Doeren vows fixes as NC State preps for Richmond after 34-8 loss
Dave Doeren called the opener personal after Virginia's Beau Pribula shredded his defense, and the Wolfpack now have 13 days to fix the line of scrimmage before Richmond visits Carter-Finley.
Doeren: 'There's a lot to be improved' after the opener
There is no dressing up a 34-8 final that was 24-0 by halftime. Virginia's Beau Pribula, making his Cavaliers debut after transferring by way of Penn State and Missouri, went 9-for-11 for 155 yards and 2 touchdowns while adding 110 yards on the ground — Chris Vannini noted that worked out to 21 yards per pass attempt. CJ Bailey's third season as the starter opened just as rough: 12-for-23 for a career-low 84 yards with an interception and a lost fumble in the red zone, and Virginia out-gained the Pack 413 yards to 168.
Virginia8-34Doeren did not soften it afterward. "That was personal that we weren't ready," he told reporters, adding "as a head coach, I always take it personal how we play, and that's on me," per PackInsider's postgame notes. He narrowed the fixes to three things: NC State lost the line of scrimmage on both sides, lost the turnover battle, and got neither the accuracy from Bailey nor the separation from his receivers the offense needs.
"There's a lot to be improved," Doeren told his team, with 13 days to work on it before Richmond visits Carter-Finley on September 11 — and a reminder that Virginia lost to this same NC State team a year ago and still finished with 11 wins, so one bad half in Charlottesville does not have to be the whole story.
Two transfers who actually showed up in Charlottesville
Buried in the score were two newcomers worth remembering. Inside linebacker Popo Aguirre, a Miami transfer who played in last season's national championship game, led everybody on the field with 18 tackles — the most by a Wolfpack player since Peyton Wilson's 19 against Duke in 2020, per 247Sports. Outside linebacker Harvey Dyson III, in from Tulane after an 11.5-tackle-for-loss, 8-sack season that earned him third-team All-Conference honors, combined with sophomore LaCorian Hodge on the Pack's lone sack of the day.
Neither performance moved the scoreboard against Pribula's attack, and it is a small consolation next to a front seven that lost most of its snap-count experience over the offseason. But it is the thread a fan actually wants out of a loss like this — not the final, but who you build around next — and Aguirre and Dyson are the two names that answered that question.
Walking with the Wolves: a well-traveled safety finding his footing
PackFootball's own account spent Wednesday on a feature titled "Walking With The Wolves: King Mack," worth a look given the timing. Mack was a top-100 national recruit out of St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida — the 86th-ranked player and No. 6 safety in the 2023 class, per On3 — who started at Penn State, spent a year at Alabama, then came back to Happy Valley before landing in Raleigh this offseason. He is coming off a career-best 2025 with 58 tackles, 3 pass breakups and an interception, and On3 describes him as working through a "wonderful" transition into a key role in NC State's secondary.
Walking With The Wolves: King Mack 🐺 #1Pack1Goal t.co/hDtiyvtcLL
That secondary is exactly where Virginia made its living, with Pribula picking apart a defense that also has almost no returning experience up front. Mack will not fix that alone, and nothing in his résumé is a guarantee against a Richmond quarterback who just threw for 3 touchdowns of his own. But a proven veteran settling into the back end is the kind of quiet development that matters more in week 2 than a highlight reel, and it is the piece of this week's timeline actually worth following.
Richmond comes to Raleigh looking for the upset it just proved it can pull off
Richmond is not a name-brand scare, but the Spiders are not walking in cold either. They opened 1-0 by beating Bucknell 35-14 on August 29 behind senior quarterback Ashten Snelsire, who threw for 3 touchdowns in that win, and they arrive at Carter-Finley on Friday, September 11 having already shown they can put points on a scoreboard against overmatched fronts — which is precisely the kind of defense NC State cannot afford to run out again.
The bigger question for that Friday night is who is standing on the field for the Pack. Running back J. Paylor is listed as questionable with a knee injury, per Covers' injury table, and it remains unresolved whether he will be active — worth watching given how little push NC State's offense found against Virginia. Two weeks removed from a nightmare opener, this is the kind of game a program is supposed to use to find itself again before Vanderbilt on September 19, and for a fan base still stinging from Charlottesville, just seeing the offense move the ball would count as progress.