Four Downs: NC State dominates North Carolina in convincing rivalry win
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- In-state rivalry games between two comparable teams are generally close. Not this time as N.C. State (7-5) dismantled North Carolina (6-6) by a final of 35-7 that really wasn't even that close. Both teams were already bowl-bound, but there were plenty of takeaways from this one -- particularly from the Wolfpack side of things.
Sometimes, the game of football is pretty simple. If your offensive and defensive lines own the line of scrimmage, you generally will win the game. That's exactly what N.C. State did, bullying the North Carolina defensive line as the running backs and quarterback Jacoby Brissett combined to gain 388 yards on 58 carries (6.7 per rush). The Wolfpack only needed to pass the ball 11 times because of how dominant they were up front.
"We knew we had to score points because we knew how explosive their offense was," Brissett said. "We preach it every day -- finish blocks, finish drives. Our offensive line came out and did a great job and really started off well and just kept on playing through the game.
"If we needed to throw the ball, I know for a fact that it would've been open because they were starting to get heavy on us on the run."
Brissett's ability to run the football was a big boost, too, as he finished with 14 caries for 167 yards and a touchdown. He was sacked twice but lost just five yards.
Head coach Dave Doeren said that the staff saw something in the North Carolina defense they could exploit using Brissett's legs, and the timing of this game didn't hurt.
"We haven't done a ton of (running the quarterback), for one. We don't have a lot of depth yet at that position, so we haven't been able to do that. But whenever you run your quarterback, you're plus-one in the run game," Doeren said. "Formationally, there were some formations where we knew how they were going to line up and with the extra blocker, we knew that we could crease them. That's what we did."
There were often wide berths to run through for both Brissett and the N.C. State backs, led by Shadrach Thornton who had a career-high 28 rushing attempts for 161 yards and a touchdown.
"Before we would start the series, my running backs position coach would come to me and he would give me a heads-up on the play they were running," Thornton said. "Judging by the defense that they were in, I could already pretty much guesstimate where the ball would go and the o-line blocked it perfect to where I could run right into that hole that I knew it would be there."
Doeren has often been reluctant to use Thornton early in games for reasons unbeknownst to the public, even though it has seemed all year long like Thornton is their best back. He got the first carry of the game in this one, though, and that set the tone.
"Proud of Shad, really proud of him," Doeren said. "Shad had a tremendous two weeks of practice. He as focused. He was locked in. We rode him, and I told him we would because of the way he worked in practice."
So you can talk scheme all you want -- in the end, N.C. State brought the nastiness both in the offensive and defensive trenches, too.
The Wolfpack out-rushed North Carolina 388 to 30, and they sacked UNC quarterbacks (either Marquise Williams, who was playing as well as any ACC quarterback entering the game, or backup Mitch Trubisky, who came in after Williams was hurt) four times. They hit both quarterbacks, particularly Williams, even more.
Even without negative plays in the running game, UNC still only gained 95 yards on the ground (they lost 65).
So up front on both sides of the ball, the Wolfpack were dominant. The offensive line has been pretty good at establishing the run, even against good teams, all year long. But the defensive line coming out and playing that way was new.
It wasn't a surprise to Doeren, though.
"That's what we expected. That's fundamental technique. We knew that they would come out talking a lot and we felt like if we could be physical and put our hands on them and get in gaps, there's a lot of different formational things that we thought if they held true, we could take advantage of and did," Doeren said.
"For two games in a row, we've dominated an in-state opponent, and that's what it was -- 388 yards rushing and held them to 30. It was a great performance in all three phases by a bunch of different people," Doeren said. "Our ball control, (offensive coordinator Matt) Canada and his staff, the way they formationed them and got them thinking, moving around, unsure of their fits and the way our guys moved them off the ball, even losing (center Quenton) Schooley didn't change anything."
"Sometimes things are just right, and they were right today and for a lot of reasons."
Safety Hakim Jones said in N.C. State's weekly press conference on Monday that when UNC's dual-threat quarterback Marquise Williams gets hit in games, he "basically almost quits".
It was an eyebrow-raising critique to be sure, as Williams has taken a beating most of the season and continued to get up and make plays.
That wasn't the case on Saturday as N.C. State's defensive line manhandled UNC's front, which didn't really even give Williams much of a chance.
"Yeah, (Jones) basically gave us a goal and we just followed through with it," defensive tackle Thomas Teal said, laughing. "It wasn't any disrespect meant by that remark. It was a challenge, more like. But we lived up to it."
