College Football’s Week 14:
DG’s “Pick Six” Begins With NC State-UNC, Duke-Wake,
Also Includes App State, ECU, Division Two “Sweet 16”
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
Each week during college football season, we offer a “Pick Six” package of intriguing matchups — three “local” games that include one or more North Carolina-based team and three “national” contests that involve the Atlantic Coast Conference and/or the most prominent intersectional games.
Week 14: Top “Local” Games
Game Four
NC State (5-6) at North Carolina (6-5), Sat., 3:30 pm (ACCN)
Latest Betting Line: Tar Heels a three-point favorite
The Wolfpack and the Tar Heels will enter this matchup with both programs seemingly stuck in a state of mediocrity and with both fan bases experiencing rising frustration levels toward their head coaches, although that story took a major twist on Tuesday, when UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham announced that Hall of Fame coach Mack Brown will not return in 2025.
The Tar Heels were just embarrassed at Boston College to fall to a mediocre 6-5 record, and 12th-year NC State coach Dave Doeren — at 5-6 — will fall short of a postseason invitation for just the second time since his first campaign in Raleigh (2013) if the Wolfpack loses in Chapel Hill on Saturday.
(Side note: We’re bringing our Old North State Tailgate & Traveling Sports Circus to this game, as we always do, regardless of the teams’ records. One of our questions for members of both fan bases outside Kenan Stadium will be whom they see as the best head coaching fit for their programs moving forward.)
While UNC has had the better of this rivalry historically, NC State has had the better of it lately. Over the last 17 head-to-head matchups in this one, the Wolfpack has a dominant 12-5 record, and Doeren personally has a very solid 7-4 record against the Tar Heels.
Doeren even has won four of his five trips to Chapel Hill, which is actually one of the most impressive accomplishments on his entire NC State resume, along with taking the Pack to nine bowl invitations over the past 10 seasons and posting Top 25 campaigns in 2017, 2021 and just last year, in 2023.
Brown is actually the guy who swung this rivalry back in the Tar Heels’ favor in the 1990s, when after five straight State victories Carolina captured seven straight matchups from 1993-99. This time, though, Brown has lost three straight to the Pack, and if he loses Saturday it will be the second time in four years the Heels finish the regular season 6-6, which is basically the definition of mediocrity.
In terms of the Xs and Os, Carolina’s theoretical advantage is All-American running back Omarion Hampton (third nationally with 134 rushing yards per game) carrying the ball against an NC State defense that has given up more than 30 points per game this season.
Obviously, Wolfpack defensive coordinator Tony Gibson is likely to stack the box to prevent Hampton from running wild, which would challenge Carolina QB Jacolby Criswell — a fifth-year senior, but also a guy in his first year as a starter, after being the Heels’ third-stringer back in August — to make plays in the passing game.
Criswell played the best ball of his college career during the Tar Heels’ three-game winning streak against Virginia, Florida State and Wake Forest, but he was horrendous at BC last week.
On the flip side, there will be a lot of pressure on State’s true freshman QB, CJ Bailey, who looked great against Syracuse, Cal and Stanford but then had a lot of huge mistakes in the Pack’s losses to Duke and Georgia Tech.
The Tar Heels may be the slightly better team this year, but it’s up to them to channel their emotions properly — and minimize the big mistakes that often come with overflowing emotions — in what they now know will be the final game at Kenan Stadium in the Hall of Fame career of their legendary head coach.
Game Five
Duke (8-3) at Wake Forest (4-7), Sat., noon (ACCN)
Latest Betting Line: Blue Devils a four-point favorite
This is another rivalry matchup between two very similar programs.
Whereas NC State and UNC are two large, public universities and long-time rivals with modest levels of modern football success, Duke and Wake Forest are two much smaller, private universities and long-time rivals that both have had long, brutal stretches of incompetence on the gridiron.
The Blue Devils and Demon Deacons have higher academic standards, much smaller stadiums and much less recent gridiron success than most of the public universities in the ACC.
The football struggles at both Duke and Wake in the modern era actually underline the extremely rare nature of what coach Manny Diaz is trying to accomplish here in his first season with the Devils.
At 8-3, Duke still has a chance to finish with 10 wins for just the second time in the history of its program. Similarly, Wake has finished with 10 or more wins only twice in its history — in 2006, when the Deacons went 11-3 under coach Jim Grobe and won their only recent ACC title, and in 2021, when they went 11-3 and played in the ACC championship game under their current coach, Dave Clawson.
Although Wake Forest has had the better of this rivalry lately, with a 16-7 record since 2000, Duke has won two in a row against the Demon Deacons and is the slight favorite again this year, mainly because of its consistently strong defense. With playmakers on all three levels, the Blue Devils are up there alongside Clemson, SMU and Virginia Tech in a lot of the ACC’s defensive analytics, and they’re in the top five in the league in scoring defense, at only 23 points per game.
