Tuffy Talk

Tuffy Talk
  • 4.8 (25)
  • Sports

Tuffy Talk is the premier NC State Wolfpack sports podcast, no filter, no fluff, just real Pack fans talking real Pack sports. Every Monday night at 8:30 PM ET, Layton Smith, Greg "The Leg" Haas, and analyst Ethan Barry break down everything happening in NC State football, basketball, baseball, and beyond. Hot takes, stat breakdowns, recruiting updates, transfer portal news, Pack Pro spotlights, and the moments that make Wolfpack Nation what it is. Founded in December 2020. Now in our 3.0 era, bigger team, better content, same Wolfpack passion. New episodes every Monday. Additional content dropping throughout the week. Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@tuffytalknow Follow on Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow | @ncstatestats | @PackFanInNOVA Exclusive weekly NC State breakdowns, members-only rumor chat, and more: patreon.com/cw/ncstatestats — $5/month Tuffy Talk LLC. Raleigh, NC. Go Pack.

  1. 10h ago

    Chuck Amato Built The NC State We Know Today - Tuffy Talk Live

    Chuck Amato died Monday morning at 80, and we threw out the plan and spent the first part of the show on him. He played here, won two ACC wrestling titles here, coached here as an assistant, and came home from Florida State to be our head coach. In 2001 his team went into Doak Campbell and beat Bobby Bowden. In 2002 he went 11-3 and beat Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, and it is still the only 11-win season NC State has ever had. Greg makes the case that Carter-Finley as we know it might not exist without him, and I tell a story about my uncle, who drove the Big Bad Wolf equipment truck and had breakfast with Coach a couple of times a month for years. Then the rest of the week: two more players lost for the season, Justin Gainey's first win, baseball beating Carolina, and Ethan on why NC State basketball should be playing VCU and whether he'd take Duke or the field. What is your Chuck Amato memory? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. NEXT UP NC State is at Stanford on Friday, October 23 at 10:30 PM ET on ESPN. OCONEE GOLD Barbecue sauces, rubs and seasonings. Greg is doing tri-tip two ways for the Cal tailgate. https://oconeegoldbbqsauce.com Code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your entire order. #ad PATREON Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk FOLLOW @tuffytalknow Greg @PackFanInNOVA Ethan @ncstatestats Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  2. 6d ago

    NC State Landed The No. 8 Softball Recruit In America - Tuffy Talk

    Lila Manfredonia is the No. 8 overall recruit in the 2028 class, and she committed to NC State before she left Raleigh. She came down for the Louisville weekend, went to the football game, and told the staff she was in. "I don't see myself anywhere else really." We got seventeen minutes with her, and most of it is not about recruiting. Her parents both played, her mom softball and her dad baseball, and that is where it started. She wears 32 because it was her dad's number at Akron. Her go-to pitch is a changeup and she will tell you flatly that it is her most dangerous one. She plays basketball at Independence High School, wherever her coach needs her, because it is a small school and that is how it works. On Coach Leftwich, and why so many of these commitments seem to happen in Raleigh rather than on the drive home: "She's not gonna lie. She's gonna tell you the truth pretty much." She also wants to study sports communication, which means she might be after our jobs. Give her a follow. FOLLOW LILA X / Twitter: @LilaMan32 https://x.com/LilaMan32 Instagram: @lilamanfredonia32 https://www.instagram.com/lilamanfredonia32 PATREON Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  3. Oct 13

    NC State And Doeren Both Look Tired Of Each Other - Tuffy Talk Live

    Wake Forest 38, NC State 14, and the thing nobody around this program has said out loud yet. Somewhere in the middle of this one we land on the comparison that explains the whole season. Two people in a middle school relationship who have stopped talking to each other. Everybody in the school knows it is over. Nobody has gone to the other person and said it. Greg's version is worse and probably more accurate: the kids have moved out, it has been thirty years, and both of them are waiting for the other one to wake up and say they are done. Ethan has nothing to say about the game itself. State got smoked. What he wants to talk about is a roster he does not believe is good enough, why NC State overpays its own guys and underuses the portal, and why Wake Forest, who just beat us with a quarterback making a fraction of what CJ Bailey makes, has it right. The proof is not the loss. It is the adjustments. First three drives of the game: NC State 175 yards, Wake Forest 27. Next five drives: NC State 45, Wake Forest 360. And a head coach who walked straight to the tunnel instead of through the high five line with the fans. We get into the Steven Godfrey report that Doeren is not going anywhere midseason but institutional changes are coming, what that means for Boo Corrigan, and why Thanksgiving is the real deadline. Ethan also explains why the Patreon episode he recorded on Saturday never came out. Grinds My Gears is the student section, and Greg has two fixes for it. What would you do first? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. PATREON Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  4. Oct 7