"(Jones) was saying what all of us were saying, but it's not what we needed to say in the press conference," Doeren said, smiling wryly. "(Williams) is the guy that stirs their drink on offense. He's a really good player. When you hit a really good player repetitively, it makes it hard.
"We didn't want to do it any other way but clean, but we wanted to tackle him and get him hard and get a lot of people to him. That's what the whole plan was, around making sure that he didn't beat us. The guys did a great job of executing it."
Williams exited the game with an apparant leg injury with 12:28 to go in the third quarter, but he had taken a beating all game long before that, getting sacked three times and finishing with just 11 yards rushing, his lowest total since a loss at Miami (four yards, and he was hit nearly as many times in that game) and his third-lowest total of the season.
That wasn't all, of course.
Last year after winning in Raleigh, North Carolina stomped gleefully on N.C. State's midfield logo. The Wolfpack didn't like that, and they made that clear both immediately after the game and in the lead-up to this one.
Last week after beating Duke, North Carolina players spray-painted their reclaimed "Victory Bell" and did damage to the Duke locker room, too (the university is going to pay for the damage).
Both actions combined to make Thornton, for one, fired up for this game.
"It pretty much kind of made us mad. We were even madder about the fact of what they did to Duke's locker room," Thornton said.
"Our big thing here was to show them how to win with class, how to walk off the field, celebrate with our fans, come in and celebrate together and leave respectfully. They have a great coaching staff. They have great players. Shouts out to them. Good luck to their bowl game or whatever they've got going on. It was more so about us winning with class."
Doeren relished the role of underdog that his team played all week, though. He encouraged his own quarterback to embrace it, as most of the talk entering the game had been about Jones' comments about Williams (not to mention Williams' stellar play entering the game), and not about Brissett.
Brissett shrugged off any notion of so-called disrespect being a thing -- he hadn't played all that well entering the game and hadn't really had a great game since the Florida State game back on September 27 -- but Doeren said both that and the factmost of the local media picked against N.C. State played a role.
When asked if he was surprised by what had transpired on the field, because no one had thought they would dominate that way, Doeren just grinned.
"None of you did, but we did," he said. "I'm just telling you right now. I love that you guys all picked them to win, because that just helped me. Thank you. Do it again next year."
Doeren, a Kansas native, has been relatively new to the rivalry, but he's learning fast. He told this story to the assembled media after the game, in its entirety for the full effect:
"So I'm in the dry cleaner in the summer, right? I'm standing there getting a shirt. A little old person behind the desk is looking up at me and this guy is standing in front of me in his khakis and his, you know, shoes, and he's got the fancy belt with the UNC things on it and a light blue shirt with the collar up, right? He turns around and looks at me and he's like, 'You're Coach D, right?' I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm Coach D, how're you doing?' He goes, 'I hope you lose every game.' The lady behind the desk looks up at me and I go, 'Man, we root for you except for when we play you.' She goes, 'At least one of y'all have class.'
"And this is in our backyard. This is five minutes from my house. Whenever I go to our team hotel even, they sell UNC gear in our team hotel. I'm like, 'God, I hate that.' But we hadn't beaten them yet, but now I can say 'Get that stuff out of here.' It's great being 30 minutes apart. Larry and his staff do a good job. Their players play hard. But it's our year to talk about the win. Last year was their win. We're going to enjoy it."
Barely a month ago, Doeren was halfway through his second ACC season and still without a conference win to show for it. But let's back up a moment, back to Doeren's first year at N.C. State last season and the journey that has led up to this point.
Last year, N.C. State didn't even beat a Power 5 program (meaning they went winless in ACC play), and the two FBS programs they beat were a combined 10-14. This year, the Wolfpack opened their non-conference slate with four wins (three against FBS teams), but just one of those teams has a winning record now (Georgia Southern at 8-3). Combined, N.C. State's three non-conference FBS wins have a record of 17-16.
Doeren finally got his first ACC win on October 18 against Syracuse after starting out 0-4, but even that was a bit of a short-lived triumph -- the Orange finished the regular season 3-9 on Saturday, and then N.C. State was blown out by Georgia Tech at home the next week. But they cruised past Wake Forest at home two weeks ago for Doeren's second ACC win (still against a team that is just 3-8 at the moment) and had a bye before the North Carolina game.
And boy, did that bye week pay off. The Tar Heels came into the game red hot, winners of four of their last five games, and Doeren and company cooled them off in a hurry. The Tar Heels finished the regular season at 6-6, meaning Doeren got a win over an FBS team that finished the regular season at .500 or better.
