NC State quarterback Devin Leary leaves game against FSU, status remains unclear
In what suddenly became the most pivotal of moments of an N.C. State football season that began with such lofty hopes and dreams, all the Wolfpack’s most important player could do was watch on Saturday night against Florida State. Devin Leary spent most of the fourth quarter on the sideline at Carter-Finley Stadium, his right arm in a sling and hanging with the sort of precariousness that now surrounds his team at large.
Leary, the fourth-year junior quarterback who was ordained as the ACC’s preseason player of the year, could only watch while the Wolfpack mounted an improbable comeback in his absence. He could only watch while State’s defense, formidable when it most needed to be, held strong and came up with one final play — in this case an interception of a poorly-thrown Jordan Travis heave — to preserve a 19-17 victory that became a testament to the Wolfpack’s resiliency.
Now the question is how long Leary will continue to watch and when, or if, he might play again.
Leary, besieged by pressure for the better part of two and a half quarters, left the game with about five minutes remaining in the third quarter, after absorbing a particularly jarring hit from Joshua Farmer, the Seminoles’ 300-pound freshman defensive tackle. Farmer drew a roughing the passer penalty on the play, which forced Leary to remain on the ground, on his back, for several minutes while trainers attended to him.
Eventually, teammates helped him to his feet. Trainers assisted Leary off the field, while he braced his upper right arm with his left hand as he slowly walked toward the locker room. Leary’s immediate status was unknown, but became more clear when he returned to the N.C. State sideline and watched the fourth quarter with his jersey off, and his right arm in a black sling. It was apparent then that Leary’s night was over. Now it remains to be seen when he might return.
Leary received a measure of good news in the moments after the injury, State head coach Dave Doeren said, when the X-rays on Leary’s arm came back negative. Doeren said Leary would undergo an MRI on Sunday “and we’ll know more then.”
“He got hit while he was throwing in motion, so they were X-raying that entire part,” Doeren said.
At times Leary watched the fourth quarter while in a crowd among his teammates. In other moments he stood alone. When the Wolfpack sealed the victory in the final moments, with Devan Boykin’s interception in the N.C. State end zone, Leary stood on the far end of the field. His celebration was muted, subdued, as if he was still processing his own pain, physical and otherwise.
“He’s a competitive dude,” Doeren said. “He wanted to be out there.”
Leary left the game after completing 10 of his 21 attempts for 130 yards, one touchdown and one interception. As he has throughout the first half of the Wolfpack’s season, he did not necessarily look the part of a player who’d garnered such considerable hype and accolades in the preseason. These have often been a difficult six games for Leary, who hasn’t received the kind of help he might’ve anticipated, and who has most missed the playmakers N.C. State lost from a season ago.
Nonetheless, he had the Wolfpack in position for a comeback until he exited the game. When he did, Jack Chambers entered it and helped lead State on a drive that ended with a field goal that cut Florida State’s lead to one. After another defensive stop — one of many throughout the second half — the Wolfpack went ahead for good on Christopher Dunn’s 27-yard field goal midway through the fourth quarter.
“My first reaction when Devin went down was just like, ‘Dang,’” said Chambers, a graduate transfer from Charleston Southern who joined the team last May. Chambers did not complete the only pass he attempted, but he scrambled for 39 yards to help set up the field goals that were the difference.
Of Leary, Chambers said, he’s “a guy I’ve grown very close with since I’ve been here.”
“He’s like a brother to me.”
Without Leary, Chambers and the N.C. State offense mustered just 59 yards in the fourth quarter. The Wolfpack averaged but 3.5 yards per play. It was hardly a performance for the highlight reels but what it was, was good enough on a night when State’s defense proved to be its tenacious best when it most needed to be, with the fate of the game hanging in the balance.
Now so, too, is the fate of N.C. State’s offense. It has not been good to this point even with Leary, who entered the season as one of the ACC’s most productive returning quarterbacks. And though the Wolfpack prevailed Saturday, the preview it provided of a Leary-less offense didn’t exactly inspire confidence that State would somehow be better without him.
Doeren afterward spoke of heart and grit and having survived a “gut check,” and for N.C. State that’s what this was: a survival. How long the Wolfpack can survive without Leary is a question Doeren would rather not have to think about. He said he was hoping that Leary’s injury is “just a muscle strain;” that State would “have him back soon.” He told people to say a prayer.
This story was originally published October 8, 2022 at 10:47 PM with the headline "NC State quarterback Devin Leary leaves game against FSU, status remains unclear."