    Popo Aguirre Just Set An NC State Record - Tuffy Talk Live

    Tied 28-28 in the fourth quarter, Louisville breaks a 68-yard run and is walking into the end zone. Harvey Dyson III, a defensive end who rushed from the line of scrimmage on that snap, runs the back down and strips the ball out at the 13. Dave Doeren called it "one of the best plays I've seen as a coach in my career." NC State 31, Louisville 28. The first Power Four win of the season, and Layton, Greg and Ethan spend the hour on a win that actually looked like a team closing a game out instead of surviving one. CJ Bailey went 24 of 40 for a career-high 373 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, and did it without JoJo Trader for most of the day, without Duke Scott, without Anthony McCrimmon and without Spike Sowells, behind his third different center of the season. Popo Aguirre recovered all three fumbles the defense forced. That is a program record for a single game, it makes him the second player in the country since 2020 to do it, and he now leads the nation in fumble recoveries. The ACC named him Linebacker of the Week on Monday. Ethan's Stat Pack lands on the number that decided it. Louisville had three red zone trips and scored seven points. NC State had six and scored 21. Louisville fumbled five times. In a three-point game, that is the whole margin. Then the honest part. Wake Forest is 4-1, just beat Stanford 57-3, won at Louisville, and comes to Carter-Finley Saturday at noon as a 3.5-point favorite. Ethan takes Gio Lopez over CJ Bailey right now and explains exactly why, which is not a comfortable thing to say out loud two days after a win. Also in here: why nobody on this panel cares about a blown 14-point lead against that offense, the 19 missed tackles, Preston Douglas at 19 catches on 22 targets, and the fans booing going into halftime while up 13-7. Where do you have Saturday? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. PATREON Three members-only videos a week, 12 a month, for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk #ACCFootball Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  5. Oct 2

    We're Both Picking NC State to Upset Louisville - Tuffy Talk

    Jeff Brohm called his starting quarterback a game-time decision on Monday. Five days before kickoff. That is not an injury update. Our read is that Louisville already knows Lincoln Kienholz is not playing Saturday, and the betting line agrees, because it has moved three and a half to four points toward NC State since the week started. So this preview is built around the question that decides the game. If Louisville hands it to Davin Wydner, a senior who spent two years at West Georgia and has thrown four passes as a Cardinal, can NC State's defense make him beat them? Ethan's answer is yes, with reservations. Louisville ranks 114th nationally in defensive success rate and 108th in EPA per play. They sit in the fourth percentile against explosive plays and the first percentile against explosive passes. Wake Forest beat them 30-27 last week by holding Isaac Brown and Keyjuan Brown to two yards a carry across 38 attempts and simply refusing to let anything get behind them. The counter-argument is real, and it is Keyjuan Brown at 9.3 yards a carry against an NC State run defense that leads the ACC at 121.5 yards allowed. Whether that number is real or an artifact of playing Richmond and an App State team that could not run at all is the argument we spend the most time on. Also in here: why Louisville keeping Isaac Brown while NC State lost Hollywood Smothers still stings, whether Duke Scott is only good when the matchup is easy, and the defensive line numbers that are genuinely hard to look at. Harvey Dyson leads the team with six pressures. The whole team has six sacks. Josiah Victor has not recorded one all season. Layton has it 28-24 NC State. Ethan picked the upset and would not put a number on it. Kickoff is 3:30 Saturday at Carter-Finley on ACC Network. Where do you have it? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. PATREON Ethan puts out 3 videos a week, 12 members-only breakdowns a month for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  6. Sep 29

    Is It Already Over For Dave Doeren at NC State? - Tuffy Talk Live

    Dave Doeren ended his press conference Saturday by stepping back to the microphone to say "by the way, we won that football game." Macon spent about five minutes on that. You are 2-2. You just let a 21-0 lead become a 31-31 tie against a Sun Belt team. You have no place to say that. "It's just arrogance to me, and it's unnecessary and ridiculous." Ethan is out sick and Greg could not make it, so this is Layton and Macon, the two who started this show six years ago, taking questions straight from the chat and from Twitter for an hour. The question that opens it comes from a listener and it is a fair one: has Doeren actually raised the floor, or does it just feel that way? The numbers are closer than anybody wants them to be. Doeren is at a 57.5 percent win percentage. Chuck Amato was at 57. Tom O'Brien was at 53.3. None of the three won an ACC title. Amato's best season was 11-3, better than anything Doeren has had. What Doeren has that neither of them did is eight wins in five of the last six years. We also get into whether fans should stop filling Carter-Finley to send a message to Boo Corrigan, which is where the two of us disagree most sharply, what it would actually take at this point for Doeren to keep the job, and the onside kick that nobody on the kickoff team appeared to be ready for. Then the part that is genuinely fun: basketball is back. Two exhibitions are on the schedule, Van Al Lubin has been cleared, and we project a starting five that might be the best shooting team in the conference. Louisville comes to Carter-Finley Saturday at 3:30 and NC State opened as a home underdog. Where do you stand? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. PATREON 12 members-only breakdowns a month for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  7. Sep 25