The hashtag the N.C. State marketing department has been using on Twitter is "#Statement" -- meaning, basically, that N.C. State grads, teams and fans should make a #Statement with their actions and by telling their stories.
For Thornton, that's exactly what this win was.
"Statement. Pound, statement," Thornton said. "That's all I've got to say about that. That was the big picture. That was what we were trying to come in here to do and I feel like we did that."
Doeren's teams, for the most part, have beaten who they were supposed to beat and lost to whom they were supposed to lose, which isn't the worst thing. But there were some question marks as to where the program was going.
Not anymore.
Thornton said it's the biggest win of Doeren's tenure.
"You know what? I would believe so," Thornton said. "It's against our rival. It was a large win for us. We tried to pitch a shutout, but they got in for a score. So I would say it's a very (memorable) win for him and our seniors."
For Doeren, it's also big to beat both in-state opponents -- and by a combined score of 77-20.
"Obviously, we only get to play two in-state teams this year so for our schedule we are state champions and proud to be that way. ... Obviously we didn't play Duke, but the two teams that were on our schedule, we beat them and beat them very soundly," Doeren said.
But for Doeren, it's also validation in what he's been saying all season long -- that what he and his staff are building there is working.
"It's great for recruiting in state for people to know that you're going to play on a football team like this that has the education that we have and the leadership we have from (athletic director) Debbie (Yow) and Chancellor Woodson an the facilities that our boosters are giving us. All those things are showing where we're going. We've been talking that way -- now we can show them that it's happening," Doeren said.
"Like I said all along, we are getting better and we are moving towards where we want to be. This is a blue-collar school. This is a work ethic, hands-in-the-dirt school. It's an agricultural school. It's a textile school. It's an engineering school. It's founded by tough people, and that's what this football team will be and that's what we were today. Loved our game plan and loved how it was executed."
After the game was over, Doeren ran through and high-fived as many of his team's fans in attendance as he could. Raleigh is a short drive from Chapel Hill, and there are plenty of so called "House Divided" families in the area with N.C. State and UNC alumni.
Doeren said that fan support is just part of his vision, but he sees that vision coming together.
"What I want to build here is the best team in the state and I want the best fans in the state. I want them to know that I appreciate them. I want them in the stands, no matter where we're at, being loud, standing on their feet and screaming, good or bad, no matter what's happening. I want them to know that I notice when they're there and I care a lot about their efforts," Doeren said.
"I know it's not easy financially to always do those kinds of things and for me to ignore their efforts when that's what I need is crazy. So it's just my way of saying thank you to them. It's a big deal. For us to be the champions of this conference someday, which is what I want to be -- it's why I came here -- we need the whole thing. We need the players, the facilities, the fans and we need everybody to get the whole picture of what we're trying to build."
The Tar Heels entered this game with one of the best -- and hottest -- offenses in the country and facing a defense that had been mediocre at best most of the season and at times, downright disappointing.
Early in the game, starting center Lucas Crowley was hurt and would not return, but that was far from the only reason for the Tar Heels' struggles on the offensive line.
Williams was hit early and often, as the Wolfpack had promised, and eventually he had to leave with an injury. But it was more than just Williams.
Many expected a shootout-type game between these two teams coming in. The Wolfpack's offense has shown flashes of being very good, even as it struggled against better defenses, and North Carolina's offense was playing well. So it was no surprise that N.C. State put up 35 points.
North Carolina's defense is what it is, and it shouldn't have been a huge surprise that N.C. State was able to move the ball at will. The surprise was that North Carolina totaled 207 yards on 63 plays (3.3 per play), the lowest in both total yards and yards per play in head coach Larry Fedora's three seasons. The Tar Heels have been under 4.0 yards per play just two under times under Fedora -- at South Carolina last year, and at Miami this year.
N.C. State's defense can be very good up front -- they have talented pieces -- but there's just something about a rivalry that brings out the best in players, and it brought out the best in them, maybe.
A lot of things played into it, but there's no escaping the fact that a Fedora-coached team had never been shut out (even dating back to his time at Southern Miss) and they only very narrowly avoided it, scoring their only touchdown with 1:48 on the clock.
Playing with a lead helped some, Teal said. "We made them one-dimensional. We made them have to pass the ball. We shut down what they like to do best, which is run their quarterback."
"That was definitely one of our worst games as an offensive line," North Carolina right tackle Landon Turner said. "It wasn't a lack of ability. I think it was more of a mental gap. We got in our own heads today.
"We lost individual battles."
