NC State mounts improbable comeback, refuses to let lights on its season go out
Devin Leary was standing in the very last place N.C. State needed him to be, watching from the sideline, his team trailing, throwing arm in a sling.
It was the kind of visage that tends to end up in the “when you know your season is over” montages when all is said and done, and it certainly felt in that moment like the Wolfpack might be in that spot. Even with Leary under center, N.C. State was down 14 at halftime and whatever the score was it felt worse.
And then, without Leary, without Demie Sumo-Karngbaye, without Devin Carter, N.C. State said not yet. Not tonight. On this field, on this evening, in the second half, N.C. State took a stand and said you’re not turning out the lights on us, not yet.
The Wolfpack had some help, too. Just as it watched East Carolina lose on a pair of missed kicks in the opener, it watched Florida State indulge in the kind of self-indulgent self-immolation that has too often been N.C. State’s own downfall. But, again, not this time.
“This team doesn’t quit,” N.C. State coach Dave Doeren said. “They don’t flinch. They believe in each other.”
The Seminoles gifted N.C. State the ball in the red zone on a bizarre botched fake-fake punt and FSU quarterback Jordan Travis threw two interceptions in the last seven minutes to turn a 17-10 lead when Leary went out into a 19-17 N.C. State win, the Wolfpack’s decimated offense somehow able to conjure three field goals while the defense made it hold up with a second-half shutout.
It was beyond improbable, a bizarre series of unlikely plays that somehow, in the end, came out in N.C. State’s favor and made everyone forget the game had been delayed for an even stranger reason — no one could get the stadium lights to turn on.
That seemed like an inauspicious omen, and the first half proceeded as such, to the point where the Wolfpack was booed off the field. N.C. State went into the season with big dreams, and the ones that weren’t extinguished last week at Clemson were well on their way to being snuffed out Saturday night.
The likely became seemingly inevitable when Leary went down and stayed down after a hard sack, eventually walking very slowly off the field and straight to the locker room. The Wolfpack has struggled mightily on offense even with the ACC preseason player of the year in the lineup, so surely that was the end of everything.
And it might have been, if N.C. State had given up — or if Florida State was even borderline competent. But Florida State’s punter, Alex Mastromanno, decided to punt on the wrong side of the line of scrimmage when it looked like he could have run for the first down. N.C. State went 30 yards the wrong direction, but Christopher Dunn squeaked a 53-yard field goal over the crossbar to get within 17-16.
A ground-heavy drive riding Jordan Houston and Delbert Mimms put Dunn in range for another to put N.C. State in the lead, and Travis threw picks on Florida State’s final two drives, the last in the N.C. State end zone, to put a bow on things for the Wolfpack.
“We knew the game was going to end on us,” said Devan Boykin, who had the game-sealing interception.
There were halftime adjustments made that helped keep Florida State scoreless in the second half, but not all of them were schematic.
“More than anything, it was just looking them in the eye,” Doeren said. “It was a gut check: You’re being tested right now as competitors. This is your stadium. How do you want to look in it? It was more about the attitude change, I think.”
It’s almost impossible to reverse engineer the win. You could watch a thousand years of football and never see a punt as weird. Jack Chambers and Thayer Thomas combined to go 1-for-2 passing for minus-5 yards after Leary went out … and N.C. State won anyway!
The Wolfpack will take it. When all seemed lost, N.C. State found a way to win.
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This story was originally published October 9, 2022 at 12:32 AM with the headline "NC State mounts improbable comeback, refuses to let lights on its season go out."
