NC/ACC Week One College Football Preview:

TCU-UNC, ECU-NC State, App State-Charlotte
Among Most Intriguing In-State Throwdowns
(DG’s “This Week In CFB” YouTube Show = below)

By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Aug. 27, 2025)

The 2025 college football season will ramp up this Thursday through Monday with an intriguing Week One schedule, including head-to-head clashes matching four of North Carolina’s seven Football Bowl Subdivision programs and a Labor Day affair that will highlight new UNC head coach Bill Belichick in a truly exclusive gridiron television window.

Meanwhile, the most prominent games nationally include three that will pair teams from this year’s preseason top 10: #1 Texas at #3 Ohio State (Sat., noon, FOX), #9 LSU at #4 Clemson (Sat., 7:30 p.m., ABC), and #6 Notre Dame at #10 Miami (Sun., 7:30 p.m., ABC).

From the in-state schedule here in the Old North State, here are more details from this week’s “Three To See” selections:

In-State “Three To See,” Game One

East Carolina (0-0) at NC State (0-0), Thurs., 7 p.m. (ACCN)
(An “Old North State Tailgate & Traveling Sports Circus” Game)

While college football fans in other parts of the country likely would assume that NC State (from a Power Four conference) has a dominant track record against ECU (from a Group of Six league), that simply hasn’t been the case for a long, long time.

In fact, going all the way back to 1981, these programs have played 22 contests in the last 44 years, with each side winning 11 times. That’s the opposite of lopsided; it’s truly as even as it gets.

The Pirates and the Wolfpack don’t play each other every year, obviously, but they rarely go more than three seasons between these matchups popping up on the teams’ nonconference schedules, and most — including fans of each school — like it that way.

The Wolfpack has won three of the past four matchups against ECU during the Dave Doeren era, but the Pirates have won four of the last seven in the series. including the antagonistic Military Bowl (under coach Blake Harrell) to end last season. The Pirates also have won nine of the last 16 in the rivalry overall, going back to 1987.

NC State does appear to have a slight talent advantage this season, although each team is capable of riding the arm of the guy who rose into the starting QB role midway through last season, sophomore CJ Bailey at State and redshirt junior Katin Hauser at ECU.

It’s important to remember that the #1 star of ECU’s bowl victory, running back Rahjai Harris, is off to the professional ranks, and the Pirates also (like the Wolfpack) lost a handful of high-end starters to Power Four schools in the transfer portal.

The biggest personnel advantage in this game, in theory, is the Wolfpack’s front seven on defense, an area where ECU doesn’t have nearly as much proven talent. NC State has returning starters Brandon Cleveland and Travali Price up front, plus returning starters Sean Brown and Caden Fordham (now healthy) at linebacker.

The pressure will be on new Wolfpack offensive coordinator Kurt Roper (the Wolfpack’s QB coach last season) to get the most out of Bailey and for new defensive coordinator DJ Eliot to get the most out of that Wolfpack defense, which lost respected coordinator Tony Gibson (now the head coach at Marshall) and four accomplished defensive backs (to Big Ten/SEC teams via the transfer portal) from last year’s unit.

For ECU (a 13-point underdog) to win, the game likely will have to turn on big plays and turnovers that go the Pirates’ way. For NC State to win, things probably will have to start with the Wolfpack’s defensive front setting a nasty tone against the Pirates’ unproven offensive line and getting the crowd involved early at Carter-Finley Stadium on Thursday night.

In-State “Three To See,” Game Two

Appalachian State (0-0) vs. Charlotte (0-0), Fri., 7 p.m. (ESPNU)
(“Duke’s Mayo Kickoff Classic,” Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte)

This is a fun way for two of North Carolina’s seven FBS programs to have a rare get-together.

In just their fourth all-time meeting, and as both schools introduce new head coaches, the Mountaineers and the 49ers will play in a huge NFL stadium (home of the Carolina Panthers) while getting some Friday night national TV exposure on ESPNU.

As one might guess, with Charlotte having only one winning season in its relatively brief FBS history and App State rarely having a losing campaign at any level over the past half-century, the Mountaineers won all three previous matchups against the 49ers, and they’re a six-point favorite to win again this time.

This contest matches first-year App State head coach Dowell Loggains, who has an extensive NFL background as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator and spent the past four years with Arkansas and South Carolina in the Southeastern Conference, and first-year Charlotte head coach Tim Albin, who’s coming off three straight 10-win seasons as the top guy at Ohio University, in the Mid-American Conference. Albin’s background is as an offensive guy, too.

