, he's like, you know, talking about just caring about the players and this and that, where this coach is like, you're gonna be lucky. You get a good quote, like, he's super straight to the point, like business, you know, which sometimes you just kind of need, especially if you're not winning, like you just, you kind of prefer that. And so now that they're turning it around, I think total shout out to him. There are five, one and two on the year, five wins, one loss, two ties. The only loss is to UNC, who's ranked number six. So it's not like it's a bad loss or anything, but they're ranked. They're number 18 as of today, but it's probably going to change within the next day or two, because those rankings, I think, change like on Wednesday or something like that. So we're recording this on Tuesday, they maybe will be even higher. Maybe say the same, I don't know, probably similar.
Griffin Cunningham 35:40
I don't think it's, I mean, I don't assume they'll drop a whole lot just because they did lose to a top, I mean, five, top six, like they're fine,
Stone Boylan 35:52
but, yeah, they've just been pretty good. I mean, I again, credit to the coach. He brought a few transfers in, but the team is a little bit, a good amount different, I would say, from last year's obviously a new coach is going to do that, but haven't had any bad losses. Have won the games they're supposed to. They did have a few ties that it would have liked to maybe be wins, but, you know, they're not losses on the stat sheet, so at the end of the day, doesn't really matter, but their next three games are going to be at home versus Duke, which is an ideal win, but it's going to get a little tougher. We are at number one, Stanford, who's number one in men's soccer, and then at number 13, Virginia Tech. So two really important ACC you know, road games versus very good teams, which coming away with one would be super cool, but maybe losing, if they have to lose, at least by a goal in both, I'd feel a little bit better, just because I don't want to expect, like, oh, we beat Cal at Home. Let's beat Stanford. Like, that's just not realistic. But just seeing something will be cool, because the team so far looks looks pretty solid, looks pretty solid there, and they're ranked. So I think Virginia Tech might be the big one to keep your eye on, because we're probably relatively similar to them. Yeah,
Griffin Cunningham 37:14
just a couple of players and stats to look at. This is the first time that they've been ranked since 2019 Wow, they were unbeaten through the first seven games. So that lost the UNC their most recent game was their first loss of the season. This was the first time that they went on that large of a winning streak since 2012 a seven game streak, unbeaten through seven games. Wow, first time since 2012 12 years. Yeah, they're averaging two goals over two goals per game. That's good. Yeah, that's a pretty high scoring output for soccer. They've taken 116 shots this season. They're beating their opponents 48 to 28 in attempts for corner kicks. So their scoring opportunities are through the roof a lot, and they're reducing the amount that their opponent's getting. That 48 to 28 differential is huge. I mean, that
Stone Boylan 38:12
just seems to be pretty clear. Just coaching change like that's kind of, if that's his emphasis, clearly change so opportunities, the score is the biggest. That's probably why they have so many shots on goal.
Griffin Cunningham 40:00
Seems like he has good demeanor. So hopefully men's continues. But you know who's not off to the same start? Oh, wait, hold on, hold on. Oh, what? What's up? I was scared. No, I had a quick I had a quick note about the so we're playing Duke on Friday. Yes, for men, Duke lost the Grand Canyon this season. You know who coaches Grand Canyon? I
Stone Boylan 40:18
believe our former head coach got the job there. Yes, and
Griffin Cunningham 40:22
that was in Kerry earlier. It was late August, so I just thought that was funny. Wow, we, we didn't even clock that until after it happened.
Stone Boylan 40:30
No, I didn't check that. I didn't check Duke's recent schedule. I know they obviously weren't, aren't great this year in soccer or whatever, but yeah, that's funny. Our old head coach got the job at or went to Grand Canyon, and looks like he came back, came back to town, and be dude, yeah, and be Duke. That's cool. He can do it. We better. I mean, Keefer might
Griffin Cunningham 40:50
have the scattering report on Duke, yeah, maybe he knows all the ACC you got. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, you're good. Go ahead. And that's a funny little I totally forgot about that. Yeah, women's soccer, yeah, they're just not, not the same, just not the same, which, last year both soccer's weren't great, but I know women's was maybe just a little they were they were both bad. Yeah, they were both real. It was kind
Stone Boylan 41:13
of hard to really see which one was gonna be better. Maybe women's was a tiny bit, but not by much, but they men's turned around, women's is, unfortunately not. They've lost four of their last five. The only win was a four. Oh, victory versus George Washington, which they're nothing. Basically, they're owing to an ACC play so far versus Cal and you know, number one Stanford. Their Stanford. Number Stanford is number one in both men and women's soccer. So pretty crazy. But, you know, hey, number one team, I get it, but the rest of their schedule is going to be ACC. Opponents. Try to look into a few stuff. It just doesn't seem like a great year right now. I mean, you want to know their last in the ACC and goals scored this season with 12. So might not be overreacting to say they might be the worst, unfortunately, right now, the worst team in the ACC. Maybe that's just matchups they're playing, or maybe they're a better defensive team, which, I mean, they still let up I think 15 or so goals, which, you know is like, not at the bottom, but still kind of closer to the middle in the ACC so it's not like they're playing crazy defense and their offense hasn't done much. So Women's Soccer has not looked great this year. And one thing I would like to know that I can look up while you talk or something is the head coach. Because when you have stuff like this, obviously you kind of look at, okay, where, what state is the program in right now. Did they have ups downs, like, where are they? And if you've had consecutive years of obviously not doing great, you're obviously gonna look at the coach. So I am kind of concerned and interested about when he was hired, what his feelings is, or what the, you know, organization's feelings are towards him and everything. And because it's not looks great so far.