Wake has lost three games in a row, largely because of its leaky defense, which is giving up 33 points per game and ranks among the worst in the ACC.
It is Senior Day for the Demon Deacons, but they are only 1-5 in Winston-Salem this season and haven’t won in front of the home fans since their season opener against a bottom-tier FCS opponent, North Carolina A&T.
Both teams will try to get their star running backs going in this one — Demond Claiborne for Wake and Star Thomas for Duke — and the Deacs will need an advantage there if they’re going to spring an upset in their season finale.
Game Six
Appalachian State (5-5) at Georgia Southern (7-4), Sat., 6 pm (ESPN+)
Latest Betting Line: Eagles a two-point favorite
Fifth-year App State coach Shawn Clark deserves a lot of credit for leading the Mountaineers to a convincing 34-20 Senior Day victory over a James Madison team that entered last week’s game with an 8-2 record, and now he desperately needs another big win over another quality team.
His job could depend on it.
App has had only two non-winning seasons in the last 30 years, and Clark is already responsible for one of those. That happened just two years ago, when the Mountaineers finished 6-6 and missed the postseason because two of their victories were over Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) opponents.
It likely will be difficult for Clark to keep his job if his team finishes 5-6 and misses the postseason for the second time in three years, and it would certainly provide a huge lift if his team can beat a Georgia Southern program that has been the Mountaineers’ most hated rival over these last 30-plus years now — both when they were competing against each other in the Southern Conference (FCS) and during this past decade or so, as fellow members of the Sun Belt Conference (FBS).
The nickname for the App State-Georgia Southern rivalry is “Deeper Than Hate,” and there’s an extra layer of emotion this year, because the last thing Clark needs right now is the impression that the Mountaineers’ program has fallen behind that of the archrival Eagles.
Although Georgia Southern won six FCS national championships to App State’s three before the programs’ jumps to the FBS ranks, the pendulum has swung back in the Mountaineers’ favor over these past two decades. App State has gone 13-6 in the rivalry’s last 19 matchups, although it’s been an even split — five victories for each side — over the last 10 games played in Statesboro, where these teams will be playing on Saturday night.
It will be the Eagles’ Senior Night, and there’s still a chance Georgia Southern can make it to the Sun Belt championship game, so in all likelihood the Mountaineers are going to get their opponent’s best effort.
In its victory over JMU last week, App State somehow had zero turnovers and zero penalties while limiting the Dukes to only 20 points. That will be an extremely difficult formula to duplicate, especially given the Mountaineers’ season-long struggles on defense, so it likely will be up to quarterback Joey Aguilar and App’s offense to put up a big number, claim that sixth victory and extend the Mountaineers’ season, and perhaps Clark’s tenure in Boone along with it.
Week 14 Bonus Notes!
FBS: Congratulations to East Carolina head coach Blake Harrell, who this week had the “interim” tag removed from his title in Greenville. Previously the team’s defensive coordinator, Harrell led the Pirates to four straight victories after their 3-4 start and the midseason dismissal of sixth-year coach Mike Houston. When the Pirates (7-4) host Navy (7-3) on Friday (noon, ESPN) at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, they likely will be facing a much bigger challenge than anything provided by the four bottom-tier opponents (Temple, FAU, Tulsa, North Texas) they just beat. This one is basically a pick-‘em game, and ECU’s blossoming offense, now led by Michigan State quarterback transfer Katin Houser, is probably going to have to put up another big number if there’s going to be a Senior Day victory for the home team. During their 4-0 streak, the Pirates have averaged 46 points per game, and Navy has been better on offense than on defense this season, so there’s certainly a potential path to victory in this one for ECU.
Division Two: Coming off what was just the third playoff road win in Lenoir-Rhyne history, the Bears get to host their second-round (“Sweet 16”) game on Saturday (1 pm, ESPN+). They’re hosting, even as an unseeded team, because another unseeded team, Virginia Union, went to Lenoir-Rhyne’s rival, Wingate, last week and upset the nationally ranked Bulldogs on their home field. It was the first playoff victory in the history of Virginia Union football, and it came at the expense of a Wingate team that played some of the best defense in the Division Two ranks all season. Union has been by far the most prolific offense in the CIAA this season, as the Panthers have averaged about 42 points per game. They have the best running back in that league, Jada Byers, and they actually used two quarterbacks, Mark Wright and backup RJ Rosales, to upset Wingate. Lenoir-Rhyne, led by quarterback Jalen Ferguson on offense and tackle JT Black, linebacker Jaelin Willis and safety Nic Cheeley on defense, likely will have to be at its best on both sides of the ball to move on to the Division Two quarterfinals.
NOTE: For the complete Week 14 schedule (including television/streaming options) for all ACC and state of North Carolina teams, please click HERE.
