It’s easy to understand frustration with this year’s NC State football season. While back-to-back, nine-win seasons is nothing to sneeze at, at least 10 felt agonizingly close for this group, particularly with a last-minute loss to an inferior Wake Forest team at home.
A week removed from a blowout loss to Texas A&M in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl; however, it’s also easy to step back and appreciate where the Wolfpack’s football program is today.
As previously stated, winning nine games two years in a row is not a small feat. Particularly when one considers that from 2017’s 9-4 group, NC State lost Bronko Nagurski Award winner Bradley Chubb, three other starting defensive linemen, an offensive weapon in Jaylen Samuels, another talented running back and a starting offensive lineman to the NFL draft, along with many other key contributors who graduated.
While this year’s team had plenty of NFL talent, namely quarterback Ryan Finley, receivers Kelvin Harmon and Jakobi Meyers, linebacker Germaine Pratt and three starters on the O-Line, weathering those losses to finish with a better regular season (NC State went 8-4 before winning the Sun Bowl in 2017) is something to appreciate.
If most NC State fans were told at the start of the season that this group, with those losses, would go 9-3 in the regular season and get a crack at a strong SEC opponent in a Tier I bowl game, they would have taken it.
And they certainly would have taken it a few years ago. As Finley, Harmon, Meyers, Pratt, running back Reggie Gallaspy and center Garrett Bradbury, among others, depart NC State, they leave this program in a better place than it was when they arrived.
Some of these players, such as Bradbury, have been here since 2014 (he redshirted that season), and seen the Wolfpack’s first winning season under head coach Dave Doeren. That team went 8-5 with a win over UCF in the Bitcoin Bowl, coming off an abysmal first season for Doeren that saw the Pack go 3-9 and not win an ACC game.
Fast forward four years, and the Wolfpack has now been to five straight bowls. NC State finished in the top 25 last season, and has won more ACC games than any team but Clemson in the last two years.
All of that is thanks in large part to that 2014 class that is on its way out the door having left a lasting impact.
“The biggest thing for me is this senior class is so special,” Doeren said after the Gator Bowl. “I hate for them to have to lose a game that way, and I love these guys, and like I told them in there, there isn’t a loser in that room. … But it’s been an incredible ride with Garrett and this senior class, and like I told them in there, I’m thankful for what they helped us build. … Got some incredible dudes that have been here three, four and five years that are leaving our program, and I thank them for what they did for our program.”
The future is bright for the program as well. NC State’s early signing day recruiting class for 2019 is ranked 26th by 247Sports, led by in-state standouts such as defensive end Savion Jackson and running back Zonovan Knight.
While the 2018 season for NC State had its missed opportunities, that does not mean it was a bad season. Winning nine games in back-to-back years amid significant roster turnover is an important building block for the future, and the Wolfpack continues to be on the right track going forward.
“We would have been ecstatic five years ago to finish with nine wins,” Bradbury said. “We would have been celebrating in the locker room. It would have been amazing. And we’re all disappointed because we feel like we underachieved, to be honest. Just in terms of where it’s at, we talk a lot about leaving the jersey better than when you found it; that goes with position group, as well. Hoping the offensive line and guys can learn from this senior class and just be better next year, learn from the mistakes we made today and just keep moving this program forward, raising the standard, raising the bar.”
