Across the board, Appalachian State football easily has been the top FBS team in North Carolina over the past decade.
The Mountaineers, which moved up from Division I FCS to FBS in 2014, have more overall wins, conference wins, conference championships and bowl victories than any of the other six FBS programs.
NC Football News continues its 10-Year Rewind by looking at App State’s sustained success, plus reviews where each of the state’s FBS programs stacked up from 2014-23.
Collectively speaking, it has been one of the better 10-year stretches in state college football history. Five programs — App State, NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest and Duke — posted more overall wins than losses. All seven schools have been to at least one bowl game, with five schools earning at least one post-season victory.
But again, in terms of straight numbers, Appalachian State stands head-and-shoulders above the rest of the pack when reviewing the past 10 years. Here’s our FBS statewide review:
1. Appalachian State Mountaineers
- 10-Year Overall Record: 95-35 (.731)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 63-17 (.788)
- Conference Championships: 4
- Bowl Record: 7-1
Recap: Few schools have made the transition from FCS to FBS as seamlessly as the Mountaineers. App State, which won three-straight FCS titles in the mid-2000s, became a full FBS member in 2014. The Mountaineers have won 73 percent of its games since then, including nearly 79 percent against Sun Belt Conference foes.
App State has felled Power 5 opponents like Texas A&M, North Carolina and South Carolina (and nearly beat Miami and Penn State on the road). They’ve hosted ESPN’s College GameDay. They’ve finished in the national rankings three times, including ending the 2019 season at 19th (AP)/18th (coaches). They’ve appeared in four of six Sun Belt title games since the league began hosting such an event in 2018. They’ve won seven of eight bowl games.
The 2023 Mountaineers were wobbly at the outset of the season but surged after a 3-4 start to win nine times, including another bowl victory and pinning the only regular season loss on James Madison (with ESPN’s GameDay on hand in Harrisonburg, Va.).
All this under the guidance of three different head coaches. Scott Satterfield’s teams won 11 games twice and 10 games once from 2014-18. Eliah Drinkwitz posted a 13-1 record and earned a Sun Belt title on his way to landing the Missouri job in 2019. Shawn Clark took over in 2020 and his teams have won nine games twice and 10 games once.
The landscape of college football has changed dramatically over the last decade and is still in major flux. But App State has weathered the changes well thus far.
With the playoff expanding to 12 teams this season, it could be argued that App State is best positioned to be the first North Carolina school to snag a berth. The Mountaineers return one of the top FBS quarterbacks in the nation in Joey Aguilar and should be in the thick of Sun Belt title talk once again.
2. NC State Wolfpack
- 10-Year Overall Record: 78-49 (.614)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 44-38 (.537)
- Conference Championships: 0
- Bowl Record: 3-5
Recap: Dave Doeren completed his 11th season as head coach in Raleigh. Like former coach Dick Sheridan, who passed away prior to the 2023 campaign, Doeren has been a model of consistency with the Wolfpack. Only the 2019 squad (4-8) has had a losing record over the past 10 seasons.
Doeren has enjoyed four nine-win seasons, three eight-win campaigns and a pair of seven-win records to his credit. NC State has made eight bowl appearances since 2014, missing the post-season only in 2019 and 2021.
The 2023 campaign may have been Doeren’s best. There was talk of his job security after a 24-3 humbling at Duke on Oct. 14 dropped the Pack to 3-4. But the resilient, hard-working, blue-collar group — sparked by All-America linebacker Payton Wilson, flashy wide receiver Kevin “KC” Concepcion and hard-nosed QB Brennan Armstrong — beat Clemson, Miami, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and North Carolina in order to close the season. The 39-20 win over the Tar Heels wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
Despite the consistency and stability within the program, there is a sense of unrealized expectations around NC State football. The program has lost its last four bowl games and has yet to make an appearance in the ACC title game. The Wolfpack seems to struggle when the lights are the brightest and hype is high coming into a season. By the same token, the Pack under Doeren also is a team never to be counted out and has a knack for overachieving when expectations are low.
