The following is the ninth in a series of articles that will preview the coming Georgia Tech football season, which begins Aug. 24 against Florida State in Dublin. In the series, we will examine several of the “Most important” things to watch as the Yellow Jackets’ season approaches. Today: Most important ACC matchup.
Since Dave Doeren took over in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2013, all the Wolfpack has done is win.
North Carolina State has had only two losing seasons in Doeren’s tenure, his first season more than a decade ago and the anomaly of the 2019 campaign when his team went 4-8. N.C. State has won at least eight games seven times under Doeren, and it has won nine games four times.
“We’re one of five programs over the last four years that have won eight or more games. We’ve sustained a level of competitive greatness that not many people have been able to do,” Doeren said this summer at the ACC Football Kickoff media days. “With that being said, we want to win a championship. So different is that. It’s taking the program from the second most wins since 2020 to winning the league. That is different.
“What we did last year and the year before and the year before is good. Winning nine games is good. We don’t want to be good, we want to be the best at what we do. These guys understand that.”
State is coming off a 9-4 season in which it finished third in the ACC standings and qualified for a fourth consecutive bowl trip. This year’s squad was predicted to finish fourth in the league’s preseason poll.
The Pack comes to Atlanta on Nov. 21. That’s a Thursday night game at Bobby Dodd Stadium and the home and ACC finale for the Yellow Jackets. If Tech wants to continue to climb the ACC mountain, knocking off N.C. State at home in what could be a raucous atmosphere would be a huge step for the program.
For all the talk about Tech’s opener against defending ACC champ Florida State, or its visits to Louisville, Virginia Tech and North Carolina, none may have bigger implications for Tech’s postseason hopes or for its position on the league table than the matchup with the Wolfpack, a team with plans of its own to make a run at the ACC title game.
“You’re always looking for signs of improvement and signs where, ‘We need to call this up, talk about this, we’re better than this.’ Just holding each other accountable to what we want. We want to be elite,” Doeren said. “That means everything that we do, can’t cut corners. It’s going to be something that we push forward together.”
The Nov. 21 meeting will be only the third between Tech and N.C. State since 2015 and just the fifth since 2007. The programs previously met every season from 1983-2006.
About the Author
