WINSTON-SALEM — After a crushing 45-42 road loss, the No. 16 NC State football team lost control of its own destiny and nearly all likelihood of seeing its first ever ACC title game. Instead, the Wolfpack (7-3, 4-2 ACC) fell to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (9-1, 6-0 ACC) in a matchup of similar programs led by Daves.
Dave Doeren and Dave Clawson have cut their teeth as head coaches as program builders and player developers. Typically relegated to beating solid teams and, in rare cases, threatening upsets against the upper echelon of the country, this year has been vastly different.
With the NCAA giving players so-called COVID years, player development-driven teams have thrived, while the usual suspects who rely year in and year out on recruiting stars have floundered relatively. Suddenly it was the Wolfpack, Demon Deacons and Pittsburgh Panthers who were ACC royalty, respectively ranked No. 16, No. 12 and No. 21 — the only ACC teams recognized by the CFP committee.
With Saturday’s matchup, mirroring programs took each other on, the little engines that could in red and white and black and gold, and it was the Deacons who prevailed.
Both teams had bad days. NC State had 14 penalties for 119 yards, several dropped balls on offense and nearly every consequential defensive starter was either banged up or ejected during the course of play. Wake’s star quarterback threw for 43% completions and three interceptions and gave up 15 more points than its usual average. But the Wolfpack’s rivals did just enough to win.
Now the Wolfpack falls from ACC title and New Year’s Six bowl contention. Despite having the best team of Doeren’s tenure, it couldn’t get over the hump. While not as egregious as previous missed opportunities like, as the No. 22 team in the country, losing to unranked Syracuse and Wake Forest squads in 2018, or losing to unranked Wake as No. 25 in 2017, or… you get the point, Saturday’s loss is a disappointment.
NC State hasn’t won at Wake Forest since 2015, and despite an all-time series record of 67-42-6 in the Wolfpack’s favor, it’s got just one win in their last five meetings. With the loss, Clawson once again got the better of Doeren. The day was the Demon Deacons’, and NC State could do nothing but watch as fans streamed onto the field to celebrate with the team that proved itself to be tops in the ACC Atlantic.
“[I’m] just so proud of our team, it wasn’t our cleanest game; we turned the ball over, we certainly had some special teams miscues, [but] that might be as hard as I’ve ever had a football team play for 60 minutes,” said Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson. “The competitiveness, it was just an outstanding effort. NC State’s a really good football team. That was a great football game, a high-level game, two really good teams, a lot of great players. And it came down to really the final play. I have a lot of respect for Dave and his staff and their football team. And at the same time, I’m really proud of our guys that we found a way to win.”
With the loss, the Wolfpack again has to settle for what it can get, starting with finishing the year strong with matchups against Syracuse and UNC.
“Obviously, winning the Atlantic is out of our control,” Doeren said. “Now some things are gonna have to go in our favor with Wake losing some games. All we can control is our next two and try to win both of those. And we’ve got two home games here to finish out the season and a bowl game. So there’s a lot to play for.”
There’s a lot to play for, but less and less players are available to play. Between the already injured, consisting of starters in graduate guard Chandler Zavala, redshirt sophomore linebacker Payton Wilson, redshirt junior linebacker Isaiah Moore, redshirt freshman defensive tackle C.J. Clark, graduate safety Cyrus Fagan and sophomore end Savion Jackson, and those who went down during the game in sophomore running back Zonovan Knight, redshirt sophomore H-back Trent Pennix, graduate defensive tackle Cory Durden, graduate end Daniel Joseph, freshman linebacker Devon Betty, junior nickel Tyler Baker-Williams and junior safety Tanner Ingle, this team has us very close to unearthing the answer to the Ship of Theseus thought experiment.
“We’re held together by duct tape at some spots right now, man,” Doeren said. “I mean, we got some kids playing with a lot of bumps and bruises. And as you know, our depth chart on defense has been decimated, Savion’s out now too. So we’re really down some players and the guys that are playing are beat up and they’re playing with a lot of grit, a lot of toughness, but it’s taken its toll on us, yeah.”
This may not be a great year for NC State, but it should still end up being a very good one. As the Wolfpack hobbles to the finish line, limping back from Winston-Salem, it finds itself in a very familiar territory, with Dave Clawson’s Deacons again turning away NC State’s ambitions.
