What NC State Has to be Thankful For
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RALEIGH — With the Thanksgiving Holiday ongoing in the City of Oaks, the season has begun to shift and the fall sports season and winter sports seasons have bled into one another for NC State athletics. Both Wolfpack basketball programs and the football program have had fall seasons loaded with intrigue.
All of the programs have a lot to reflect on this time of year, as well. NC State players, coaches and fans alike will get the chance to enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday to the best of their ability on Thursday. What should everyone be thankful for?
Will Wade
While the perfect start to the season came to an end at the Southwest Maui Invitational, the energy around NC State men's basketball and first-year head coach Will Wade is the best it's been in years, outside of a brief window when Kevin Keatts led the Wolfpack to the Final Four in 2024.
Wade has injected life into a dormant giant of a program. NC State's championship banners from the days of Norm Sloan and Jim Valvano have been collecting dust for decades. While Wade has never made it beyond the Sweet 16, he has the tools to build a program for years to come in the Triangle and disrupt the ACC in a major way while he does it.
You have a football coach
The relationship between NC State fans and head coach Dave Doeren reached a high point in tension when the Wolfpack fell to 4-4 after a 3-0 start. Rumors of the 13-year veteran's potential retirement began to swirl before Doeren pridefully denied such thoughts. Since then? Doeren knocked off a team ranked in the top 10 in the nation and extended a winning streak over Florida State.
Numerous programs around the country, particularly in power conferences, made hasty decisions to move on from their head coaches and will now enter one of the most chaotic coaching carousels ever seen. You want to be an Ole Miss fan waiting to find it if Lane Kiffin is going to coach your program in its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance or bolt after the Egg Bowl?
Coaching carousel so far and I think we've hardly gotten started. pic.twitter.com/gjlQo5xmzv
— Kyle Sutherland (@k_sutherlandAR) November 26, 2025
While Doeren hasn't put the Wolfpack in a position for postseason glory outside of generic bowl trips, the program has never been steadier than under his watch. There's also the issue of where NC State would fall in terms of interest from candidates. Could the school do much better than Doeren? The grass isn't always greener...
It's rivalry week
A 6-5 record doesn't inspire much hope for the future of the program, but there is still one game that means more for NC State football. Just a couple of days after the Wolfpack finishes its turkey, it will take on the North Carolina Tar Heels in a battle for the state. Now there's an even larger wrinkle, with future NFL Hall of Fame head coach Bill Belichick patrolling the sidelines in blue.
The history is deep, but NC State has owned the Tar Heels in recent years. Doeren would love nothing more than to beat what he called the "baby blue" and extend his win streak over UNC to five games. Fans agree with that sentiment.
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Tucker Sennett graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Sports Journalism from the esteemed Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. A former basketball player, he has gained valuable experience working at Cronkite News and brings a deep passion for sports and reporting to his role as the NC State Wolfpack Beat Writer On SI.
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