NC State has loaded up in the transfer portal going into 2024. With the ACC moving away from divisional play, the Pack could have a more clear path to joining its men’s basketball mates in ending a long conference championship drought. State is legit to challenge for a CFP berth.
3. North Carolina Tar Heels
- 10-Year Overall Record: 68-60 (.531)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 43-39 (.524)
- Conference Championships: 0
- Bowl Record: 1-7
Recap: Larry Fedora coached the Tar Heels during the first five years of our decade-in-review. Mack Brown returned in 2019 and has led the program over the past five seasons. Both have gotten UNC to the ACC championship game, though Clemson derailed title hopes each time.
Fedora’s 2015 team provided the high-water mark in terms of wins and losses, posting an 11-3 overall record and going undefeated in the ACC in the regular season. But things seemed to go south for Fedora after the Russell Athletic Bowl Game loss that year, a contest in which Baylor (without a true quarterback in the lineup) bulldozed a hapless UNC defense for 756 total yards and 49 points.
Brown immediately leveled up the program upon his return. He’s 38-27 in his second stint in Chapel Hill. UNC has won at least seven games each year, and the Heels have made bowls all five seasons, including an Orange Bowl showing in 2020.
Yet, there is a cloud of disappointment hanging over the program after five years of Mack Brown 2.0. Fair or not, there is a sense that things could have been — should have been — so much better, especially considering the quality of quarterbacks (Sam Howell and Drake Maye) during this span. The defense has been uninspiring much of the time, and hot starts in 2022 and 2023 both gave way to late-season swoons and bowl losses.
The 2024 campaign will be a pivotal one for the Heels, who must replace Maye and contend with programs on the rise in both Raleigh and Durham.
4. Wake Forest Demon Deacons
- 10-Year Overall Record: 63-61 (.508)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 30-49 (.380)
- Conference Championships: 0
- Bowl Record: 5-2
Recap: Dave Clawson has coached Wake Forest during this entire stretch. Few coaches in the ACC do more with the talent given them than Clawson, who directed the Deacs to an 11-3 record in 2021 and a surprise appearance in the ACC championship game. That team climbed all the way to No. 10 in the AP rankings.
Wake Forest, which seemed to have perfected the “slow mesh” offense, won eight games in three other seasons and seven games twice. The Deacs went 5-2 in bowl games. Quarterback Sam Hartman became a household name.
But then the bottom fell out this past fall. With Hartman spending his final year of eligibility at Notre Dame, the Deacs fell to 4-8. They only won once more after beating their first three foes — Elon, Vanderbilt and Old Dominion. Things ended on a five-game losing skid.
Clawson became emotional and introspective with the media after a lackluster 26-6 loss to NC State on Nov. 11.
“I take these losses hard. I’m responsible for it,” Clawson said. “There are no fingers. I’ve done a bad job this year. I think I just took some things in our program for granted. We’ve had a good run for seven years. And I thought some of those things would carry over on offense and program-wise.”
Injuries didn’t help. Wake never found an answer at quarterback.
“We’re broken. This isn’t anything like the offense we’ve put out there the last six years,” Clawson said in the same interview after the NCSU game. “I should have had us in a better spot with some of the personnel losses we had. We’re not getting the most out of these guys. I think we have good players, but they’re not playing well. And that always boils down to coaching.”
5. Duke Blue Devils
- 10-Year Overall Record: 63-62 (.504)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 29-53 (.354)
- Conference Championships: 0
- Bowl Record: 5-1
Recap: David Cutcliffe brought Duke out of a couple decades of futility (four winless seasons, only one year with a winning record between 1990-2007). The Blue Devils went bowling six times under Cutcliffe between 2012-18, making an ACC title game appearance in 2013.
