Is NC State Good?

What happens when we die? What lies outside the universe? Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? Is NC State good at football? These are the great mysteries of the universe. No scientists or researchers have been able to find concrete answers to these questions, and it’s unlikely they’ll be able to any time before Thursday. That doesn’t mean we can’t provide our own amateur theories though.

When the Pack took a 26-7 lead into the half against an overmatched pile of trash known as Syracuse, I was ready to officially declare that I believed this team was really good. What happened over the next 30 minutes was a direct assault on that belief.

So now, after an eight point win, we are five games into the season and still nobody is really sure what we got here. The Pack is 4-1 and is ranked for the first time since 2010. It has a win at Florida State, so yeah things look pretty good. But maybe Florida State, who should have lost to Wake Forest and fallen to 0-3, really isn’t very good. But maybe they are and Wake Forest is actually pretty good too. *Steam begins rising from my head*

This is a serious internal debate that I am not willing to wait until Thursday to resolve. I see a team that didn’t look particularly strong against Syracuse and South Carolina, both of which are decidedly not great teams. Both of those teams have offenses though that are bad matchups for State’s defense, so maybe it’s alright that they didn’t go exactly as planned. Especially South Carolina, when the Pack was missing a very important man on the offensive line.

Winning in Tallahassee definitely means something though, even if that team isn’t on the same level as it was the past few years (maybe it still can be though). That’s still a huge win for the program. Is it a sign that something is different this year? Or is it just regression to the mean with the result of one score games?

Anyways, I need to cut myself off here or I’ll just argue with myself inside this Word document for the rest of the day. Is State good?