In the first quarter of the NC State football team’s Thursday night game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (3-8, 2-6 ACC), the Wolfpack (4-7, 1-6 ACC) recovered its first fumble of ACC play all season, which also happened to be its first forced turnover for the team in ACC play.
The fumble is the first forced turnover for the Wolfpack defense since the team’s September victory over Ball State, two months ago to the day. The team was 3-1 when it recorded its last takeaway.
“It meant a lot,” said redshirt sophomore linebacker Isaiah Moore. “Both of [the fumbles] came at big points in the game. Both of them came in the red zone as well and gave us a shot in the end, I think it meant a lot.”
Being able to come away with the football is going to be a key factor for any team’s success, and having two in one game after not having any takeaways for two months is a huge confidence booster and hopefully a trend-setter for the Pack’s regular-season conclusion next week.
“It was great to get two takeaways and we should have had one on the first play of the game,” said NC State head coach Dave Doeren. “We forced a fumble on the opening kickoff, but they recovered. But yeah it was big to get the football back and almost had an interception, it was a weird play there near the end by [redshirt freshman Malik Dunlap].”
Though the team ended up forcing two turnovers by the end of the game, it also suffered a costly turnover on a punt return by redshirt sophomore Thayer Thomas, which led to a touchdown for Georgia Tech. These kinds of fundamental mistakes are the kind that leads to frustrating two-point losses, and though it’s hard to believe, NC State has a worse conference record than Georgia Tech, and the terrible turnover margin is part of the reason why.
“The last two minutes of the first half really hurt us,” Doeren said. “The scoring drive, a three-and-out, getting the ball back with a chance to score and we fumble a punt. I know no one feels worse about that than Thayer [Thomas]. But to give them that field position before the half and then they score, that was tough.”
NC State has lost the ball on turnovers 17 times all season, with 15 coming in ACC play. Meanwhile, the team has forced a measly seven turnovers, with five of those coming from nonconference games against teams in weak conferences. This means the Wolfpack turnover margin is an awful minus-10 for the season.
Some of this can be attributed to the youth of the team, but some of the ball protection comes down to basic fundamentals that need to be addressed and fixed in practice, especially when the Pack returns to Carter-Finley to take on UNC-Chapel Hill next Saturday. This Tar Heels team only lost by a combined seven points to Clemson and Wake Forest, teams that NC State lost to by a combined 79 points.
On top of this, UNC had a plus-one turnover differential against those teams while NC State was a minus-seven. Being on top of the turnover differential battle will be crucial to ending out the season on a high note by beating the team’s chief rival.
NC State graduate defensive tackle Larrell Murchison recovers a fumble during NC State's game against Georgia Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Nov. 22, 2019. The Wolfpack lost, 28-26.