Griffin Cunningham 42:58
Yeah. So I mean, before your time, and even before my time, they were good. So historically, Tim Santoro has a pretty good track record, so I think it's just kind of an instance of rebuild. Last year was, I think the expectation was high, and then it just kind of fell off. And now this year, the expectation was low, and they're kind of at that level right now, very much. So I think, I think, give it a little bit more time, they definitely, they had a moment earlier this season, last time we recorded, I think, where they actually were ranked 25 because they were women's, yeah, yeah, because they scored, they were scoring goals in bulk, huh?
Annika wohner, she leads the team with four goals. Those four goals, it was two per game in back to back games, and that was their last win, besides the George Washington win. So yeah, she hasn't scored in like five games. Their leading score hasn't scored a goal in five games. Jeez. So that's not great. They definitely have some consistency issues. You said that they've scored 12 goals this season. That's what I saw from ACC I saw 14. Maybe that's wrong, either whatever,
Stone Boylan 44:25
either way, for how many games they've played, yeah,
Griffin Cunningham 44:29
they're out scoring their opponents. But the only reason that stat is there is because, like I said, George Washington, they're scoring game in bulk. I think they beat VCU, like, what? Five to nothing, yeah, they're
Stone Boylan 44:41
beating teams. That's nine nothing versus two teams, you know, and that's two wins, so, yeah, kind of a misleading stat, obviously, but at least they're beating teams, I guess that they technically should, like, really, really should, but they're not just, I mean, they're three and six. Like, yeah, it's the worst, right? Good in the ACC so far, it's,
Griffin Cunningham 45:01
I mean, yeah, that makes them look pretty bad. I need to double check what their record was last year, because it wasn't much better, if at all, in
Stone Boylan 45:10
terms of win percentage. Yeah, probably wasn't similar. So
Griffin Cunningham 45:13
which defense is not really supporting their goalkeeper either? Which had to make this
Stone Boylan 45:19
is, this is Tim Santoro, 13th season at NC State. And I know the past few years at least, have been the, you know, quote, unquote, rebuild year. So I don't you know not. We're not trying to suggest anything. It's just from our whole time here, they haven't really been, well, I've
Griffin Cunningham 45:45
been here three years in here, two years. Yeah, was anything, yeah, they weren't. They weren't good before you got here. Like, how good? Like, good enough to the to the point where it wasn't, like, any, there weren't any questions, questions.
Stone Boylan 46:00
So I don't know. I just don't know how long of a period he's gone up and down for. I really know, because this looks worse, honestly, than than last year, in terms of, they won't really last in a ton of stuff, but now they kind of are. So that's I would give it's kind of unsettling. Yeah, that's fine.
Griffin Cunningham 46:18
It's been the coach there for over a decade. I would, I trust in him that he would, you know, figure out a way to make it work. 2021
Stone Boylan 46:29
they were nine and nine and made to the second round. So, yeah, I'd say that's, that's kind of there. And then 2020 obviously got canceled after that, but they were five, three and one, so maybe they would have done something there. And then they did have a little bit of a stretch of going in the tournament with double digit wins. But his first few years, his first three years, he had seven wins, two wins and four wins. So seems like he just tried to build something from there, after that, and maybe after, I think maybe that covid year kind of changed a little bit, and it's kind of been on a downtick ever since,
Griffin Cunningham 47:16
probably, I think it's, it's worth noting, and this is like, kind of in the realm of of what our podcast is about, but this is a much bigger topic, or deal is the way that the NCAA is changing those sports and the recruiting process and the amount of scholarships that those Yeah, can have or don't have to Have, the funds are going to other sportswear. Yeah, so that is going to change a lot of things, and I wonder kind of what his experiences with that. But yeah, that that also needs to be taken into account, because those lawsuits against the NCAA are pending and and things are not going to be the same once those are finalized. Yeah,
Stone Boylan 48:04
last year, by the way, I didn't mention we were three, nine and six. It was the most ties he's ever had, which 2022 was also six ties, which was also, you know, obviously tied for the most he's ever had. So seems like 2022 they just ended up kind of winning more tied games. And then this last year, they kind of just lost way more time. So
Griffin Cunningham 48:28
tying more games or, I mean, like when winning more tide, I
Stone Boylan 48:32
mean, like they went seven, seven and six in your year, and then three, nine and six. So ideally, they had similar amount of tie games, but there were probably a lot of them that just went their way in 2022 leading to an even record, and a lot that went the opposite way, leading to kind of an abysmal record of three, nine and six, which, right now, I think what we do have three wins technically. So yeah, if we don't win a single ACC game, which is not realistic, but I guess could happen then it would be technically the same season, which would be back to which would be his worst winning percentage in a two year span. So that wouldn't be ideal, but I you know, I do think you're right. I think he's obviously shown ability to succeed. That doesn't mean that coaches who have succeeded before, will always do that. We've seen so many times. It doesn't happen, but hopefully they can pick it back up, because it's not been great right now. Yeah,
