On Oct. 18, NC State Athletics announced that redshirt sophomore quarterback Devin Leary is out for four to eight weeks with a broken fibula, leaving the Wolfpack and its fans to wonder what the rest of the season holds. Following an 11-point win over Duke Saturday, NC State will have to reassess the quarterback role as the team moves forward.
The injury to Leary’s left leg was suffered late in the third quarter on a scramble to the right side. Leary attempted to slide when he was met by Duke safety Lummie Young, who made contact with the NC State quarterback on his way down. The contact forced Leary’s body to awkwardly fold over his left leg, resulting in a broken fibula.
Leary has appeared in four of five games this season, starting in three of them for the Pack. In this time, he has completed 65 passes on 109 attempts for 879 yards along with a TD-INT ratio of 8:2. Coming into form this year, Leary’s downfield confidence has grown more and more with every game, as he has helped lead his team to third place in the ACC with a 4-1 record.
The news of Leary’s injury may prove to be detrimental to the rest of the Pack’s season. After such a strong start, NC State has proven to be a competitor in the ACC and is now ranked at No. 23 in the country. It is hard to imagine that is in the realm of possibility now, especially with the game against UNC-Chapel Hill moved up to Saturday, Oct. 24.
Much of this speculation will all depend on the play of Leary’s replacement for the immediate future: redshirt junior Bailey Hockman. Hockman started the first two games of the season for NC State, winning the season opener against Wake Forest and playing against Virginia Tech before getting sidelined in favor of Leary.
Hockman has had his moments for this NC State team this season, including the previously mentioned win over Wake Forest, where the Pack was a one-point underdog. In that game, the redshirt junior threw 16 completions on 23 passes (69.6% completion rate) for 191 yards, one touchdown and one interception. While those numbers would not be the most encouraging statline to see week in and week out, they prove that Hockman has the ability to game manage when he needs to.
Unfortunately, NC State saw the opposite end of the Hockman accuracy spectrum in the loss to Virginia Tech. In this matchup, Hockman managed to throw seven completions on 16 passes (43.8% completion rate) for zero touchdowns and two interceptions. This stat line was ultimately what got him benched in favor of Leary for the remainder of that game and the season going forward. However, with Leary now out for the next four to eight weeks, Hockman now has many opportunities to prove himself to the Wolfpack coaching staff and team.
Hockman got off to a great start on Saturday versus Duke, coming in as Leary’s relief and scoring the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. Granted, this may be the catch of the season with redshirt junior wide receiver Thayer Thomas making a remarkable one-handed grab off the helmet that should have been intercepted by the Duke defender in coverage. However Hockman still managed to drive the ball down the field and lead this team to an important conference victory. During his time in the game versus Duke, Hockman managed to throw four completions on seven passes (57.1% completion rate) for 43 yards, one touchdown and zero interceptions.
From what has been observed so far this season, Hockman will serve as a game manager in a run-focused offensive scheme compared to what head coach David Doeren has shown with Leary at quarterback. The highs that NC State has seen from Hockman do not quite compare to those of Leary, whose best showing was against Pittsburgh, where he threw for 336 yards and four touchdowns all while completing 63.6% of his passes.
As mentioned before, however, this is all speculation based on what has been observed so far. With Hockman now at the head of this team, he has the opportunity to prove a lot of people wrong.
The best opportunity to do so would be Saturday, Oct. 24 against a ranked UNC team coming off its first loss of the season to an unranked Florida State squad. The game is set for a noon kickoff at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill and will be shown live on ESPN and streamed on the WatchESPN app.
