Rising ‘26 RB Jayson Franklin: ‘I always thought NC State was the real North Carolina’

As NC State’s final football camp got underway in late June, Wolfpack running backs coach Todd Goebbel pulled Fayetteville (N.C.) Seventy-First High School’s Jayson Franklin to the side.  He talked with the rising 2026 tailback, appearing to give a few words of wisdom before the camp’s position drills got underway on a hot day in Raleigh.  That small gesture seemed small at the time, but for Franklin, it meant a lot.