NC State, under head coach Dave Doeren, has not been known for outperforming expectations. The program has pretty much always been the same: Each season it beats the teams it should beat with a mind-boggling loss sprinkled in for good measure. But with Saturday’s 30-29 nail-biting win at No. 24 Pittsburgh, the Wolfpack reversed its fortunes.
Coming into the game, the Pack was licking its wounds after a 45-24 thrashing at Virginia Tech. A two-touchdown underdog, according to Vegas, NC State took a punch in the mouth early but responded with extremely efficient offensive play, which took advantage of a slew of mental mistakes by the Panthers.
Despite the offense falling flat for much of the second half, redshirt sophomore quarterback Devin Leary led his first game-winning drive during the final 1:44, capped off with a beautiful back-shoulder throw to senior receiver Emeka Emezie to give Doeren his third ranked win at NC State.
“It’s huge for their confidence,” Doeren said. “It’s one thing to say we can do it; it’s one thing to believe. It’s another to go do it. It’s just a tremendous thing to know, for your quarterback, to know it doesn’t matter what’s on the clock. He’ll drive us down and score and win.”
The drive might’ve been the most clutch performance the program has seen since Mike Glennon’s against Florida State in 2012. Seriously. As good as Ryan Finley was in red, he was never one to trust in the waning moments of a game.
Under Finley, though, NC State flirted with a New Year’s Six bowl berth in 2018 before a loss to Wake Forest, and without him, the 2019 season derailed whatever momentum Doeren had built for the program. Many questioned if the Wolfpack had reached the height of its competitiveness under its current head man, but this win silences that narrative for at least a week.
“It just proves to us that we are who we’ve known that we are,” said sophomore linebacker Drake Thomas. “We all know that we’ve been capable of this, and we’ve just got to keep a level head. Get back to work tomorrow, watch the film, correct the mistakes and get back at it on Monday.”
Defense has not been the strong suit of this year’s team, but the unit stepped up after what Doeren called an “embarrassing” performance last week during his halftime interview Saturday. It’s clear that irked the defense, and Doeren said many of the issues that plagued the defense the first two weeks of the season were fixed. That’s evident in the team’s rush defense, which held the Panthers to just 92 yards.
The unit gave up over 400 yards, but registered seven quarterback hurries as well as a sack. While Pitt moved the ball well at times, including a 75-yard touchdown given up to open the game, the defense forced three field goal kicks inside its 25 and even had a goal line stand forcing a turnover on downs. The bend-not-break mentality is what kept the Wolfpack in the game while the offense struggled.
“It was great to see,” Thomas said. “You’ve got guys with no backups, you’ve got backups in, and they’re making plays. New nickel goes out, playing really hard, he gets the targeting call and it’s ‘the next man steps up’. Taiyon Palmer comes in and has a PBU at the end of the game. Big-time plays like that. It’s good to have confidence in everybody.”
That confidence was lacking last year. At least twice, the 2019 team melted down after a close opening half, and towards the end of the season, it was clear the team was quitting. There wasn’t faith in the offensive system, and the players were too young to stay disciplined.
This year’s been different. Despite losing multiple 14-point leads, the team stood tall and pulled out a win against Wake Forest, and that same fight was on display after Pitt scored 16 unanswered points beginning halfway through the second quarter, ultimately building a 23-17 lead in the fourth. Leary, now solidified as NC State’s starter, calmly went 4-6 for 63 yards on the ensuing drive, culminating in a 25-yard hookup with Cary Angeline for a touchdown.
The defense was different too. Given past results, one would’ve expected it would fold if major players suffered injuries. On Saturday, junior safety Tanner Ingle went down multiple times during the game with what appeared to be cramps, and the same was true for redshirt freshman defensive tackle C.J. Clark. Ingle gutted out the game and ended up being NC State’s leading tackler in a gritty nine-tackle, two-PBU performance. Even redshirt sophomore Payton Wilson was slow to get up at times, and that’s without considering the inactives NC State came into the game with.
“When you take Chris Ingram out, Teshaun Smith out, Tyler Baker-Williams out, it’s pretty crazy,” Doeren said. “At free safety, Khalid Martin is out, Ashford is out — I think there’s six DBs that aren’t playing that are in our two-deep — so we’re very thin. So it says a lot about the heart and toughness of that group.”
That heart and toughness was the story of the game, and it’s what the team needs to have in order to set itself apart from the middle of the pack in the ACC. With the Wolfpack improving to 2-1, already doubling its amount of ACC wins in 2019, NC State’s in the driver’s seat of its season. Having played two of the toughest teams on its schedule, over half its remaining ACC matchups come against teams currently under .500. One thing’s for sure, this team will be much more competitive than last year.
“A lot of people wanted to just throw us in the trash can after last week,” Doeren said. “That’s just the world we’re in right now. These kids just hung together, the coaches hung together, and there’s a lot of football left… We’ve embraced the chip on our shoulder and we’re going to continue to do that.”
Oct 3, 2020; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; North Carolina State Wolfpack safety Tanner Ingle (10) breaks up a pass intended for Pittsburgh Panthers wide receiver DJ Turner (7) during the third quarter at Heinz Field. The Wolfpack won 30-29. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
