COLUMN: NC State football not only lost — it quit

SOUTH BEND, IN — Redshirt sophomore receiver Noah Rogers left the field before the game was over. Not when the final whistle blew, and not once he’d shaken hands. With time still on the clock.

NC State football underwent a second-half dismantling against No. 16 Notre Dame, falling 36-7 after trailing by just three at halftime. The Wolfpack’s second-half drives included two punts, two turnover-on-downs, an interception and a safety. Saturday’s story wasn’t how NC State failed to execute — though it did — but it was how they shut down at halftime.

Head coach Dave Doeren, sophomore quarterback CJ Bailey and graduate linebacker Caden Fordham all reiterated postgame that there was nothing Notre Dame did that surprised them. Yet they still couldn’t play their football.

“We knew everything they were going to do,” Bailey said. “It’s hard knowing that we knew what they were going to do. We knew how they were going to play us, and they did it, and we just couldn’t execute. We killed ourselves the whole game.”

Outside of an 83-yard touchdown drive to open the second quarter, the Wolfpack totaled just 150 yards, including four drives that went for negative yards. Meanwhile, the Fighting Irish finished with 485, including 342 from true freshman quarterback CJ Carr.

When Notre Dame stretched its lead to 17-7 midway through the third quarter, the life vanished from NC State’s sideline. Players who’d been waving towels stood still, helmets in hand. Coaches barked orders the same way they had all season, but there was no urgency. No spark. No pulse. For a team that prides itself on being “Hard. Tough. Together.,” the fight disappeared before the fourth quarter began.

This wasn’t a matter of execution — it was conviction. The Wolfpack, as the team confirmed, looked like a group that knew exactly what to do and didn’t want it enough to do it.

For months — even dating back to early 2025 — rumors have circulated that this could be Doeren’s final season as he looks toward retirement. He hasn’t so much as hinted at the possibility, but Saturday felt like a team caught in limbo — still led by a coach it respects and even loves, but no longer inspired by a vision that once defined him. His postgame tone wasn’t angry or emotional, just tired.

It felt like the kind of exhaustion that comes not from effort, but erosion. I wrote before the season that Doeren’s program was built to last, not to rise. But Saturday in South Bend, it didn’t do either. Doeren’s voice, once the program’s anchor as its all-time wins leader, sounded less like leadership and more like fatigue in an ever-shifting landscape. In a way, you could say Doeren himself knows exactly what to do and can’t execute.

There’s a fine line between losing and surrendering. NC State crossed it. Bailey’s words, meant to explain, only underscored a deeper problem: this is a team without conviction.

Maybe Rogers walking off early was frustration — after all, he wasn’t even targeted all afternoon. Maybe it was an injury, emotion or something in between. But it symbolized something larger — a team that has already checked out. He wasn’t the only one who left early. Most of the Wolfpack did too, just not physically.

The bye week comes at a convenient time, but it won’t fix what’s wrong in Raleigh. Doeren touched on the fatigue of playing seven consecutive games and the need to “reset mentally and get the guys healthy,” but this team doesn’t need rest; it needs direction and a reason to keep fighting for a season — and a coach — that suddenly feels like it’s slipping away.

“I’m not in there trying to tell them what to do,” Doeren said. “They know what to do right now. They’re frustrated, and they should be because they feel it, and they feel like they’re better than they’re showing. We feel it as coaches, too.”