NC State once again saves its best for last. At this point, it’s a feature, not a bug.
Just when all was lost, when the rest of this season stretched out before N.C. State like a long, dark void, when tens of thousands had left for the parking lots and no one could blame them, the Wolfpack came back from the football dead.
Again.
If that 16-0 run to come back against Florida State wasn’t enough, N.C. State managed to up the ante against Virginia Tech, closing out the Hokies with a 19-0 run for a 22-21 win that was an utterly improbable finish given the way the Wolfpack started.
Most teams would be lucky to produce that kind of late comeback once in a season or two, if not longer. N.C. State has done it in consecutive home games.
This team may not have Devin Leary — although it may have his successor at quarterback, the way true freshman M.J. Morris played Thursday night — but it does apparently have deep reserves of resolve that enabled it to avoid a nationally televised disaster against the fifth-best college football team in Virginia and extend a home winning streak that dates back to November 2020.
“Not many teams,” N.C. State coach Dave Doeren said, “can do what we just did there.”
If N.C. State can ever figure out a way to play in the first half the way it has shown it is capable of playing in the second, the Wolfpack will be onto something. Some of that is beyond explanation. Some of it is overly conservative play-calling, which given the turnover at quarterback is understandable but can perhaps be set aside now. When N.C. State has had to throw the game plan away and caution to the wind, wonderful things have happened.
Because until then, it was a night for the three Ps: Penalties, punts and pass-outs. Many Wolfpackers took the opportunity to be elsewhere after halftime. They missed a remarkable turn of events. N.C. State led 3-0 after a miserable first half that felt like the football version of that 47-24 basketball game against the Hokies, with the biggest cheer saved for Ripken the Bat Dog doing his tee-retrieving duties.
The Wolfpack looked inexplicably inept against a Virginia Tech team that had beaten only Boston College and Wofford, producing a complete no-show of a first half in an absolute must-win game with an extra week to prepare. Then things got worse: Virginia Tech strung together enough big plays to go up 21-3, and there was absolutely zero indication the Wolfpack would be able to respond.
“That was a tough moment,” Doeren acknowledged.
“We were down bad,” defensive back Cyrus Fagan said.
But all was not lost, even if it felt that way in the third quarter. N.C. State is bowl-eligible, something many fans would have grasped for dear life down 18, and if the post-Leary offensive struggles against Florida State and Syracuse and Virginia Tech were frightening, there was also reason for optimism when both Jack Chambers and Morris were given more of the playbook to run, not to mention the Wolfpack’s ability to dig itself (out of) gargantuan holes, which at this point has to be classified as a feature, not a bug.
“When it comes to the fourth quarter, we just know we’re going to win,” wide receiver Thayer Thomas said. “That’s how close we are, the chemistry we have as a team. It’s not just offense or defense. It’s the whole team. We genuinely love each other.”
This much is certain: N.C. State may no longer be in position to have the season it wanted to have, and it may not be as offensively capable as it hoped to be, with or without Leary, but it hasn’t given up. The Wolfpack still had enough fight left Thursday. More than enough.
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This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 12:05 AM with the headline "NC State once again saves its best for last. At this point, it’s a feature, not a bug.."
