Here we go again, and who knows again

As NC State fans, we don’t get this opportunity all that often—it’s irregular to hear any level of optimism about the football team outside of our own modest circles. Quiet confidence is a necessary attachment to this month, at least internally, y’know, within our own pool of like-minded friends who went to the spring game and saw some passes get completed and such.

It’s different this year; if you picture exposure as a circle imposed on a map, well, safe to say it extends not only beyond Raleigh but also well beyond the southeast, and that’s fine. That’s good. This is what we’re here for, this is what we hope can happen—team’s good, we all agree the team’s good, and people from around the country—impartial observers—agree the team is good.

Small validation, perhaps, but validation nonetheless. Now we are going to live another NC State football season as we would normally but we’ll do so knowing a lot more are watching, which is fun. It’s like we’ve all filed into the same theater we’ve always known, but the capacity has been increased a smidge.

It’s bracing and everybody’s nervous but hey man it’s the same old tailgate and at last check nobody’s altered the regulation size of the football.

I don’t know what the hell is going to happen on Saturday afternoon, though I have my suspicions. I like this team a lot. The way I figure it, for a program that doesn’t recruit regularly at an elite level, this culmination of talent and experience is the dream.

This might be the best football team NC State has had this century, but I don’t know, and there are doubts, and there is the last bit of lingering off-season non-reality that lends itself to too much thinking, and there is Saturday, when we will finally get a concrete answer or two.

It’s football season now, and so here we go again. If you could bottle this nervous energy and could give it a point you’d be on to something, but no one could see that far ahead, and certainly no one could name its contents.

That’s what we’re here for, though. Gonna see where it goes.