NC State retained the two most important pieces on offense with freshmen CJ Bailey and now Hollywood Smothers both announcing that they are returning to Raleigh.
Smothers wasn’t used all that much early in the season, as NC State believed that Jordan Waters would emerge as their go-to back after his success at Duke. However, in late Septemeber the carries between Smothers and Waters started to even out a little bit.
By the end of the season, Smothers had seemingly taken over as NC State’s go-to RB, out-carrying Waters in 4 of the final 5 games.
Overall Smothers had 17 fewer carries on the season, but averaged about a yard better than Waters.