Is this the best college football weekend the Triangle has seen in awhile?

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Order the free cup at El Domingo at El Domingo at El Domingo. JIT and off a bye week coming off a tough loss to Notre Dame. Carolina-Miami is a ranked matchup with an angry, frustrated, embarrassed Miami team, or at least Miami coaching staff. And Carolina still got lofty goals. And it's State, Duke.

It's a crazy weekend here. Yeah, I mean I think you could amp it up a little bit if State had performed better so far this year. If it were Florida State instead of Miami and it was sort of a preview of the potential ACC championship game. But yeah, I mean, you know, State and Duke, it's crazy to think about the last time State was at Duke was the Devon Edwards game.

Yes. Just wild to think about them being in the same conference. And then, you know, Miami obviously screwed it up at Georgia Tech. But this is still a huge game for UNC because Miami does have talent. And UNC's got to prove that they are among the elite in the ACC. I think they've shown that they're capable of that. I think they've put themselves in that position.

But now these are the games that you have to go out and win. And look, State's getting better. There certainly was some improvement last week. So, I mean, I think Duke's got something to prove, too, after the Notre Dame loss. So there's a lot going on here. It's a really good weekend.

There's no question about it. I think the fact that Duke and Carolina are, at this point, sort of on a collision course for the end of the year is pretty interesting. And State, I think, still has a chance to kind of get its act together and, you know, maybe play spoiler a little bit and maybe get to a bowl game that the Wolfpack didn't think they were capable of.

There were some signs of hope that that's a positive development. Well, I mean, State's foreign, too. They don't have to do a ton the rest of the way to get to make a bowl game. They only got to win twice.

And they could. They're obviously, they're only a three-point underdog at Wallace Wade Stadium. And I wonder how much of that is the impact of not having Riley Leonard. We don't know for a fact that we won't have Riley Leonard, but I think it's a safe assumption.

I know Mike Elko continues to say day to day, if I was going to guess, I would say we were going to see Henry Bielen IV. And it changes Duke's offense because Bielen is way more thrower than he is runner. He can run.

I mean, most young people can. So, but he is not the Riley Leonard. He doesn't have Riley Leonard legs, but State and Duke there. These are two of the best defensive teams in the country, which we'll see what MJ Morris can do against this defense. I know Marshall's got a good defense and they play FBS football, but I don't think it's the same level. No, and look, Duke has been the most physical defense in every game the Blue Devils have played. They were more physical than Clemson. They're more physical than Notre Dame, which has a very physical defense, is a very good defense. And they're more physical, certainly, than Northwestern, which has a reputation for being physical. I think we will see. But that's just in practice, by the way. I'm just kidding about Northwestern.

Gotcha. I do think we'll see because they've had the two weeks on the bye week to get to put some packages in place. I think we'll see Jordan Moore, who Riley Leonard beat out for the quarterback job a year ago. I think we'll see him in some packages and running situations. NC State, I think, should be ready for that.

It takes one of their best receivers off the field, but he is more mobile than Henry Bieland. I think that's something if Duke is smart that they'll do. And if State is smart, they'll prepare for. But Duke's defense is extremely physical. I think NC State's offense is really going to struggle with that part of it the same way that NC State struggled against Notre Dame.

The two defenses are actually really similar, especially with how physical they are in the secondary. That wasn't Marshall. That wasn't UConn. But it was Notre Dame. It will be Duke. And State's receivers, we know, just aren't very good. So they're going to have to find a way to get open against a Duke secondary that's done a really good job of keeping people hemmed in this year. I think Duke will do or try to do to NC State what they did to Clemson, which is stack the line of scrimmage and dare the receivers to beat them down the field. Duke's got a dynamite secondary, and they're also very good at the line of scrimmage. To North Carolina, I know what the stats say, and I know they have gotten better over the last few weeks and more explosive offensively.

But I feel like there's another level for them to get to. We haven't seen, we've seen, I think, very good Drake May. We have not seen, you know, potential first overall pick Heisman contender Drake May yet. And I think Tez Walker has the opportunity to help bring that out. Yeah, I mean, the Tez Walker we saw last week is not the Tez Walker that UNC was expecting in August, which is totally understandable given everything he'd been through and the need to sort of work him back into the system and into practice gently. But I think, you know, now that you've got Tez Walker out there, I think Nate McCollum has been really good.

The tight ends are really versatile. I think you do have a chance to see Drake May sort of take his game up another notch. Honestly, though, even with the way he's played, which has been good, I'm surprised that he isn't in the Heisman, the national Saturday morning Heisman conversation more. I'm actually really surprised at that with UNC being unbeaten with the season he had last year. Typically, the way this ecosystem functions is a guy like Drake May is going to be more a part of the conversation at this point in the season than he would normal, than he has been.

