NC State’s disappointing season epitomizes quandary of NIL-driven college football world

It could be argued that college football’s most recent offseason was the most exciting time to be an N.C. State football fan in a long, long time. The folks in charge of the Wolfpack’s NIL efforts asked for money. Fans obliged. The football team, in turn, attracted no shortage of marquee players out of the transfer portal and into Raleigh.

State landed Grayson McCall, one of the most desired transfer quarterbacks. It landed Noah Rogers, formerly a coveted prospect who first went to Ohio State. Jordan Waters, from Duke, got on board. So did Justin Joly, from Connecticut. The Wolfpack retained KC Concepcion and Ayden White, who undoubtedly would have commanded a lot of money elsewhere.

On paper, it looked like a very good team. Expectations soared. Dave Doeren, approaching his 12th season as State’s head coach, began to talk the talk. At the ACC’s annual preseason media days, State was picked to finish fourth — but among a jumble of four teams, including Florida State, Clemson and Miami, that was clearly expected to be in a tier above anyone else.

The Wolfpack’s season was already a disappointment before its 29-19 defeat against Duke on Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium, but at least there was the possibility of salvaging it (somewhat) with a strong finish. Now that hope, too, is gone. State will almost assuredly be the underdog in its two final games, against Georgia Tech and North Carolina.

And even a split of those, or an improbable sweep, would be of little consolation.

So where did it go wrong? Well, let’s start with this: It went wrong from the very beginning, in the first place, by basing those lofty expectations and hope on purported and alleged “success” in the transfer portal. Let this N.C. State season be a warning for fans everywhere: While recruiting the portal has become a necessity these days, the reality is that it comes with no guarantees. Far from it.

No one can be sure how a player who excelled elsewhere is going to perform in a new environment (and one, oftentimes, that could represent a step up in competition). No one can be sure whether a player who was once a heralded recruit out of high school will actually meet the expectations when he leaves one college campus for another.

And most of all: no one can be sure how all these new pieces will actually fit together — and whether they’ll form a cohesive team or prove only to be a mishmash, and parts of a puzzle that a coaching staff struggles to figure out how to assemble (sound familiar, State fans?).

With rare exceptions among the most stable programs at the very top of the sport, college football has become an exercise in one-offs. The notion of a “program,” for a lot schools, is antiquated. It’s all about cobbling together the best team, year-to-year, these days.

It’s maddening. It’s infuriating. It can be exhilarating, if the roster turnover and new arrivals come together in some sort of magical way — like has happened at Indiana this season and even at Miami, which wasn’t lacking for talent, anyway.

A lot of the time, though, it’s just going to be frustrating and confounding. And the worst part, for fans, is that NIL collectives are never going to be satisfied. Major college athletics are pro sports now but, unlike pro sports, there’s little accountability about how the money is spent and who gets what, for how long. In pro sports, it’s clear which under-performing players are overpaid. In college? It’s hard to know.

Yes, we know in college athletics (and especially in college football) that coaches are overpaid. We know that staffs are bloated beyond comprehension. We know that athletic directors and associate athletic directors and assistant associate athletic directors are all benefiting from the influx of that sweet, sweet television money that has bathed college sports in riches, for years and years.

But when it comes to players, who knows? People in charge of these collectives ask more and more and fans, bless them, keep on giving. It’s fair to wonder why. People who’ve grown wealthy enough to become major financial contributors in college sports aren’t dumb. They have to realize, especially by now, that there are much, much sounder investments than funding NIL payments to players who may or may pan out.

State is among the primary examples of that reality. How much money, for instance, did State raise last off-season for football NIL? To be sure, not as much as places like Georgia or Ohio State or Texas — but it was, presumably, still a pretty decent sum. And what, exactly, has been the payoff for the Wolfpack? It’s one thing to lose to Tennessee and Clemson, both of which have more resources and more invested fans (emotionally, maybe, but without question financially).

But losing at home to Syracuse? And Wake Forest? And Duke?

This isn’t a knock of any of those schools, but it’s safe to say State fans are more passionate about football than any of them. When it comes to NIL payments, we don’t know how much was raised, exactly, or how it was distributed. And maybe that’s OK, if and when the results are there. But the results haven’t been there for the Wolfpack this season.

The donations were there. The alleged “success” in recruiting the portal was there. The fans did their part, and the reward is a 5-5 record, with home losses to those aforementioned programs that did not enter the season with expectations anywhere close to those that surrounded State. Maybe those expectations were unfounded and maybe they weren’t.

What’s clear, though, is that fans will be asked, again, to pony up.

Why anyone would, after this season, is a mystery.

ONE BIG THING

The Wolfpack’s pain is Duke’s gain. There was a lot of woe-is-me surrounding State and its disappointed fans on Saturday but, remember, Wolfpackers: State just did beat Duke twice in that other sport last March, amid a pretty memorable run.

As for Duke football, Manny Diaz continues an excellent debut season. While State was picked to finish fourth in the preseason, Duke was picked to finish 11th. Instead, nine wins is within reach.

Three to like

1. Blue Devils find a way.

Duke gained just 31 yards rushing Saturday and didn’t convert a single one of its nine third downs ... and yet won, anyway. The lack of rushing yards and the 0-fer on third down would’ve been enough to doom a lot of teams. Not these Blue Devils, though, who’ve proven resilient and gritty, and who’ve set a nice foundation for Diaz to build upon.

2. ECU, coming alive.

Don’t look now but the Pirates are on a bit of a heater after that mid-season firing of Mike Houston. Is it connected? Well, yes. Seems so. ECU in its past two games has put up a combined 105 points, in a pair of lopsided victories. And no, Temple and Florida Atlantic aren’t exactly what anyone could call “good.” Still.

3. More Florida State pain.

This long, miserable Seminoles football season will never stop being hilarious. As a reminder: FSU last December sued the ACC in effort to get out of a conference that the Seminoles think they’re too good for. Since then, FSU has won a single game, lost nine and continues to suffer week after week of embarrassment. If only football games were decided by brand value, right FSU?

Three to ... not like as much

1. Wolfpack finds a way to lose.

The corollary to Duke finding a way to win is that State found a way to lose, despite shutting down Duke’s rushing offense and getting off the field on third down. The Wolfpack had two turnovers, which wasn’t great but wasn’t terrible. What is closer to terrible: State spent untold amounts of money upgrading its offense and it’s ... not particularly good, still.

2. A rough season in Boone.

While North Carolina’s four ACC teams have taken turns stumbling and disappointing and occasionally surprising (in a good way!) over the years, Appalachian State has remained a reliable beacon of consistency. The football has usually been good to very good in Boone. This season? Not so much. App suffered a 38-24 loss at Coastal Carolina last Thursday and that’s troubling — especially since Coastal isn’t really all that formidable, either.

3. Nothing to play for?

The state of North Carolina enters the final weeks of the regular season completely shut out of the expanded College Football Playoff race. There’s not a team here, either, that will factor into any conference race. What’s left to play for? Duke’s pursuit of nine wins? State and Carolina getting together to try to inflict more misery on whoever loses? It’s OK to say it: outside of Duke’s success, this season has been a dud.

Carolinas ranking

1. South Carolina (would the Gamecocks win the ACC if they were in it this year? Probably.); 2. Clemson (sneaky tough one for Tigers this week at Pitt); 3. Duke (first time beating State and UNC in same season since 2013); 4. North Carolina; 5. N.C. State (State in real danger of first losing season since 2019; 6. Wake Forest (a topic that deserves more attention: What does Wake want to be in this era? What can it be?); 7. Coastal Carolina; 8. ECU; 9. Appalachian State; 10. Charlotte.