The North Carolina State Wolfpack enter their bye week at 6-5 (2-5 ACC) on the season, bowl eligible, and with two conference wins under their belt.
NC State Enters Bye Week Feeling Good
In Coach Dave Doeren’s inaugural season, NC State went 0-8 in the ACC. Winning a quarter of their conference games this year is a huge improvement after getting blanked the entire 2013 season.
After starting the year on a winning streak to get to 4-0, the Wolfpack had to sweat out another conference slate of multiple losses.
The Pack won’t win any strength of schedule awards this season, but having wins against Georgia Southern and South Florida have their plus sides. A win’s a win, and the Georgia Southern Eagles have now won eight games, and lead the Sun Belt conference.
The Pack’s opening 24-23 close call to the Eagles looks like a respectable win out of the gate against a bowl eligible team. The Eagles also gave current ACC Coastal Division leader Georgia Tech a run for their money, falling 42-38. By gutting out that first win the Wolfpack showed they could hang on in a close game.
NC State has only been shell-shocked in two of their losses this season. The 41-0 whitewash against Clemson, and the 56-23 blowout versus Georgia Tech were contests in which the Pack were severely overmatched.
The Wolfpack’s best non-conference win came down in Tampa versus the South Florida Bulls. NC State ran, passed, and punt returned their way to a 49-17 rout. South Florida competed in every game this season besides that thrashing they suffered against NC State. They kept it close in back to back weeks against Wisconsin and East Carolina. The Bulls have to win out to become bowl eligible.
The Pack followed up four straight wins to start the year with four straight losses in ACC play to drop to .500. It looked eerily similar to the start of last year’s debacle of a conference season. State couldn’t afford to waste those four opening wins and flush bowl eligibility down the drain with a poor showing in the ACC. Fortunately for all Wolfpack fans, the guys from Raleigh had some fight in them and bounced back.
The familiar feeling of losing in the ACC was replaced with the euphoria of winning a game, and on the road to boot, against the Syracuse Orange. When I previewed the season, this was a swing game that NC State needed to capitalize on to set themselves up for a win at home against bottom dwelling Wake Forest.
They went up to New York and gutted out a 24-17 win against the Orange and got Dave Doeren on the board in the ACC for the first time in his NC State tenure.
Doeren showed his feelings on getting that elusive ACC win out of the way. After getting that burden off his shoulders, his joyous attitude helped lead them to another win and bowl eligibility.
I originally thought Syracuse would get the win in the Carrier Dome, and eventually the Wolfpack would finish 5-7, with a few positives on the season but out of the postseason.
With six wins, I was a game off, and I’m very pleased that NC State proved me wrong and another North Carolina team is bowl eligible. Literally as I’m writing this UNC is taking Duke to the woodshed in Wallace Wade Stadium. It’s 45-20, and it looks like the entire trio of Research Triangle schools will be bowling come this December.
With Wake in a huge rut and UNC wildly unpredictable each week (though on the verge of the postseason), Duke and NC State have picked up the Tobacco Road flag and ran with it. UNC may actually finish the strongest of the three, with the Tar Heels and Wolfpack meeting next week in Chapel Hill.
The ACC has a realistic shot at getting 10 teams into the postseason, or at least eligible. Notre Dame fills a slot in the pecking order if they don’t make the New Year’s Six Bowls, and at three losses, the Irish may take an ACC spot in the postseason.
With Florida State dominating for three straight years now, and Clemson fighting the Seminoles for dominance, NC State can bounce back and get into the conversation in the ACC. Rather than being an automatic win on a team’s schedule, the Wolfpack can build on the success they’ve already had this year and roll into Chapel Hill, extra fall practices and a bowl game.
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