2026 Football Preview: Schedule Analysis

June and July are sneaky quick months. Summertime, pool visits, beach trips, moving in a heat wave and not having air conditioning for a week… perhaps that last one is pretty specific to my current circumstances, I digress.

But you blink, and suddenly you’re close to 50 days away from football season. That’s no time at all. We’ll be previewing Virginia in earnest in a month. We’re close. With the days flying by, it’s time to take a closer look at State’s schedule. Especially now that some variables, namely Brazil, have been resolved.

When the ACC released its conference schedules earlier this year, I remember looking at N.C. State’s full slate and asking: who called in how many favors?

It’s not as simple as looking at the logos on a schedule and automatically categorizing a schedule as “weak” or “hard,” especially not in the transfer portal era when teams like Virginia and Duke can flip their roster and compete for the conference seemingly out of nowhere.

And yet, it’s hard to look at this schedule without feeling a “this looks pretty easy.” Especially looking at the conference matchups, which is what I mainly care about on the quest to Charlotte. Of course the full picture of a schedule also includes timing, personnel turnover, and weird quirks like rest advantages and who your opponents have played.

We don’t have a ton of information on how good or bad these versions of State’s opponents will be, but let’s take a look at what we do know for sure:

Where the Games Are Played

N.C. State was going to be one of the first 2 teams to ever play college football on Brazilian soil. Until it wasn’t.

Outside of the potential of hearing Dave Doeren trying to speak Portuguese, the value of this game would’ve been twofold:

• Moving State’s road conference game at Virginia to a neutral site game

• An earlier start to the season, and an extra bye week (the positive impact of this is debatable - some teams have struggled coming back home after the long trip)

While the second point still stands, the first looms large. According to sports betting data analyst Steve Makinen, home teams that were favored by power rating aggregate data won 81.6% of the time in 2025. Neutral site teams that were favored won 72.2% of the time. That’s a 10 percent drop in win probability amongst favorites.

There’s merit in pointing out that swapping a long, complicated trip to Brazil for a short road trip to Charlottesville is the less taxing option, for the short and long term of the season. But moving a neutral site game to the road makes that week zero matchup - one that State was already a slight underdog in - even more difficult. State now sits as a 5.5 point underdog in Charlottesville at the time of this writing. With a line that small preseason, there’s plenty of room for error, but I want all of the margin I can get when it comes to winning ACC games.

Moving that game away from Brazil erases some of that margin in the short term, but perhaps makes the remainder of the season slightly more workable.

Adjustment aside, this remains a schedule whose travel toll still slants in N.C. State’s favor. Prior to the Brazil change, State was slated for just two true road games in its first 12 weeks of the season. Those two include a tough matchup against Vanderbilt - but one that won’t penalize you in the ACC race - and a trip to Stanford, which State receives after a bye week to ease some of the travel burden.

The final two roadies are back to back, but against two programs who likely want their coaches fired at the end of 2026 in FSU and UNC. The Holes are 6-13 against the spread at home over the last three years, the tenth worst win percentage ATS nationally. According to On3, FSU has the league’s toughest schedule, while UNC has the fourth most challenging. There is no telling what these teams will look like at the end of the season.

On the other hand, we know the power of Carter-Finley. State having the bulk of its meaningful ACC games at home, and finishing with two teams on quit watch towards the end of the year, is probably as good a situation as you could’ve asked for.

Who the Games Are Against

On to the opponents. Here’s the final 2025 SP+ rankings of the ACC, how their rating has adjusted as of 3/27 (the publish date on the most recent SP+ ratings) and who State plays in 2026.

(A minor note - the power ratings are numbers that imply spreads and point differentials in hypothetical matchups against other teams. I am listing the rankings of those ratings. Not confusing at all:)

• Miami - 9th ➡️8th overall (Miss)

• SMU - 23rd ➡️28th (Miss)

• Louisville - 26th➡️27th (Home)

• Virginia - 31st ➡️ 40th (Away)

• Clemson - 34th ➡️ 23rd (Miss)

• Georgia Tech - 35th ➡️ 43rd (Miss)

• Pittsburgh - 36th ➡️41st (Miss)

• Florida State - 41st ➡️ 35th (Away)

• Duke - 44th ➡️44th (Home)

• Wake Forest - 52nd ➡️ 58th (Home)

• NC State - 55th ➡️48th

• California - 80th ➡️56th (Home)

• UNC - 91st ➡️ 54th (Away)

• Boston College - 97th ➡️ 74th (Miss)

• Virginia Tech - 106th ➡️ 32nd (Miss)

• Stanford - 112th ➡️ 75th (Away)

• Syracuse - 115th ➡️69th (Home)

Directionally, again, most fans will take this. State misses the National Runner-Up, and gets its highest rated opponents at home, for the most part. It’s also a concentrated list of opponents. Preseason ratings of any kind are always imperfect, caveat after caveat etc. - but the current projected point differential between top foe Louisville and bottom team Stanford is only 13 points.

That implies a lot of single digit spreads for the Pack to open the year. For a team looking to break through the 6-6 and 9-3 mire, this is the kind of schedule that affords you that opportunity. Just look at Virginia last year.

Layered on top of the swing game nature of this season, the Pack only see two teams that return starting quarterbacks from last year in Syracuse and Cal. Again, both of those are at home.

There’s also some significant timing challenges for some of State’s opponents that factor in:

• Cal finishes a nine week stretch without a bye…in Raleigh

• UNC finishes a nine week stretch without a bye that includes Notre Dame, Miami, Louisville, and Virginia, with N.C. State

• Syracuse comes to Raleigh on game 7 in a row, after playing in Death Valley the week prior

• Wake will be one week removed from a stretch of @ Purdue, home against Miami, and @ Notre Dame when they come to town

There’s several favorable spots for the Pack, but the spots alone aren’t enough. They have to be taken.

Gut Feelings

For better or for worse, fair or not, ten wins and/or an ACC Championship appearance is the barrier that most fans have for this program. To break it, you’d probably want your schedule to look something like this.

State should have a QB advantage in most of its matchups - knock on wood regarding C.J. Bailey’s growth - and some relief in key schedule spots to give it a lift in certain match ups.

I’m a big fan of the win probability exercise preseason: putting win percentages by each game and totaling up those numbers to get a win/loss prediction. My completely off the cuff gut feelings on each game, not a predictor of vegas odds in any way shape or form:

• @ Virginia - 45%

• Richmond - 99%

• @ Vanderbilt - 30%

• App State - 80%

• Louisville - 50%

• Wake Forest - 65%

• @ Stanford - 65%

• Cal - 65%

• Duke - 65%

• Syracuse - 70%

• @ FSU - 50%

• @ UNC - 75%

That’s 7.6ish regular season wins, a 5.5-3.5 conference record, and a lot of games in that coin flip zone.

The two games I am eyeing the most on this schedule are week 0 at Virginia, and week 5 at home against Louisville. Those are two of your toughest matchups on paper, and they are your first two ACC matchups. Splitting those is the most reasonable outcome, but in the ~23ish percent of outcomes where you win both…man, that could really be the start of something special.

It could also very easily fall the other way into the category of “major pain.” That’s the fun of rooting for this program, isn’t it?