So this might be the game, you know, primetime Miami, just ask Miami how important they are when it comes to ratings. This might be the game where Drake May, you know, sort of crosses that Rubicon and starts to get the attention that he quite frankly has earned so far. And obviously, if his receivers continue to get better, and there aren't many teams that are going to add a guy like Tez Walker in week six, if his receivers continue to get better, obviously his ceiling continues to get higher. The reason, in my opinion, the reason why Drake May hasn't been part of it is because in the first couple of weeks there were, what, four interceptions in the first, I think, first two games or maybe the first three games of the season. There were some turnovers where we've had Shadore Sanders go bananas and maybe he's not a part of the conversation anymore, but there have been, Caleb Williams has been amazing. You've got Michael Penix at Washington, Bo Nix at Oregon. There have been so many great performances from teams who are also at this point unbeaten, although as we get further along in the season, they're going to knock each other off.

Oregon and Washington will take care of an unbeaten just between those two this weekend. All right, Luke, you were at the game on Wednesday night. The Hurricanes are the greatest hockey team ever assembled, correct?

I don't know about that. It's a pretty good start. There were some positive signs in there. The way Freddie Anderson rallied after giving up the third goal, I mean, I think he was really good before that and really good after that. Tehu Terravainen, forget about the goal. The way he played in the first period is the way that he has to play to be successful, the way the Hurricanes have to play to be successful. They need him to play like that. And Jordan Stahl, his quad is still overdue, but to score a goal like the one he did, stick handling into the slot. I mean, the Senators didn't put up a lot of opposition at that point to him, but it's still a play that over the past couple of years, he struggled to finish. And look, I may be in the minority in this.

I'm not sure I am. I think the Senators are a really, really good young team with terrible goaltending. They're basically the Hurricanes of 2019. And as long as they can, the Hurricanes can continue to put their boot on the neck of teams like this, they basically did to the Senators what teams did to them because they've gone through that. They've gone through that process. They've learned. They've gotten tougher. Everyone they brought in over the summer has a little edge to them in different ways. I mean, Dimitri Orlov's hip check.

Everyone's showing the one of Darlene from the other night. I'll take Orlov's, man. That is a much harder play, skating the same direction. And he sent that dude flying. I mean, that was an incredible play. And as I wrote, like Dimitri Orlov plays like leather. He's smooth and he's tough. And it's just it's to have that guy in your third pairing.

Just nobody ever has that. So I think, you know, as an opener, obviously there were some blips, some things that the Hurricanes would like back, especially that period, that time in the second period where they gave up the goals. But I think overall, when you look at starting the season, you know, to score five goals to play well and really to apply the hammer at the end is really what you wanted to see. I think Ottawa is going to be really good. I don't know if they're going to make the playoffs this year, but like Buffalo, that's a team that you can just see is right on the cusp. And to do what the Hurricanes did to them, I think is a pretty good way to start.

Yeah, I like Ottawa a lot. And they were missing two centers in that game, which definitely impacted their lineup. No Josh Norris, no Shane Pinto. Pinto, they have to figure out some sort of a contract with him. But Norris is a good player and has given Carolina some trouble as well.

But he's hurt. I do think that the Hurricanes got away with a sloppy game. The decision-making on their last couple of power plays was just woof. Just bad on power play five. I think it was five and six when they gave up the, you know, short-handed chance. They gave up a short-handed goal in one of the other ones, which was again, I think a bad decision on Orloff to just shoot the puck when he had no support behind him.

If you shoot it, you have to get it through and it didn't get through. Anyway, I loved everything about it. I thought Freddie's only mistake, but I also thought the shot was good from Stutzler coming down the left wing. It was a great shot. But yeah, if that's the only mistake, I thought Freddie saved the game maybe in the first period. The save on Kubelik right out in front. He got Drake Batherson at least twice, maybe three times during the game.

There were a lot of big saves from Freddie, so I thought there were tons of good signs. How do we not mention the brutality that is Seth Jarvis? Seven hits and he played a team-high 21-49 on the ice. He's a marauder, Luke.

Yeah, and as it turns out, has developed into a hell of a penalty killer, which I think his rookie year nobody would have seen coming. Pack Therapy is back! It's Tim Donnelly here with your neighbor's favorite Wolf Pack play caller, Mike Glennon. Every episode of Pack Therapy is your chance to get dialed in with inside information on your team. We'll set you up for every Wolf Pack game all season long. And we'll break down every contest, what went right and what could have worked better. Plus, special guests to keep Wolf Pack hopes alive. Follow Pack Therapy wherever you listen to podcasts or listen on WRALSportsFan.com.