It’s hard to overstate how big an opportunity this Clemson game is for NC State

There is a time to slow play and undersell.

College football coaches live to be coy, especially leading up to an important game.

For N.C. State coach Dave Doeren, Saturday’s game (3:30 p.m., ESPN) at No. 3 Clemson is no time to avoid the obvious.

“This is what’s all about,” Doeren said.

Yes, it is. The Wolfpack, ranked No. 16 in the country and 5-0 for the first time since 2002, has a shot to knock off the ACC’s dominant force and take a giant step towards the program’s first ACC title since 1979.

Saturday’s game at Clemson (6-0) is the biggest game for the N.C. State program in at least eight years, if not 40.

This is the type of opportunity, with both ACC and national implications, that has been elusive for a Wolfpack program, which has pumped out NFL quarterbacks at an astonishing rate but with little tangible return (the 2002 team led by Philip Rivers did win a school-record 11 games).

Doeren, in Year 6, has done what he promised to do when he was hired in 2012. He has built the Wolfpack into a top-25 program and the team is in the midst of its most successful ACC stretch since Lou Holtz was the coach in the early 1970s.

Doeren’s “to-do” list

But a conference title was also on Doeren’s “to-do” list. His program motto of “One Pack, One Goal” does not refer to a win in the Independence Bowl or the Sun Bowl.

“For us, it’s about elevating our program and it’s about doing something that we haven’t been able to do as a coach or player yet,” Doeren said. “It’s why you work so hard.”

In the way is Clemson. As N.C. State strength coach, and defensive star on the ‘02 team, Dantonio Burnette likes to say: The standard is the standard. In the ACC, the Tigers are the standard.

They have won at least 10 games in seven straight seasons. They have won three straight division and conference titles and been in the College Football Playoff three years in a row.

They’re an incredible 46-4 since the start of the 2015 season and that includes the national title in 2016. Over that same span, they’re 14-2 in top-20 matchups. (N.C. State has only played in two such matchups, both losses last season).

The Tigers have won 13 of 14 against N.C. State, including six in a row. N.C. State has come oh-so close to knocking off the Tigers in each of the past two seasons.

In 2016, the Wolfpack lost 24-17 in overtime after it missed a 33-yard field goal at the end of regulation which would have won the game.

In 2017, N.C. State was driving to potentially tie (or win) the game when the final drive was stalled by an avoidable procedural penalty and then thwarted by an interception.

“We left everything we had on the field, we just didn’t finish,” junior safety Jarius Morehead said.

“Finish” has been a popular theme with the Wolfpack this week.

“That’s really what it’s about,” Doeren said. “It’s finding a way to finish somebody off, whether it’s on offense, defense or special teams, with that key play.”

Wolfpack vs. Tigers

Those losses were painful for N.C. State but they’ve served as motivation, even a source of confidence. The premise being: if N.C. State can hang with Clemson, it can hang with anyone.

“I try to remember the fact that we were there with them until the last moment,” senior receiver Steph Louis said. “Just knowing that we are a good team and we are a team that can dominate.”

The Wolfpack has won 9 of past 11 ACC games, going back to a 28-21 win at North Carolina in the final regular-season game of 2016. That’s its best conference stretch since Holtz’s teams won 14 in a row from 1972-74. But beating the Tar Heels, or nemesis Boston College (28-23 on Oct. 6), is not the same as taking down the Tigers.

N.C. State arguably played its best game of the season in 2016 and ‘17 against Clemson but without a win to show for it. Why does Clemson bring out the best in the Wolfpack?

“I think our guys get excited about playing them,” Doeren said. “They’re obviously the class of our conference and have been. They’re the team you have to knock off if you want to be in a different place than you are.”

N.C. State’s already in a different place than it usually is but there’s another level waiting and there’s only one way to get there.

This story was originally published October 18, 2018 at 10:33 AM.