NC State fired Dave Doeren after 14 seasons, and Philip Rivers is the name everyone is talking about to replace him. Athletic director Boo Corrigan still hasn't taken a single question. So who made the call, why now, and is Rivers the right hire?

Greg was in the stands at Stanford on Friday night when NC State lost 31-28 in front of an announced crowd of 13,949. By Saturday night Doeren was gone. All four of us get into the timing, the silence from the top, the 2016 overtime loss at Clemson that could have changed everything, and what NC State needs in place before it hires anyone. Then it's Tweets of the Week and an hour on the coaching search: Charles Huff, Jason Eck, Jake Dickert, a hard no on Brian Kelly, and whether Philip Rivers is the smart move, the sexy move or both.

Who do you think made the call? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

NEXT UP
NC State hosts Cal at homecoming on Saturday, October 31 at noon on ACC Network.

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Ethan @ncstatestats

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

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New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
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Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

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NC State fired Dave Doeren after 14 seasons, and athletic director Boo Corrigan still hasn't taken a single question. So who actually made the call, and why now?

Greg was in the stands at Stanford on Friday night when NC State lost 31-28 in front of an announced crowd of 13,949. By Saturday night Doeren was gone. All four of us get into the timing, the silence from the top, the 2016 overtime loss at Clemson that could have changed everything, and what NC State needs in place before it hires anyone. Then it's Tweets of the Week and the coaching search.

Who do you think made the call? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

NEXT UP
NC State hosts Cal at homecoming on Saturday, October 31 at noon on ACC Network.

OCONEE GOLD
Barbecue sauces, rubs and seasonings, for the homecoming tailgate and every one after it.
https://oconeegoldbbqsauce.com
Code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your entire order. #ad

PATREON
Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

FOLLOW
@tuffytalknow
Greg @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan @ncstatestats

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
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Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
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Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

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NC State went 1-2 in Chris Hart's first fall, and Ethan still walked away liking this team.

Greg and Ethan go through all three exhibitions, including the 7-4 win over UNC at the DBAP. They cover the three stars at the top of the roster, Hunter Warren's new power, the catcher battle between Andrew Raymond and Drew Lanphere, Sam Harris' elite slider, and first looks at transfers Jesse Gutierrez, Chet Lax, Justice De Jong and Connor Chicoli.

Then they answer the big one: if the season started tomorrow, who pitches on the weekend behind Anderson Nance?

What's your weekend rotation? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

NEXT UP
NC State football is at Stanford on Friday, October 23 at 10:30 PM ET on ESPN.

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Barbecue sauces, rubs and seasonings, for every tailgate and every cookout.
https://oconeegoldbbqsauce.com
Code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your entire order. #ad

PATREON
Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

FOLLOW
@tuffytalknow
Greg @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan @ncstatestats

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk

Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow
Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

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Chuck Amato died Monday morning at 80, and we threw out the plan and spent the first part of the show on him.

He played here, won two ACC wrestling titles here, coached here as an assistant, and came home from Florida State to be our head coach. In 2001 his team went into Doak Campbell and beat Bobby Bowden. In 2002 he went 11-3 and beat Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, and it is still the only 11-win season NC State has ever had.

Greg makes the case that Carter-Finley as we know it might not exist without him, and I tell a story about my uncle, who drove the Big Bad Wolf equipment truck and had breakfast with Coach a couple of times a month for years.

Then the rest of the week: two more players lost for the season, Justin Gainey's first win, baseball beating Carolina, and Ethan on why NC State basketball should be playing VCU and whether he'd take Duke or the field.

What is your Chuck Amato memory? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

NEXT UP
NC State is at Stanford on Friday, October 23 at 10:30 PM ET on ESPN.

OCONEE GOLD
Barbecue sauces, rubs and seasonings. Greg is doing tri-tip two ways for the Cal tailgate.
https://oconeegoldbbqsauce.com
Code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your entire order. #ad

PATREON
Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

FOLLOW
@tuffytalknow
Greg @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan @ncstatestats

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk

Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow
Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Lila Manfredonia is the No. 8 overall recruit in the 2028 class, and she committed to NC State before she left Raleigh.

She came down for the Louisville weekend, went to the football game, and told the staff she was in. "I don't see myself anywhere else really."

We got seventeen minutes with her, and most of it is not about recruiting.

Her parents both played, her mom softball and her dad baseball, and that is where it started. She wears 32 because it was her dad's number at Akron. Her go-to pitch is a changeup and she will tell you flatly that it is her most dangerous one. She plays basketball at Independence High School, wherever her coach needs her, because it is a small school and that is how it works.

On Coach Leftwich, and why so many of these commitments seem to happen in Raleigh rather than on the drive home: "She's not gonna lie. She's gonna tell you the truth pretty much."

She also wants to study sports communication, which means she might be after our jobs.

Give her a follow.

