Leadership training is reshaping NC State’s football team. Why it might pay off this season.

CHARLOTTE — Every other Friday in the offseason, a group of NC State football players gather for a class that could have a huge impact on the Wolfpack’s fortunes this season. 

Except it has nothing to do with offense or defense, strength training or conditioning. And no one from the football coaching staff is even there.

Instead, more than 20 players on the program’s leadership council are being trained to be leaders by Mike Erwin, a 46-year-old West Point graduate who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan during 13 years in active duty and is now a Lt. Col. in the Army Reserves living in Moore County.

The early results from this year’s group have head coach Dave Doeren, key players and Erwin excited — and thinking big.

“The culture they’ve built for this year especially is impressive,” Erwin told WRAL. “The only leadership council that I felt more confident about was last year’s men's soccer team.”

That NC State team reached the NCAA national championship game.

Quarterback CJ Bailey, who is among the 22 players on the leadership council, said he was, at first, uncertain about the classes. But he’s now all-in. He referred to himself being an “alpha leader” during the ACC Kickoff event in Charlotte.

“He knows what he's doing,” Bailey said. “I kind of didn't see the vision at first, and then I'm like, ‘Okay, it's working.’ I'm actually becoming more of a great leader every day and others are coming up with me. Others are demanding more and being more for the team, and that's very important.”

Doeren, entering his 14th season at NC State, has always had some version of a leadership council. He had a business professor talk to his teams at Northern Illinois. Erwin began working consistently with the Wolfpack football team before last season with a smaller leadership council that included some of the team’s best players, but not necessarily those who had a passion for leadership. 

This year’s group has taken to it with more intensity.

“This team has embraced that differently — versus I have to go to this meeting, it's I get to go,” said Doeren, NC State’s all-time leader in victories. “That's credit to them. They want to learn to be better leaders, and they're taking the material from the classroom to the locker room, and that's awesome to see.”

Erwin said he has noticed differences in the way members of the team interact with each other, the way they carry themselves on social media, their confidence level and the energy they are using on lifting up teammates. One example, Erwin said, was when redshirt freshman Colby Cronk set a program record with a power clean of 410 pounds and the team erupted.

“Words and actions,” said Erwin, who has written two books on leadership and taught leadership as an assistant professor at West Point. “The words that come out of your mouth or your thumbs when you text. Do they push people to be better, help them to see more out of themselves or do they tear people down or cause people to ruminate and doubt themselves. And actions. How do you treat people, show up for people on hard days, hold people accountable?”

These are young men being asked to lead their peers, players who, in some cases, might be better players or older by a year or two. Running back Duke Scott said one of his biggest takeaways from the classes has been about picking your moment.

“You got to know time and place — when and where to speak to somebody, when to use your voice, when to use your actions, when to like not say anything at all,” Scott said.

It’s not hard to get excited when a teammate sets a weightlifting record. And everyone is undefeated in the offseason. But as NC State seeks its first-ever appearance in the ACC championship game and first conference title since 1979, the Wolfpack players are confident that better leaders can help create a better team. NC State went 8-5 in 2025, but won four of its last five games, including an upset of No. 8 Georgia Tech and wins over Florida State, rival North Carolina and a blowout bowl victory over Memphis.

Bailey said one takeaway for him is that your actions must match your words. Words without actions can make you look like a fool, he said.

“What we need is an alpha leader,” said Bailey, who spurned opportunities to transfer to return to the Wolfpack for a third season. “That's what I am right now. That's what I got to be for us to win more games. I have to be consistent every day, come in the building with the same mindset every day, which is I want to win an ACC championship. We want to win an ACC championship, pour into my guys every day, like I've been doing.”

Doeren said that by not having coaches in the room, it can lead to more honest and open conversations by the players, including allowing them to talk about specific examples where they might need assistance in how best to reach others.

“[Erwin’s] earned the trust of our players, and so he's teaching a lot of really positive things to them right now, and it's been fun to see it catch on,” Doeren said. 

Has he seen an impact already? 

“Huge,” he said.

Erwin has worked with teams at Army, including when current NC State athletics director Boo Corrigan was the school’s AD, Michigan and Maryland as well as some National Hockey League players. He does training for ExxonMobil and other large companies. And his portfolio of NC State programs is expanding to much of the department, including men’s basketball and baseball. Corrigan said it’s a resource that Wolfpack coaches can choose to use — or not use.

"Those people that have a desire to do it, we need to make sure that we're equipping them with how do you be a leader," Corrigan said. "What does that look like and what does that look like on a daily basis? What does that look like in your actions? What does that look like in your words? What does that look like in in how you bring people together?"

Just as players train to improve their skills on the field, Erwin said they can work at developing leadership qualities. And it takes the same hard work and discipline that athletes have demonstrated throughout their careers.

“Leaderhsip is hard,” Erwin said. “The good news is  it can be learned by making it a priority. A lot of people in life, they don't make it a priority, they think they’re going to be a better leader by osmosis.

“There’s an element of leadership development that requires you to work hard at it. You can't hope to get stronger, you have to work at it. If you want to catch more tough passes with your facemask on, you have to practice doing that. The idea here is that through an intentional effort, by having a deeper conversation of what leadership is, it can empower a player-led culture."