Sophomore running back Andre Brown used one word Saturday to describe N.C. State’s 25-23 loss to Wake Forest – devastating.
But as Brown pointed out, five of the six teams in State’s half of the ACC have only one loss, creating a logjammed race to the ACC Championship.
With the Pack’s loss to Wake, State joined Clemson, Boston College, Maryland and the Deacons as one-loss teams in the conference’s Atlantic division, with Florida State next in line with two losses.
As the Pack still has four more ACC games, redshirt senior linebacker Pat Lowery pointed out that State is still in control of its own destiny.
“It is still in our hands, with Wake’s loss to Clemson last week,” Lowery said. “That’s big because you don’t want to be sitting at home watching other teams.”
The Pack (3-3, 2-1) will travel to Clemson Nov. 11, but the team must first travel to Maryland and Virginia in the next two weeks.
Coach Chuck Amato said his coaches talked to the team about bouncing back from the loss with the thought that anyone can win the Atlantic division.
“We have to focus on the fact that it isn’t over. Every team in our division has one loss or more,” Amato said. “Unfortunately we have to leave the friendly confines of this stadium, but we can’t let this loss affect us like the last one going into our last away game.”
In State’s last road game, the team lost at Southern Miss 37-17, a week after a last-second home loss to Akron.
Saturday, the Pack will visit Maryland (4-2, 1-1) in State’s second road game of the season. The Terps sit at the bottom of the Atlantic division, while still boasting only one conference loss.
While Lowery said he doesn’t believe the reason the Pack lost to Southern Miss was because it was a road game, he said he knows State will have to put on a stronger performance on the road this week.
“I don’t think it [being away] had anything to do with the loss,” Lowery said. “Maryland is closer, even though it’s the opposite way, so we’ll see how things play out.”
Junior receiver Darrell Blackman, State’s offensive star for the day with four receptions for 67 yards, said the difficulty of playing on the road for the majority of the remaining season is just another aspect of the adversity State has been fighting all year.
“There’s been a lot of adversity coming our way,” Blackman said. “We haven’t played much on the road so we’ve got to go out there and stay focused. We have to play Wolfpack football.”
Lowery noted the mood surrounding the program has been much nicer after the last two wins. He and the rest of the Pack are hoping that attitude comes back and the team can make noise in a crowded Atlantic division.
“It’s been easygoing in practice the last two weeks,” Lowery said. “Now we just have to stick to the course and get things turned back around.”
