NC State football’s 2018 season will not end with an appearance in the ACC Championship game. A 41-7 loss at Clemson on Saturday saw to that. Unless the Wolfpack wins out (decent chance) and Clemson loses two ACC games (probably less than zero chance), the Tigers will represent the Atlantic Division in Charlotte on Dec. 1.
So, with a blowout loss to a perennial national championship contender on the road to keep it out of the conference title game, NC State’s season is an automatic failure, right? Absolutely not. Winning a road game at Clemson was never something this bunch was supposed to do, and NC State still has a chance at one of the best seasons in program history.
The Wolfpack did not play well against Clemson. Let’s get that out of the way first. If NC State goes down to South Carolina and does what it did in a 5-0 start, it would not have lost by 34 points. An offense that thrives on rhythm had none and was sloppy. A defense that came into the game 16th in the country in scoring defense was done in by blown coverages galore and a non-existent pass rush.
But that doesn’t mean NC State is all of a sudden a bad team. Bad performances happen. It’s unfortunate for the Pack that it happened in a game that had the potential to be the biggest win in program history, but this team has the talent to rebound.
One bad game doesn’t change the fact that graduate Ryan Finley is an NFL-caliber quarterback. Junior Kelvin Harmon spearheads a deep receiving corps. Graduate linebacker Germaine Pratt is a playmaker who leads a revamped defense that has outperformed expectations.
That’s an awful lot of experienced, skilled players perfectly capable of leading the Pack down the stretch.
“It’s one game,” Finley said. “That was the message coming in. It wasn’t all or nothing; it’s just one football game and we’re 5-1. We’ve got a lot – half the season left. So, it’s not the end of the world, but it was a bad loss and we are a better football team. We’ve got a lot of football ahead of us.”
Indeed the Pack does have a lot of football ahead of it, and a lot of games it should win. In fact, on paper, NC State should win every remaining game on its schedule. This week will be the toughest, on the road against a strong Syracuse team led by underrated quarterback Eric Dungey. But the Orange have had some slip ups, namely a loss to Pittsburgh and narrowly avoiding the same to UNC-Chapel Hill last week. The Pack is simply more talented.
After that, it’s home tilts against a rebuilding Florida State squad and a bad Wake Forest team, followed by road matchups with a terrible Louisville team and the Tar Heels, who are marginally better than last season’s dumpster fire, if that. To close, NC State will host East Carolina to make up for the cancelled game against West Virginia.
Win all those games, as the Wolfpack should, and NC State would finish with an 11-1 regular season, its best since 2002. That would put the Pack in line for a New Year’s Six bowl game; ESPN’s projections going into the Clemson game (which likely assumed a loss for the Pack) had NC State in the Peach Bowl.
In order to do that, though, NC State has to move on from Clemson. The Pack has to avoid letting that loss affect the team mentally and cause the season to spiral downward, starting this week with Syracuse.
Fortunately for NC State, a blowout loss where nothing went right is often the easiest kind to flush away and forget about. The Wolfpack is much less likely to dwell on this game than it would have if the team had posted its best performance of the season but come up short against a superior team.
“[We have to move on] as soon as we wake up in the morning,” redshirt junior receiver Jakobi Meyers had. “We’ve got to be ready to play Syracuse. We’ve got to start preparing early and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Just because NC State is going to fall short of its ultimate goal of an ACC Championship doesn’t mean this season can’t still be special. Clemson is where it is for a reason, and not being on that level is nothing to be ashamed of, unless you follow a handful of teams that includes the likes of Alabama, Ohio State and Notre Dame.
As long as the Wolfpack can put this one behind it and move forward, this season could still end as the best in over a decade.
