While Washington and Michigan and will meet for the College Football national championship tonight in Houston, teams from across North Carolina are in full off-season mode.
Here’s your NC Football News morning briefing for Monday, Jan. 8. (Thanks for bearing with us as we’ve had Web site issues for several days – which, Lord willing, have been fixed).
ECU, Coastal Carolina schedule home-and-home
The Pirates and Chanticleers announced a two-game home-and-home series earlier this month. East Carolina will travel to Conway for a Sept. 13 meeting in 2025 and then will host the Chanticleers of the Sun Belt Conference on Sept. 9, 2028.
The two teams have only played in football once before, with East Carolina winning 53-29 in the 2022 Birmingham Bowl.
“We are excited about this regional non-conference series with Coastal Carolina,” ECU Athletics Director Jon Gilbert said in a release. “Both institutions have passionate fan bases, and this is a quality home-and-home series that I believe everyone will enjoy.”
We here at NC Football News love the addition of these games to future schedules and still think ECU’s best conference fit would be in the Sun Belt East with Coastal, Appalachian State, James Madison, Marshall, Old Dominion, Georgia State and Georgia Southern. Every game would be a regional rivalry, with the potential for a lot more fan appeal than many of the Pirates’ current AAC foes.
Plus, the Sun Belt has shown itself to be an outstanding “Group of 5” conference in recent years, getting 12 teams to bowls this past season.
Duke likely adding Elon to ’24 slate
It looks like Manny Diaz’s first game as Duke’s head coach will come against an FCS team from just up the road. As reported by FBSchedules.com, the Blue Devils will host Elon on either Aug. 30 or Aug. 31. The Phoenix join Northwestern (Sept. 7), UConn (Sept. 14) and Middle Tennessee (Sept. 21) as Duke’s non-conference foes for 2024.
The Duke-Elon meeting has not been made official yet and likely won’t be until the ACC full schedule release in the coming weeks.
FCS runners-up on Western Carolina’s schedule
Western Carolina coaches and players likely watched Sunday’s FCS championship with an extra bit of interest. The Catamounts will play Montana, which lost to South Dakota State 23-3 in Frisco, Texas, during what is shaping up to be a grueling 2024 non-conference calendar for the Cullowhee school.
Western Carolina also will visit NC State and Elon, and will host Campbell before launching into its full Southern Conference loop. WCU was the only team out of 35 college programs in North Carolina not to play an in-state opponent this past season. The Catamounts will draw three in ’24.
Western Carolina finished 7-4 in the most recent campaign, spending much of the season in the FCS national rankings. Offensive coordinator Kade Bell has moved on to Pitt, taking a few WCU standouts (like running back Desmond Reid) with him.
Reviewing our top players from 2023
In case you missed it, here are our stories recapping the NC Football News Most Outstanding Offensive, Defensive and Special Teams players from the season:
- MOST OUTSTANDING OFFENSE
- OUTSTANDING OFFENSE HONOR ROLL
- MOST OUTSTANDING DEFENSE
- OUTSTANDING DEFENSE HONOR ROLL
- MOST OUTSTANDING SPECIAL TEAMS & HONOR ROLL
Quicks Hits
Our North Carolina Central quarterback Davius Richard, our NC Football News Most Outstanding Offensive Player, has announced his intention to declare for the NFL Draft. Richard was a two-time MEAC Offensive MVP … Hajj-Malik Williams, the starting signal caller for Campbell this past season, announced his commitment to UNLV for 2024 …
We don’t talk NFL and Carolina Panthers much. But this stat has to be repeated: The Panthers finished a dreadful 2-15 season and never once called an offensive play in 2023 while holding a lead in the fourth quarter. The franchise truly has hit rock bottom.
Final Best In State power rankings for ’23
We released these on Twitter last week but here is a recap of our final FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III power rankings for the season. Our FBS rankings generated quite a buzz on social media, with many Duke fans taking offense at being ranked behind NC State and many UNC faithful begrudging the fact the Heels were picked behind Duke and App State (schools they beat).
You could make a reasonable case for any of those four teams to be in any of the top four spots. We liked NC State on top because of how the Wolfpack finished the season after getting drubbed by the Blue Devils 24-3. Coach Dave Doeren’s team beat Clemson and Miami at home, went on the road to defeat Wake Forest and Virginia Tech, then hammered North Carolina in the finale. Brennan Armstrong stepped up at quarterback after MJ Morris’s surprising exit. Linebacker Payton Wilson played his way onto every All-American team there was.
Duke endured the rocky road of losing its coach and star quarterback, and managed to beat Pitt and Troy in its last two games. But it’s hard to overlook the Devils’ overall fade of going 3-4 compared with NC State’s 6-1 down the stretch.
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