NC State football’s Drake Thomas to play with brother, football brothers one last time
If all goes as planned, N.C. State’s Drake Thomas will slip into No. 32 for the last time Friday in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
Thomas will play one last time with his older brother, Thayer, a wide receiver who has always provided inspiration and motivation. He’ll line up one last time next to linebackers Isaiah Moore and Payton Wilson, his football brothers, as the Wolfpack faces off against Maryland at Bank of America Stadium.
The game of football has been quite the journey, Thomas said, one that he hopes will continue next season in the NFL.
Thomas received his first scholarship offer as a high school sophomore — from Michigan.
“Surreal,” he said. “Only 16 years old and getting an offer from a top program like that? That’s a lot of pressure to put on a 16-year-old.”
But Thomas has always been able to perform under pressure. He made himself into a player at Heritage High in Wake Forest that many top programs wanted, not just Michigan. He made himself into an All-ACC linebacker at N.C. State. He played through injuries, displaying toughness, always looking to make the play, bash somebody.
Thomas, while appearing at the Raleigh Sports Club, said when he first started organized football, he knew what position he wanted to play.
“Left guard,” he said.
Left guard?
Simple enough, he said. His father, Trevor, had been a left guard at Marshall and was an All-Southern Conference player as an offensive lineman for the Thundering Herd in the 1990s.
So left guard it would be, at least at first.
“A lot of kids want to be the quarterback or running back, that kind of player,” Thomas said. “I wanted to be the left guard because of my dad.
“I think it helped me become the player I am. I’ve always been a hard-nosed, tough player. I wanted to play left guard and nose guard (on defense). Those were the two positions I wanted to play, and I didn’t want to hear anything else. I was OK with blocking, OK with being the little little kid plugging the ‘A’ gap. It helped mold me as a player.”
Drake Thomas admitted he’s not an all-around athlete quite like his older brother. Thayer Thomas played football, basketball and baseball and excelled, working diligently, competing on travel teams. He was a gym rat.
“I’m addicted to the feeling of success,” Thayer said in an interview this year. “You chase that every day each year.”
Drake would come home to see Thayer hitting a baseball off a tee, their dad close by.
“I’m not hitting off a tee,” Drake said, smiling. “I’m a football player. I had a love for the game and there was not a second in my mind when I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“I was never the freak athlete. I didn’t score the touchdowns. I was an average baseball player, an average basketball player. But watching Thayer and the success he had was a blessing. It showed me the path. It kind of set the standard.”
Thayer Thomas joined the Wolfpack program in 2017 as a preferred walk-on, earned a scholarship the next year and worked his way into a starting wideout. Drake picked the Pack over Clemson, Virginia Tech and Tennessee while also drawing offers from Alabama, North Carolina and Michigan.
Drake was a first-team All-ACC pick at linebacker in 2021, then a second-team selection as a junior this season while leading the Pack with 90 tackles, including 15 tackles for losses.
“Obviously, with Drake we all know what he means to our defense,” defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said this season. “When he plays well it seems like we play well. He’s always up to the challenge.”
There have been good times and bad for the Thomas brothers with the Pack. The depths came in 2019, when N.C. State was 4-8. The rebound came in 2020, the pandemic season, when the Wolfpack played 10 ACC games and won seven, finishing 8-4 overall.
The Pack believes it would have won a 10th game in 2021 had UCLA not pulled out of the Holiday Bowl for COVID-19 reasons and the game abruptly canceled.
Drake Thomas, a team captain, was one of the Pack players chosen to face the media that day in San Diego and try to express the feelings of his teammates.
Thomas, in a calm, measured tone, said the news about the cancellation — getting it first on Twitter — was “disheartening.” He said the mood in a team meeting had been “really emotional, upset, mad, angry.”
“There were going to be guys for the last time putting on an N.C. State uniform,” he said. “To just end it like that, there were a lot of emotions.”
It will end differently for Thomas. He’ll put on his Wolfpack uniform for the last time Friday, looking for one last victory in a bowl, one last game with his teammates and forever brothers, before continuing his journey.
