NC State ready to move on to Louisville

The normal Sunday routine for N.C. State’s football team is to watch film together.

The Clemson loss wasn’t a normal loss, so coach Dave Doeren skipped the normal routine.

“We felt like the best thing was to move forward,” Doeren said on Monday. “Correct the things that we needed to correct but not dwell on something like that.”

That’s the first time in Doeren’s fourth season the team hasn’t watched the game together. The players’ emotions were still raw on Sunday, Doeren said from the 24-17 overtime loss at No. 3 Clemson.

“They were angry, disappointed, mad — all the things you would expect them to be,” Doeren said. “But they were really good about wanting to move forward.”

N.C. State (4-2) gets another top 10 team on the road this week with a trip to No. 7 Louisville. The sooner the Wolfpack starts preparing for the Cardinals, and the country’s top-ranked offense, the better off it’ll be, junior fullback Jaylen Samuels said.

“It was a tough loss,” said Samuels, who had eight catches for 100 yards. “We’re not trying to look back at it. The best for us is to just move on and get a head start on Louisville.”

The Wolfpack had a chance to upset Clemson at the end of regulation, but kicker Kyle Bambard missed a 33-yard field goal. Bambard has been the targets of threats and vitriol on social media, but Doeren said the team has been there to support and rally around the sophomore kicker.

“No one feels worse than, Kyle, I can tell you that,” Doeren said. “He cares so much about our football team.”

Doeren said they simulated a similar scenario in practice last Thursday, and Bambard made the kick. He actually made the kick on Saturday after Clemson coach Dabo Swinney called timeout to ice him, too.

Bambard had a difficult freshman season but had made 3 of his 4 field-goal attempts before the Clemson game. He made a 38-yard field goal against Notre Dame last week in a hurricane and a career-long 48-yarder on Oct. 1 against Wake Forest.

Bambard was 1-of-4 against Clemson with misses from 43 and 33 yards and a 37-yard attempt was blocked.

“I told him he’s going to have his chance to redeem himself,” Doeren said. “He just has to stay positive and work on what he can work on to get it right.”

Turning the page to Louisville (5-1) is probably not a bad idea. The Cardinals lead the country in total offense (627.5 yards per game), yards per play (8.15) and scoring offense (52.3 points per game).

Sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson has thrown for 15 touchdowns and ran for 15 more in six games and is the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy.

“He’s definitely putting up some good numbers,” junior defensive end Bradley Chubb said. “Everybody is talking about him, that’s all you hear about.”

As terrifying as Jackson has been, N.C. State welcomes the subject change. Anything to move on from Clemson.

This story was originally published October 17, 2016 at 6:23 PM with the headline "NC State ready to move on to Louisville."