FOLLOW LILA
X / Twitter: @LilaMan32
https://x.com/LilaMan32
Instagram: @lilamanfredonia32
https://www.instagram.com/lilamanfredonia32

PATREON
Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk

Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow
Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Wake Forest 38, NC State 14, and the thing nobody around this program has said out loud yet.

Somewhere in the middle of this one we land on the comparison that explains the whole season. Two people in a middle school relationship who have stopped talking to each other. Everybody in the school knows it is over. Nobody has gone to the other person and said it. Greg's version is worse and probably more accurate: the kids have moved out, it has been thirty years, and both of them are waiting for the other one to wake up and say they are done.

Ethan has nothing to say about the game itself. State got smoked. What he wants to talk about is a roster he does not believe is good enough, why NC State overpays its own guys and underuses the portal, and why Wake Forest, who just beat us with a quarterback making a fraction of what CJ Bailey makes, has it right.

The proof is not the loss. It is the adjustments. First three drives of the game: NC State 175 yards, Wake Forest 27. Next five drives: NC State 45, Wake Forest 360. And a head coach who walked straight to the tunnel instead of through the high five line with the fans.

We get into the Steven Godfrey report that Doeren is not going anywhere midseason but institutional changes are coming, what that means for Boo Corrigan, and why Thanksgiving is the real deadline. Ethan also explains why the Patreon episode he recorded on Saturday never came out.

Grinds My Gears is the student section, and Greg has two fixes for it.

What would you do first? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

PATREON
Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk

Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow
Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Tied 28-28 in the fourth quarter, Louisville breaks a 68-yard run and is walking into the end zone. Harvey Dyson III, a defensive end who rushed from the line of scrimmage on that snap, runs the back down and strips the ball out at the 13.

Dave Doeren called it "one of the best plays I've seen as a coach in my career."

NC State 31, Louisville 28. The first Power Four win of the season, and Layton, Greg and Ethan spend the hour on a win that actually looked like a team closing a game out instead of surviving one.

CJ Bailey went 24 of 40 for a career-high 373 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, and did it without JoJo Trader for most of the day, without Duke Scott, without Anthony McCrimmon and without Spike Sowells, behind his third different center of the season.

Popo Aguirre recovered all three fumbles the defense forced. That is a program record for a single game, it makes him the second player in the country since 2020 to do it, and he now leads the nation in fumble recoveries. The ACC named him Linebacker of the Week on Monday.

Ethan's Stat Pack lands on the number that decided it. Louisville had three red zone trips and scored seven points. NC State had six and scored 21. Louisville fumbled five times. In a three-point game, that is the whole margin.

Then the honest part. Wake Forest is 4-1, just beat Stanford 57-3, won at Louisville, and comes to Carter-Finley Saturday at noon as a 3.5-point favorite. Ethan takes Gio Lopez over CJ Bailey right now and explains exactly why, which is not a comfortable thing to say out loud two days after a win.

Also in here: why nobody on this panel cares about a blown 14-point lead against that offense, the 19 missed tackles, Preston Douglas at 19 catches on 22 targets, and the fans booing going into halftime while up 13-7.

Where do you have Saturday? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

PATREON
Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk #ACCFootball

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk

Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow
Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Jeff Brohm called his starting quarterback a game-time decision on Monday. Five days before kickoff.

That is not an injury update. Our read is that Louisville already knows Lincoln Kienholz is not playing Saturday, and the betting line agrees, because it has moved three and a half to four points toward NC State since the week started.

So this preview is built around the question that decides the game. If Louisville hands it to Davin Wydner, a senior who spent two years at West Georgia and has thrown four passes as a Cardinal, can NC State's defense make him beat them?

Ethan's answer is yes, with reservations. Louisville ranks 114th nationally in defensive success rate and 108th in EPA per play. They sit in the fourth percentile against explosive plays and the first percentile against explosive passes. Wake Forest beat them 30-27 last week by holding Isaac Brown and Keyjuan Brown to two yards a carry across 38 attempts and simply refusing to let anything get behind them.

The counter-argument is real, and it is Keyjuan Brown at 9.3 yards a carry against an NC State run defense that leads the ACC at 121.5 yards allowed. Whether that number is real or an artifact of playing Richmond and an App State team that could not run at all is the argument we spend the most time on.

Also in here: why Louisville keeping Isaac Brown while NC State lost Hollywood Smothers still stings, whether Duke Scott is only good when the matchup is easy, and the defensive line numbers that are genuinely hard to look at. Harvey Dyson leads the team with six pressures. The whole team has six sacks. Josiah Victor has not recorded one all season.

Layton has it 28-24 NC State. Ethan picked the upset and would not put a number on it.

Kickoff is 3:30 Saturday at Carter-Finley on ACC Network. Where do you have it? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow.

Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one.

PATREON
Ethan puts out 3 videos a week, 12 members-only breakdowns a month for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat.
https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

Send us Fan Mail

Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs

Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad

Support the show

New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one.

🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5:
👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk

Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen.

Follow us everywhere:
Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow
Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA
Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats

#NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk