‘Gave it my all’: NC State linebacker Payton Wilson wants strong finish to final season
N.C. State’s Payton Wilson hopes that as the years go by, he isn’t remembered as a linebacker who played well when he wasn’t hurt but seemed to be injured a lot.
“When I leave here, whenever my name is brought up, I want everybody to say I was an amazing person and I was nice to everyone,” Wilson told The N&O Wednesday. “And on the football field I want them to remember me for who I was. I did get hurt, but I also gave it my all every time I was out there.”
Many wondered if Wilson, who missed nearly all of the 2021 season with an injury, would be back “out there” on the field this season, or if he did return how many games he might last before being injured again. He has a litany of ailments: shoulders, knees, other bumps and bruises.
But here Wilson is, preparing for the Pack’s ninth game of the season, Saturday against Wake Forest. The redshirt junior also is coming off what Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said was his best game of the year in the 22-21 comeback win over Virginia Tech on Thursday.
Wilson had two sacks in the game, the second coming on a delayed blitz in the fourth quarter as Wilson swept in to flatten Hokies quarterback Grant Wells. He stomped about in a brief celebration that smacked of satisfaction and had an “ear-to-ear smile” in the locker room after the game, Doeren said.
“I’m happy for him,” Doeren said this week. “It’s been a long journey for him. His injury problems started in high school. To see him healthy and playing good makes me feel happy for him and happy for his family.”
With Saturday free, Wilson watched, almost in disbelief, as Wake Forest turned the ball over eight times in a 48-21 beating at Louisville.
“We all know that wasn’t Wake Forest last week,” he said. “They’re not a team that beats themselves. Everyone knows they have a powerhouse of an offense. It will come down to who can out-execute who this week.”
An injured Wilson could only watch from the sideline a year ago as the Demon Deacons took a 45-42 win over the Pack, leaving him with an empty feeling.
“It was really tough because the stakes were really big,” Wilson said.
The Deacons won the Atlantic Division and played for the ACC championship. The Pack, which had beaten Clemson but couldn’t win in Winston-Salem, finished 9-3 after the Holiday Bowl was canceled, leaving everyone in the program pointing to 2022 as a season to take care of unfinished business and again pursue an ACC title.
It hasn’t worked out that way for the Pack (6-2, 2-2 ACC). There have been the losses at Clemson and Syracuse, then the shock of having quarterback Devin Leary lost for the season with a pectoral tear.
It was Leary who was there to encourage Wilson during his rehabs, always available to talk and console, if need be. Now it’s Wilson’s turn to be there for Leary, just as he was in 2020 when Leary suffered a broken leg, and some of their conversations have been hours long, Wilson said.
“I remember him telling me, ‘You told me last year that everything was going to be OK and that there’s a greater plan for this and that everything happens for a reason,’” Leary said Tuesday. “He said, ‘I’m here to tell you what you told me.’ Just hearing that from him meant a lot because he’s been through ups and downs with his injuries.
“Just as I have full belief in Payton, I have full belief in what he said, too. I know I’m going to come back playing better than I ever played before.”
Early injury at ECU
When Wilson went out of the 2022 season opener against East Carolina, returning to the sideline with an arm in a sling, many feared the worst again. Was that it for No. 11?
“We knew that my shoulder wasn’t right,” Wilson said.
Until the MRI was completed, Wilson wasn’t sure if another injury had again ended his season — or his college career. Asked if it was another hold-your-breath kind of moment, Wilson smiled, saying, “You usually do.”
“There was a lot of testing that went into it but once the MRI came out clean we went full speed ahead,” he said.
Wilson sat out a game, then was back for Texas Tech, smacking quarterback Donovan Smith in the pocket on the first play of the game — an “eye-opening moment” for Wilson, defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said — and later chasing Smith out of bounds for a third-down stop, showing off his speed and relentlessness.
It was vintage Wilson, who was the ACC’s leading tackler and named first-team All-ACC in 2020, although Notre Dame linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was chosen the ACC’s defensive player of the year.
Wilson was a bit miffed. So was Doeren. What other linebacker played a game with two dislocated shoulders and made 11 tackles, as Wilson did against Georgia Tech in 2020?
Wilson had surgery on both shoulders and was held out of spring practice in 2021. The 2021 season started miserably for Wilson, who left the South Florida opener with an injury, then turned worse when another shoulder injury against Mississippi State game brought his season to an abrupt end and resulted in more surgery.
Changes to his game
Wilson has since made some changes to compensate. No longer is he a 6-foot-4, 230-pound seek-and-destroy kind of player on every hit and tackle.
“The way I used to play, I don’t think anybody could survive it,” Wilson said. “It’s about being able to get my job done in a safer manner, making sure I’m out there all 60 plays and not just 40 of them and then waking up on Sunday barely able to walk.”
Wilson also has learned to be smarter with his practice habits, Doeren said..
“He still runs like he does during the games but (with) contact he’s learned he doesn’t have to run over someone all the time, that he can use his hands and be smarter and not put himself at risk,” Doeren said.
Wilson, highly recruited out of Hillsborough Orange High, said he plans on this being his final year of college football and is not sure how much interest he’ll draw from NFL types considering his injury background.
“It’s a matter of finishing out the season well and hearing what I hear,” he said.
An education major, Wilson said he plans on becoming a special education teacher when football ends.
“It’s all gone by fast,” he said of his time at N.C. State. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2022 at 5:10 AM.