But after three subpar years, including bottoming out at 3-9 in 2021 (0-8 ACC), Cutcliffe bowed out. With little expectations, long-time defensive coordinator Mike Elko took over the program and immediately developed a defensive-minded, tough-as-nails culture in Wallace Wade.
Duke went 9-4 in 2022 and came within a few plays of 11 total wins. The Devils beat Clemson soundly on Labor Day to start 2023. ESPN College GameDay came to Durham a few weeks later (the first time in Duke history), and the Devils came within a fourth-down-and-16 scramble from Sam Hartman of swiping an upset.
Even with an injury to quarterback Riley Leonard keeping him out much of the rest of the season, the Devils finished a commendable 8-5. Elko bolted to Texas A&M after the finale, though, creating angst among fans when he literally left for College Station in the middle of the night.
The coaching change could have thrown the program into turmoil. But interim coach Trooper Taylor and a devoted group of senior leaders steadied the ship. Duke won its bowl game against Sun Belt champion Troy, and now will look to Manny Diaz, obtained off Penn State’s defensive staff, to keep the Devils among the upper division of the new-look ACC.
6. East Carolina Pirates
- 10-Year Overall Record: 46-73 (.387)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 26-54 (.325)
- Conference Championships: 0
- Bowl Record: 1-1
Recap: Few fan bases have as much passion for college football as East Carolina. But few have been as starved for stability and success as the Pirates over much of the past decade.
Despite leading ECU to four bowls in five years, the Pirates fired Ruffin McNeill in 2015. They turned to Duke assistant Scottie Montgomery, but his teams won just nine games over three seasons.
It took Mike Houston a few years to get the culture back to Pirate standards, but his 2021 team, with quarterback Holton Ahlers at the helm, ended a six-year bowl drought. Ahlers and the ’22 Pirates then won eight games — the most since 2014 — and crushed Coastal Carolina 53-29 in the Birmingham Bowl.
ECU was back! The future looked promising. But the Pirates turned over much of its roster and the youthful squad took a few steps backward last season. Like Wake Forest when Hartman departed, the Pirates never found the answer to replacing Ahlers at quarterback.
To make matters tougher to swallow, one of ECU’s 10 losses in 2023 came against new American Athletic Conference rival, Charlotte, in the first-ever football meeting between the schools. The Niners didn’t hold back on the trash talking.
There has been a lot of resetting within the program in the off-season. Houston has proven he can win wherever he has been — he’s enjoyed conference and playoff success at Lenoir-Rhyne (Division II) and James Madison (FCS) before coming to Greenville. But building a consistently competitive roster at ECU has proven a more arduous undertaking than anticipated.
7. Charlotte 49ers
- 10-Year Overall Record: 37-77 (.325)
- 10-Year Conference Record: 22-46 (.324)
- Conference Championships: 0
- Bowl Record: 0-1
Recap: Charlotte decided to revive its football program in the mid-2000s and started play in 2013. Brad Lambert was named the first head coach, and the 49ers spent two seasons as an FCS independent before moving up to FBS.
In 2015, the Niners joined Conference USA. Lambert won five games in 2014 and 2018, but he never led the program to a winning season. The 49ers parted ways with him after a 5-7 campaign in 2018.
New coach Will Healy gave Charlotte its first — and only — winning season in 2019. The 49ers went 7-6, 5-3 against Conference USA foes. They played in the Bahamas Bowl, falling to Buffalo. But Charlotte let Healy go during the 2022 season when the program regressed.
Biff Poggi, who coached in the prep ranks in Baltimore for more than 20 years before joining Michigan’s program, took over in Charlotte last year as the Niners transitioned to the more competitive American Athletic Conference.
Poggi hit the transfer porta hard to put together his first roster. The 49ers were stingy at times on defense but struggled to mount consistency on offense, ending the season 3-9.
A staff overhaul in the off-season, including the addition of accomplished recruiter Tim Brewster, has Charlotte fans excited about future prospects and poised for an upswing.
Team-By-Team 10-Year Review
