NC State puts a new spin on ‘a punt is never a bad play’ in weird win over FSU
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- N.C. State beat Florida State 21-11, clinched bowl eligibility with fourth straight win.
- Special teams' punts produced two turnovers and flipped field position late.
- Defensive back Devon Marshall broke up passes, forced turnovers, sealed victory.
If you’re going to wind up in the kind of game where the deciding plays are both bizarro-world punts and the star player is a defensive back who keeps knocking down passes, you definitely don’t want to come out on the losing end of it.
N.C. State and Florida State may have set the modern game of football back decades on Friday, but the Wolfpack isn’t going to argue with the results: A 21-11 win to become bowl-eligible. A fourth straight win over the Seminoles, who have now lost seven ACC road games in a row.
Not that getting that sixth win takes any pressure off next week, given the imperative of beating Bill Belichick and North Carolina, a game N.C. State coach Dave Doeren will have been mentally preparing himself for over the last 11 months. If it is indeed his last game at Carter-Finley Stadium, what a way that would be to go out.
“I expect a crazy-ass crowd next week,” Doeren said. “Thanksgiving weekend, against the baby blue?”
As Friday nights go, this was one for the old-school, leather-helmeted purists, which is another way of saying it wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes, even if what it lacked in explosiveness it made up for in the unexpected.
“It wasn’t as pretty as we wanted it today,” N.C. State running back Hollywood Smothers said, “but a W is a W.”
It took a fourth-down touchdown pass to an outstretched Justin Joly to put away a game in which the Wolfpack never trailed, but still never really felt safe. In contrast to that final call to pass on the field goal and go for the touchdown, some tepid clock management to close out the first half certainly didn’t help, but N.C. State answered the call in the second half with a nine-minute scoring drive followed by some of the weirdest hot punting action anyone’s ever seen.
Its offense stalled with the game hanging in the balance in the fourth quarter, the Wolfpack punted twice in less than two minutes, and somehow N.C. State ended up on the better end of both.
“It’s good to get some of those,” Doeren said. “We’ve had many that didn’t go our way.”
With the Wolfpack nursing a three-point lead late, immediately after Florida State’s first touchdown of the game, a potentially game-sealing drive stalled near midfield. Caden Noonkester’s punt wasn’t a good one, high and short, and as the Seminoles scrambled to get out of the way, the ball hit one of them in the helmet and went bouncing the other direction.
It bounced all the way back to Noonkester, a former soccer goalie, who fell onto it near the original line of scrimmage like a keeper sliding onto an errant through ball. First down N.C. State.
“I cannot say that I’ve ever done that before,” Noonkester said. “I’ve watched my fair share of fumble recoveries and I tried my best to imitate that on the play. It’s a result-driven business and I got the result. I’m sure a lot of people could criticize my technique, but I got the job done.”
Given a second chance, the Wolfpack quickly went three and out, bringing Noonkester back out. His next punt was a boomer, down inside the 15-yard-line, where Florida State’s Squirrel White muffed it and the Wolfpack recovered.
Two punts in 93 seconds with two positive outcomes — really putting a new spin on “a punt is never a bad play,” as former Carolina Panthers coach John Fox was fond of saying. Or, to quote one of Chuck Amato’s favorite aphorisms, that’s a lot of “hidden yardage in the kicking game.”
“To see Noonkester recover a fumble, that’s the craziest thing ever,” Doeren said. “That’s the one dude on our team who wants no contact.”
For most of the game, meanwhile, Florida State’s offense was held in check, often by a single player. Devon Marshall drew the assignment on Florida State star Duce Robinson and broke up two long passes on the Seminoles’ first drive before ending it by running down an overthrown deep ball for an interception. And Florida State kept throwing at him, at least 10 times, unofficially, with Marshall credited with six pass breakups and two interceptions to go with four tackles.
“I felt like I got a feel for them on the first drive of the game,” Marshall said. “At that point, once I got a feel for them, they just kept throwing me the ball.”
Naturally, the game ended with the ball in his hands, coming down with Florida State’s pointless final heave.
“I thought our guys played outstanding defensive football tonight,” Doeren said. “Obviously, Devon Marshall deserves a lot of credit. He covered a 6-6 giant and played his ass off tonight.”
It says a lot about the kind of game it was that a defensive back was the breakout star of the evening. It says a lot about N.C. State that despite the grim losses to Virginia Tech and Notre Dame and Pittsburgh and Miami, it still found a way to beat Georgia Tech and Florida State at home, with the biggest home game yet a mere eight days away.
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This story was originally published November 21, 2025 at 11:41 PM.