There are higher hopes for App State in the Sun Belt Conference this season than there are for Charlotte in the American Conference, although neither the Mountaineers nor the 49ers were picked to be among the favorites in their respective leagues in the preseason polls.

One huge key in this matchup — and to both teams’ seasons, really — is which squad, if any, can find a productive, reliable quarterback.

With two-year starter Joey Aguilar now at Tennessee, App State has LSU transfer AJ Swann, Iowa State transfer JJ Kohl and other QB candidates in the mix, with Swann — a part-time starter at Vanderbilt in 2022 and 2023 — expected to get the opening nod. Charlotte has had UNC transfer Connor Harrell, Duke transfer Grayson Loftis and former Southern Miss starter Zach Wilcke (a junior college signee) as its QB candidates, with Harrell — a highly erratic performer for the Tar Heels — recently getting the 49ers’ QB1 label, after Albin had trotted out all three guys for media interviews and kept his public comments close to the vest.

Whatever unfolds in those quarterback derbies, App State is expected to have the slightly more talented depth chart overall, although both the Mountaineers and the 49ers lost five or six of their best players in the transfer portal in the midst of their coaching changes.

Both teams also hit the incoming transfer portal hard, although most of their Power Four signees were backups or redshirts at their previous schools. It probably won’t take long on Friday night to see which staff found more immediate-impact players in the portal, because the answer to that question probably will be the winner of the game, too.

In-State “Three To See,” Game Three

TCU (0-0) at UNC (0-0), Mon., 8 p.m. (ESPN)
(An “Old North State Tailgate & Traveling Sports Circus” Game)

The top storyline of this matchup, obviously, is the college debut of 73-year-old coaching legend Bill Belichick after his nearly 50 years in the National Football League, a stunning run that included eight Super Bowl championships, six of those when he was the New England Patriots’ head coach and the other two when he was an elite defensive coordinator.

Maybe the quirkiest Fun Fact of this entire game is that, while most college football analysts (correctly) will tell you how difficult it is to make a huge first-year splash as a head coach, especially if you inherited a losing team (as Belichick did), Belichick’s head coaching opponent in this opener, TCU’s Sonny Dykes, did exactly that in 2022.

Early in this transfer portal era, Dykes inherited a losing (5-7) team from long-time TCU coach Gary Patterson, then immediately went 13-2 and played in the national championship game during Dykes’ magical first season as the head coach of the Horned Frogs. Yes, that actually happened — TCU in the national title game, although the Frogs got absolutely squished there — and it was only three years ago.

While some Carolina fans are predicting big things — maybe not quite that big — for this year’s Tar Heels, and it’s true that UNC has a mostly manageable schedule this season, it’s also easy to be skeptical of this group’s ability to have a truly special campaign.

The main reason for that skepticism in Year One under Belichick, who appears to be recruiting well for future seasons, is that the Heels just don’t have many players who have proven themselves as difference-makers at the Power Four level. In fact, in projections for the 2026 NFL draft, only one Carolina player — cornerback Thaddeus Dixon, a transfer from Washington — is considered a likely draft pick.

Among other possible red flags, UNC also lost its best player (running back Omarion Hampton) to an early NFL entry, plus a few NFL prospects to the transfer portal. Meanwhile, the Tar Heels’ quarterback depth chart has one older player (sixth-year senior Max Johnson) who’s coming off a career-threatening leg injury and one younger player (South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez) who didn’t arrive in Chapel Hill until after spring practice and thus didn’t put on an official UNC uniform until about four weeks ago.

TCU, while not a juggernaut, went 9-4 last season and has several high-end building blocks back in the fold, including at quarterback, where Josh Hoover is entering his third season as Dykes’ starter after throwing for almost 4,000 yards (a TCU record) and 27 touchdowns last season.

The Horned Frogs also have three starters on the offensive line back, a big-time wide receiver in fifth-year senior Eric McAlister and five starters returning on defense, led by sixth-year senior safety Bud Clark.

Could Carolina win this game? Sure. But the Tar Heels appear to have less high-end talent than TCU right now, and they obviously have far less familiarity with each another (players and coaches). TCU might be one of the better opponents UNC faces all season, so there are a lot of valid reasons the Horned Frogs are a three-point favorite in this game, even as the road team.