NC State’s football season officially enters danger zone during listless loss at Duke
Toward the end of the first half here Saturday night at Wallace Wade Stadium, amid a downpour that sent spectators scurrying for cover — and why would anyone have really wanted to stick around to watch this — it was as if both Dave Doeren and Mike Elko had come to some brief, mutual understanding.
Whaddya say, pal? I’ve seen enough, you? Want to just call it a half? Yes? Yes.
The worst thing about the first half for N.C. State might’ve been that the game was only halfway over. By then Duke was well on its way to a 24-3 victory and, even though there were two quarters left to play, there wasn’t much doubt about where this was headed. For a moment, with State backed up deep in its own territory, Duke had called a timeout, as if maybe it was going to try to make the Wolfpack punt.
And why not? State had done so little right during the first 30 minutes that it was easy enough to understand how Elko, the Blue Devils’ second-year head coach, might want to give the Wolfpack one more chance to make a mistake.
But then M.J. Morris scrambled for a 16-yard gain — one of State’s best plays of the half, all things considered — and it was enough to wonder, however briefly, if the Wolfpack might just try to make an effort to get back into the game before halftime. But, no.
The first down chains moved. And, as they did, State’s sideline cleared, players and staff making the long walk (pour one out for Dabo Swinney) to the visitors’ locker room. A most sloppy half of football came to a merciful end, both for those who paid money to be here but especially for the bumbling, stumbling Wolfpack, which did little right and a litany of things wrong.
It wasn’t a thing of beauty for Duke, either, which took a 17-3 lead into intermission. But the Blue Devils at least had something of a pass, marching on without Riley Leonard, their starting quarterback, and with his backup, Henry Belin IV, making his first college start. Duke wasn’t sharp without its leader and without arguably its best player but at least the Blue Devils’ had an excuse for their miscues on offense.
What, then, was the excuse for N.C. State? It’s never ideal when your best player and unquestioned leader begins his postgame interview session with reporters by apologizing to fans. But that’s what Payton Wilson, the fifth-year senior linebacker, did late Saturday night.
“I just want to apologize to Wolfpack nation,” said Wilson, who has remained the most consistent bright spot for a team that’s otherwise specialized in inconsistency. “That’s not what they deserve.”
Wilson said State was a team that needed to “get with the program,” and he called out teammates — without naming them — who in his estimation aren’t playing hard enough. It was damning, and honest, commentary from someone who expected a lot more in his final college season.
Doeren, to his credit, took the blame — “it always starts with me,” he said — but that was probably the best thing anyone could say about the performance of him and his staff Saturday night. If you’d shown up to Wallace Wade without any knowledge of either team, or program, it would’ve been difficult to believe which one was playing for a second-year head coach, still building a foundation and establishing a culture, and which was playing for the head coach who’s been in charge for more than a decade. And again: this wasn’t Duke’s cleanest effort, either.
But for State, it was much, much worse.
“Just didn’t execute, man,” said Doeren, who lamented the missed opportunities and penalties and general ugliness, while acknowledging that State “played a team that doesn’t beat itself.” Indeed, that has become Duke’s reputation under Elko and, usually, the Wolfpack has been solid fundamentally under Doeren, too. But not on this night. And not often with this particular State team, either.
“We beat ourselves,” Morris said afterward and, indeed, all the Blue Devils had to do Saturday was take advantage of whatever mistakes the Wolfpack offered up — and there were no shortage of them; a near endless and constant stream of them. False starts? Yes. Dropped passes? Plenty. Penalties? How about nine in the first half, including some that either killed drives on offense or kept them alive on the other side.
State finished the first half with two more penalties than first downs and, by halftime, whatever good mojo the Wolfpack had built the week before, with Morris making his first start of the season and with State finding a way to win against Marshall, was gone. Gone and squandered.
Were it not for Brayden Narveson’s 57-yard field goal on State’s first series — which began after the Wolfpack pressured Belin into an interception — State wouldn’t have come close to scoring. After that field goal, here’s how the Wolfpack’s next 11 drives ended: punt, punt, interception, punt, punt, halftime (thank goodness), punt, punt, turnover on downs, turnover on downs, turnover on downs.
Is that bad?
By the first of those turnover on downs, Duke led 24-3 entering the fourth quarter. Not an insurmountable margin in this era of quick-scoring offenses throughout college football. But, insurmountable for State, given its well-established limitations. Seven games into a season that’s threatening to enter a dark, despairing place for N.C. State, there were few signs of hope for the Wolfpack — nothing to suggest this will get better.
Even on defense, where the Wolfpack has to play well to have a chance, there were too many miscues, too many moments when Duke’s skill players either raced behind the secondary to get open or, in the case of Jordan Waters in the third quarter, simply ran through untouched. Waters’ 83-yard touchdown run more or less put the Wolfpack out of its misery, though not literally.
There was still more than a quarter left. Eventually the second half ended like the first: with State counting down time until it was all over. With everyone having seen enough. With the clock hitting zeroes in something of an act of mercy.
This story was originally published October 14, 2023 at 11:33 PM.
