In its first road game and first matchup with a Power Five school this season, the NC State football team was dismantled by West Virginia, losing 44-27 at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, W.V.
On a day that WVU (2-1) quarterback Austin Kendall picked apart the NC State (2-1) defense for 272 yards and three touchdowns, quarterback Matthew McKay was never able to get into a rhythm. The redshirt sophomore finished with just 207 yards and a touchdown on 23-48 passing and consistently missed open receivers on throws or got the ball out too late.
“There are a lot of things we’ve got to do better,” said head coach Dave Doeren. “It’s easy to point the blame at me … and point the blame at the quarterback. There are a lot of people involved, and we’ve all got to own it.”
After a 23-yard touchdown run by running back West Virginia Kennedy McKoy put the Mountaineers up 14-7 late in the first quarter, it looked like the Wolfpack shook off the road jitters and found its groove.
A 12-play, 80-yard drive culminating in a 1-yard touchdown run by freshman running back Jordan Houston tied the game up at 14 and gave the Wolfpack some much-needed momentum.
After two straight stops by the NC State defense, McKay found redshirt junior tight end Cary Angeline down the seam for a 39-yard gain to kickstart the drive. Six plays later, McKay hit redshirt sophomore wide receiver Thayer Thomas on a backward lateral pass, and after the Mountaineers secondary bit on the throw, Thomas tossed an 18-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Angeline in the end zone, giving NC State its first lead of the game, 21-14.
“[The touchdown] means everything,” Thomas said. “I grew up coming to games here … I had a bunch of family here, [so] it meant everything.”
The Pack’s momentum was short-lived, however, as Kendall quickly led the Mountaineers down the field and found receiver George Campbell for a 13-yard touchdown pass to even the score at 21 with just over 30 seconds left in the first half.
West Virginia’s momentum carried over into the second half, and the Mountaineers opened up the half with an 11-play, 89-yard drive for a field goal. NC State went three-and-out on the ensuing possession, and West Virginia blocked the punt, recovering deep in Wolfpack territory and marking a turning point in the game.
“The blocked punt was a major mistake and a mental error,” Doeren said. “We were trying to play catch-up from that point on.”
Three plays later, McKoy ran untouched into the end zone from 5 yards out, firing up the rowdy hometown crowd and taking a two-possession 31-21 lead on an NC State team that struggled to pick up chunk plays.
A 41-yard field goal by sophomore kicker Christopher Dunn brought the Pack back within a touchdown, and on the next WVU possession, freshman linebacker Drake Thomas intercepted Kendall in West Virginia territory, giving the Wolfpack a chance to tie the game up with a short field.
A run for a loss of 1 yard and two straight incompletions from McKay forced the Pack to kick a 37-yard field goal, and West Virginia answered with a seven-play, 75-yard drive to go up 38-27 and put the game away for good.
“Scoring in the red zone [was an issue],” Thomas said. “We kicked two field goals in the third quarter. If we get touchdowns in those situations, it’s a totally different game.”
NC State ran the ball well, with freshman running back Zonovan Knight taking 12 carries for 72 yards and sophomore Ricky Person Jr. racking up 52 yards on 11 carries. But the offensive play-calling consistently abandoned the run for long stretches at a time, and McKay’s erratic throws doomed drive after drive.
“I think the plays were there, we just weren’t really connecting,” Thomas said. “We need to look at the film and figure out what things we need to fix.”
With the loss, it has now been 16 years since NC State has won a regular-season nonconference game against a Power Five team.
The Wolfpack will be back in action on September 21 at 7 p.m. against Ball State in the friendly confines of Carter-Finley Stadium.