Griffin Cunningham 49:27
I don't think, I don't think you're wrong at all for looking at it from that perspective and seeing the past two I mean, you've been here for two years, and you see that play over two years, and I don't think you're wrong at all for, like, calling for maybe some sort of reassessment of his job. That's just kind of the way it goes. I
Stone Boylan 49:47
mean, yeah, I don't want to do that necessarily, because looking at it, he did. You know, it wasn't that long ago. It was 2021 where they won a tournament game. Yeah. So would you see the tournament? It's. You think tournament, it's not like basketball. It's a little different. But he's been to the round of 16 three times. That's the farthest he's gone which they've had double digit win season. They had a four year span of double digit win seasons from 2016 to 2019 so there's been success. It's just we're probably in the dip period right now. I would only really realistically say to look at that if next year we're looking at the same thing, because it'd be three years in a row, along with 2022 that you know was they're making it, but not winning anything after that. So if it's another year like that, I'd say, you could say that, but I do, I agree. I think, you know, we could just give it time and and see what happens. But not looking great right now.
Griffin Cunningham 50:44
I don't know if my my mic picked it up before we started talking about Tim, but I said goalkeeper for tapas has had to make 37 saves through 10 games. So for women, yeah, not ideal, yeah. So dang defense. Need to step up a little bit too. And
Stone Boylan 50:58
then that's basically all I got. Last thing we can just get into quickly is cross country. They obviously were amazing, and cross country won multiple titles in a row. But most recently, they had the Adidas XC challenge, which Yeah, for cross country, that's what XC stands for. Oh, really, yeah. Oh, I didn't know. Oh, yeah, I guess time. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Well, the women, it was women and men that were there. The women were first, of course, and the men got second. So looks like we're still good there. The next major Invitational for them is on October 4. It's gonna be hosted by Loyola Chicago. So they're gonna head up to Illinois and probably win that one too, because they look just as good as they've always been. So at least we have that. Yeah.
Griffin Cunningham 51:45
So, yeah, what they do is they split the team, and they do they used to do neticom. They're not doing that this year. That's not, it's not on the schedule. They replaced it with the Shawna or Loyola lakefront Invitational, and then the other half of the team, the lower tier runners, go to ECU for the power Invitational, which is on the same day. So Friday, October 4, is a big day for cross country. Yeah, a couple or you mentioned that they the men play second, and the women place first. So I was looking at that, and I was confused, because we had the top two finishers in the men's cross country race. We had Brett Gardner and Toby galter, one and two, but didn't win as a team.
Stone Boylan 52:31
I know it's collective, right? Maybe it was, was that bad I did was third, fourth, fifth and sixth, all from the same school. Maybe,
Griffin Cunningham 52:40
probably I didn't. I didn't look that closely into it, obviously, because we've talked a lot about a lot of things, yeah, I just, I thought that that was unfortunate for you to finish an unlucky scoring Yeah, well, then the women win the whole thing, and their top finisher was fifth. So really, yeah, fifth. Okay, that's an
Stone Boylan 52:58
11th where their top four. So that's probably what happened with the men. Then, I guess, well, I
Griffin Cunningham 53:03
don't think they had anyone finished inside the top 10 besides the first two. So, yeah, so that's probably why I haven't watched enough cross country races in my lifetime. To me neither to break that's kind of I feel like we should fix that scoring, though. I think they need to kind of value the weight of it, literally one, yeah, I'm not sure I know that. It says I got 51 points the men did, and that place second, and the women got 34 points, but that was in a first Yeah, so I think maybe the combination might be a little bit more watered down. Probably there was more people or whatever. Yeah, the Adidas cross country challenge, it's in Cary every year. It's the first cross country race of the season for NC State. And typically, NC State cross country rolls out its younger runners, yeah, instead of its more experienced, more I guess you could undoing air quotes. Important runners, yeah, just because you have to kind of keep your legs fresh for them. More important races like the ACC championship, yeah, NCAA championships, which is obviously a strategy that's worked for us, because our women's cross country team, insane, has won three national championships in a row. So on that note, we could probably wrap it
Stone Boylan 54:09
up something positive, because it hasn't been for some of these sports.
Griffin Cunningham 54:14
We've got two sports that are cooking something. Yeah, we'll keep an eye on them. Maybe volleyball, not sure yet. All right, well, this has been lighter red. Thanks for listening guys. Music In this podcast was Jonas hippers, king of sports and vibe and sneaky, licensed under creative commons from the Free Music Archive. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai