Staying Home: Gus Ritchey’s summer with NC State

Gus Ritchey committed to NC State a little over a year ago, flipping from UNC Aug. 12, 2023. He spent the next year building his bond with the Wolfpack, growing closer to the staff, his fellow commits and the current players.

The Pack tight end commit already knew NC State was the right collegiate home for him when he made the commitment, but this summer only helped reinforce that feeling.

His family moved to Cary from Pittsboro earlier this year. Now, Ritchey lives just a matter of minutes away from the university, and he took advantage of that. He stopped by campus for multiple camps and workouts with the staff and spent as much time in Raleigh as possible.

“I can’t wait to play there with those guys and play on Fridays and Saturdays with them,” Ritchey said. “It’s going to be amazing. I’m looking forward to it.”

Even though he remains completely locked in with the program, NC State pulls out all of the stops when the tight end commit makes an appearance on campus. The coaches, from head coach Dave Doeren to the graduate assistants, make him feel valued.

If his parents come along on the trip, the staff makes sure to address their questions. Ritchey already feels like a part of the Pack family, and he will join the program officially in a matter of months. This summer, he ran routes with NC State quarterback Grayson McCall and learned plenty from offensive coordinator Robert Anae .

The Wolfpack rolled out the red carpet for him, literally, during his official visit, and he took a deeper look at what the Pack had to offer away from football. NC State checks all the boxes for Ritchey and his family. After a summer full of visits, the program seems like a perfect fit.

“We’ve been to Miami, Notre Dame, and they’re great places and they do a lot of fun things when you’re there, but it’s something different when you’re at NC State,” Trent Ritchey , Gus’ father, said. “You can tell that it’s not just a show that they put on.”

‘It’s like family there’

Before Ritchey spent a full weekend with the Pack this summer, he made some day trips to campus to put some extra work in with his future teammates.

When he stopped by for camps, he’d stick around and put in some work with McCall, redshirt freshman quarterback Lex Thomas and redshirt freshman wide receiver Noah Rogers . The Pack’s current players are making sure he’ll be able to hit the ground running in Raleigh.

When the tight end lined up for reps with McCall, the graduate transfer would walk him through the signals for that play and explain the route.

The Wolfpack tight end commit already has a close connection with the staff, but his growing relationships with the players makes him feel even better about picking NC State.

“It’s like home,” Ritchey said. “It’s like family there. Not just the coaches welcomed me, but now the players have welcomed me and said ‘We want you to get ready when you get in here in this program. We think you’re a good enough player, and that’s why we come out here and want you to come out here and spend time with us and run routes and stuff.’

“So it’s been pretty awesome.”

During his camp appearances this summer, he spent a lot of time with redshirt junior tight end Dante Daniels . The former junior college transfer helped Ritchey with his blocking, walking the class of 2025 prospect through his footwork and hand placement.

Anae had a clear message for Daniels— coach up the future Pack pass catcher.

“Coach Anae even said, ‘Look, at this point Dante, I want you to teach what I taught you to him,’” Ritchey said.

‘You remind us a lot of Payton Wilson’

Later that month, Ritchey returned to campus for his official visit— a trip that created plenty of lasting memories for the Pack tight end. It was the first time his entire family accompanied him on a trip, and the staff welcomed everyone with enthusiasm.

The local recruit showed up to the Murphy Center early June 21. He walked into the facility and immediately met with Doeren. They sat down for an honest, frank conversation that fired Ritchey up about his future with the Pack.

NC State views him as a cornerstone member of this recruiting class. That has been clear for the past year, but Doeren expressed how much the staff expects from him during this visit.

Ritchey said Doeren told him “You remind us a lot of Payton Wilson but on that offensive side, just how you handle yourself and your intensity.”

He was the first recruit on campus that day and helped kick off the most important recruiting weekend of the 2025 cycle by welcoming the other recruits to campus when the bus pulled up to the facility. Over the next couple of days, he went through plenty of meetings, took photos in the Wolfpack’s jerseys, saw where he’d be living as a freshman and spent plenty of time with his fellow recruits.

“I was really fortunate to be there, and my family really loved the visit,” Ritchey said.

Three moments from the visit stood out to the tight end— two involved commitments from his peers, and the third gave him a chance to look out at Raleigh from a vantage point he’d never seen before.

NC State took the visitors to the Wells Fargo Building in downtown Raleigh Saturday night, hosting a dinner on floor 28. As everyone looked out across the city, Ritchey and his family spent some time speaking with Doeren’s wife Sara.

His mother teaches children with learning disabilities, and the family is very excited about the ‘One Pack Empowered’ initiative— a university program that supports neurodivergent students.

NC State hosted 10 official visitors that weekend, and 8 of them committed to the program. As the recruits went through NC State’s flashy photoshoot Friday night, three-star running back Kentrell Rinehart walked up to Ritchey and Daniels— the tight end’s host for the weekend.

“The first thing he said was, ‘Don’t really tell anybody… I think I want to come here,’” Ritchey said.

Later in the weekend, he spent some time with offensive linemen Michael Gibbs and Isaac “Spike” Sowells Jr. . They’re both committed to NC State now but, at the time, schools like Miami, Virginia Tech, Penn State, South Carolina and others remained in the mix.

A conversation he had with them Saturday night solidified his third favorite moment of the trip.

“That night, me, Gibbs and Spike were in the hotel room talking, and Gibbs was like, ‘Look man, I think this is my home’” Ritchey said. “And I remember Spike looking over and saying, ‘Dude, I think I feel the same way.’”

Over the next month, both linemen joined the Pack’s 2025 class. Gibbs made his commitment to the staff the next day.

“I never got so psyched up in my life,” Ritchey said.

‘This is by-far the place for Gus’

While Ritchey deepend his connection with the program and learned more about his future teammates, his parents Erin and Trent also spent the weekend on campus. They’ve lived in the triangle for years, but this trip gave them a different perspective on NC State.

“It was pretty unbelievable,” Erin Ritchey said.

Everything about the weekend was intentional. NC State answered the parents’ questions and, as much as the recruits are the focus of the trip, the families had plenty to do as well.

With their children off to spend time with their player hosts and each other Friday night, the Pack hosted a parents night. They had some drinks, smoked cigars and enjoyed the company of folks going through similar situations.

Isaac Sowells Jr. and Gus Ritchey were already close at that point in the recruiting process, but their families discovered a connection between themselves while on campus. Isaac Sowells Sr. played football for Indiana at the same time Erin attended the university and Trent lived in Bloomington.

“When the basketball team had gone to the Final Four and played Maryland that year, he was out at the bars at the same time I was, so that was kind of neat,” Trent Ritchey said. “We might have run into each other.”

The Ritchey’s consider assistant director of player personnel Quint Cottingham a big brother figure for the tight end. NC State’s coaching staff is “gracious and humble” but also fun. The program’s overall attention to detail stood out on this visit, and they have plenty of genuine connections throughout the football program and the school itself now.

When the Pack hosted breakfast Saturday morning, the staff already had seating assignments scripted out.

“It could have just been random I suppose, but it was nice how personalized I feel like things were— and how thoughtful,” Erin Ritchey said.

Gus’ parents know plenty about the Pack football program. They admire both Doeren and Anae and enjoy their meetings with both coaches. This visit helped them learn more about the academic side of things.

NC State sat the Ritchey’s with the family of quarterback commit Will Wilson and a faculty member from the college of engineering. Both Gus and Will had previously expressed interest in that major, so the Wolfpack incorporated that into their official visit. Instead of taking a general tour of campus, they took a detailed look at the engineering school.

The weekend in Raleigh made the Wolfpack commit’s family feel great about sending their son to study at NC State.

“It just validated this is by-far the place for Gus,” Erin Ritchey said. “I know he’ll be taken care of. I know he’s going to come out with a stellar degree, whatever major he decides.”

‘The most underrated team class in the country’

A few weeks after visiting NC State, Sowells Jr. committed to the Pack, picking the program over his home state school— Kentucky.

Ritchey saw his friend in a familiar position. The Pack tight end pledge briefly committed to UNC last year before flipping to NC State and endured the negative feedback on social media. Growing up in Pittsboro, N.C., he felt the impact of his decision in a community packed with Tar Heel fans.

When Sowells added him and Gibbs into a group chat to let him know they will be teammates at the next level, Ritchey offered up some advice.

“I said, ‘Look, you’re going to get hate. You’re going to see the real side of people,’” Ritchey said. “State fans, when I committed to the other school at one point, they said, ‘Good luck…’ and they were positive about it, right?

“And then when I flipped, of course, when I felt more home at State, I told him it shows the true colors and the negative side, and you want to ignore that as best as possible.”

The senior from Cary (N.C.) High urged his fellow Pack commit to trust himself and his family. Sowells handled the situation as well as possible, the tight end said, and now they are two of NC State’s highest-ranked commits.

Ritchey believes people are sleeping on the Wolfpack’s 2025 class. He committed to NC State over offers from Notre Dame, Georgia, Florida and many others, but On3 considers him the No. 81 tight end in the country.

Going into the fall, the Pack ranks No. 48 nationally in the team recruiting rankings. The longtime Wolfpack commit wants to see this group prove everyone wrong.

“I think this is by far the most underrated team class in the country,” Ritchey said. “If you look and put on the tape with every single player, they’re putting up video game-like numbers, they’re doing everything they can, they’re all over the field, all these guys.

“I’m telling you what, everybody that’s in this class this upcoming senior year is going to show people what this class is about and why, when we get into State, this early freshman class is going to make as big an impact as any other freshman class that has come in.”

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