    NC State vs App State Preview: Please Don't Lose This Game - Tuffy Talk

    Ethan said the quiet part out loud four days after Nashville: "If it weren't for the way NC State lost, I don't know that I'd be thinking App State could win this game." That is where this program sits going into Saturday night. A 14 point favorite at home against a Sun Belt team that cannot run the ball, and a real conversation about whether Carter-Finley boos in the first half. App State comes in 3-0 under Dowell Loggains, who was South Carolina's offensive coordinator before taking the job. Malachi Singleton leads the Sun Belt in passing at roughly 300 yards a game with five touchdowns and one interception, and he is on his third school in three years after Arkansas and Purdue. But take the Maine game out and the Mountaineers are averaging 2.8 yards a carry with a rushing success rate that ranks 131st in the country. We also spent twenty minutes on the run game, which has not shown up against a real defense yet. 16 carries for 50 yards in Nashville, and outside the Richmond game almost nothing has broken loose. Ethan's honest question at the end of it is the one worth sitting with: were the expectations ever realistic in the first place? Plus the Asher Lockleer stat that reopens the fourth down call, what moving Teague Anderson to center actually costs you, and the best thing either of us said all episode, which is Ethan on the 60,000 people at the game who are not on the internet and are going to cheer either way. Kickoff is 7:30 Saturday on ESPNU. Ethan likes the Pack against the spread. Layton has it 42-17. Where do you have this one? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. PATREON 12 members-only breakdowns a month for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

  8. Sep 22

    NC State Had No Business Winning That Game - Tuffy Talk Live

    Greg was in the building in Nashville. Layton found out from a text message at a wedding. Ethan spent Sunday with the box score and came back with a number nobody else in NC State media is saying out loud: by win expectancy, NC State had roughly a 15 percent chance to win that football game. We led for 59 minutes and 59 seconds and lost 35-31. Over the last 20 seasons, teams with the ball and the lead inside 10 seconds were 1,046 and 1. We are the second. This one is long because there was a lot to get out. It opens as a therapy session and it does not really stop being one. Ethan's case: Vanderbilt's success rate was 52 percent to NC State's 39. They ran 20 fewer plays and were better per play, better per pass, better per rush, better in the red zone, and more explosive. Clark Lea said afterward that NC State was the better team. The numbers disagree with him. Greg was in the stadium for the two penalties at the end of the first half, the pass interference flag thrown by the official standing furthest from the play, and the holding call that turned first and 10 into first and 20. 17-0 became 17-7 and the game became a dogfight. Then the part that will get the emails. Doeren's buyout sits around 10 million and climbs after January 1. He is 96 and 72 at NC State. Greg says out loud that he is okay with a change of scenery. Ethan argues the real lesson is to stop paying one quarterback like a difference maker and start doing what Wake Forest did with Gio Lopez. Where do you stand? Find us on Twitter and Instagram @tuffytalknow. Tuffy Talk is live every Monday at 8:30 PM. Football all fall, basketball all winter, baseball all spring. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss one. PATREON 12 members-only breakdowns a month for $5, plus our members-only rumor chat. Ethan's full win expectancy breakdown is up there now. https://www.patreon.com/tuffytalk #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk Send us Fan Mail Oconee Gold Small Batch BBQ Sauces & Rubs Do you LOVE to barbecue? Our sponsor Oconee Gold makes small batch sauces and rubs down in Statham, Georgia, and they've won Flavor of Georgia twice. Use code TUFFYTALK for 15% off your ENTIRE order, every single time you order. #ad Support the show New episodes every week. Follow the show so you never miss one. 🐺 Support Tuffy Talk on Patreon and get 12 members-only NC State breakdowns every month for just $5: 👉 patreon.com/c/tuffytalk Find Tuffy Talk on all major podcast platforms — Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, and more. Search "Tuffy Talk" wherever you listen. Follow us everywhere: Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow Greg "The Leg" Haas: @PackFanInNOVA Ethan Barry: @ncstatestats #NCState #GoPack #Wolfpack #TuffyTalk

See All (654)

4.8
out of 5
25 Ratings

About

Tuffy Talk is the premier NC State Wolfpack sports podcast, no filter, no fluff, just real Pack fans talking real Pack sports. Every Monday night at 8:30 PM ET, Layton Smith, Greg "The Leg" Haas, and analyst Ethan Barry break down everything happening in NC State football, basketball, baseball, and beyond. Hot takes, stat breakdowns, recruiting updates, transfer portal news, Pack Pro spotlights, and the moments that make Wolfpack Nation what it is. Founded in December 2020. Now in our 3.0 era, bigger team, better content, same Wolfpack passion. New episodes every Monday. Additional content dropping throughout the week. Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@tuffytalknow Follow on Twitter/X: @tuffytalknow | @ncstatestats | @PackFanInNOVA Exclusive weekly NC State breakdowns, members-only rumor chat, and more: patreon.com/cw/ncstatestats — $5/month Tuffy Talk LLC. Raleigh, NC. Go Pack.

Information

  • Creator
    Tuffy Talk
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    654
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Tuffy Talk
  • Show Website
    Tuffy Talk

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