NC State Wolfpack: Victory Over Rival UNC Means Bowl
The NC State Wolfpack had an important upset win over North Carolina with plenty of red wearing fans in attendance.
The NC State Wolfpack ended their rival North Carolina Tar Heels’ hopes of an ACC Championship appearance and gained a sixth victory on the year today in Chapel Hill. State’s 28-21 win will enable them to go bowling and likely keeps Dave Doeren as the head man in Raleigh for the forseeable future.
State did what teams need to do against Carolina. For two and a half quarters it pounded the Tar Heel defense with Matt Dayes and the run game. One of the State scores was a heroic fourth down run out of the wildcat by Dayes.
When the Heels paid too much attention to Dayes, State opened up the trick plays. There was a touchdown pass by Jaylen Samuels and later a run from Samuels. There key third downs to keep drives going.
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They were also given a little help by the Heel offense. An early fumble led to early points. The Tar Heels watched a succession of dropped passes cut them off from getting into the red zone. These early developments proved too much to overcome by the end of the game.
That does not mean that the snakebit Wolfpack were comfortable out there. A North Carolina comeback began in the third quarter when the Tar Heels’ Mitch Trubisky and Ryan Switzer started making plays of their own. A State fumble and punt fed into that and North Carolina was looking to tie the game late in the fourth quarter.
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However a holding penalty and strong State pass rush turned the deciding down into a 4-and-20. The ball slipped through Bug Howard’s fingers. State needed some first downs to run out the clock. Ryan Finley was knocked out of the game earlier so that backup quarterback Jalen McClendon had to convert a crucial third and eight on his own legs. He did so and the game ended.
State, the team whose season has been a series of close losses, won. Carolina, who had pulled out their close games sans Duke, lost. The Wolfpack can now move on knowing there is still one more game to play somewhere in the ACC bowl order.