Four Downs: NC State still a win away from bowl eligibility as Georgia Tech thumps Pack
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The final result wasn't an unexpected one as No. 24 Georgia Tech (8-2, 5-2 ACC) beat NC State (5-5, 1-5) in Raleigh on Saturday. But the score was, as Georgia Tech won 56-23 in a game that wouldn't have even been that close were it not for a late touchdown when the game had already been decided. But there are still long-range implications going forward, particularly for the Wolfpack that are searching for something, anything to cling to as a 4-0 start to the season almost doesn't seem real.
That quote from "Anchorman" is used quite a bit in sports, but in this case, it was extremely accurate.
Early on, it looked like this was going to be another back-and-forth affair, one like Georgia Tech has had plenty this season with an up-and-down defense. With Georgia Tech up 14-13 in the second, NC State mounted a long drive that reached the Georgia Tech 3-yard line to set up a 1st and goal.
Two plays later, quarterback Jacoby Brissett threw what looked like it would be a pick-six when Georgia Tech's Quayshawn Nealy intercepted the pass at the Georgia Tech 1-yard line and returned it 69 yards. But freshman running back Jaylen Samuels made a fantastic hustle play to run Nealy down and strip the ball, which NC State recovered, and it was almost like it never happened.
It had been exactly the kind of start you want to have against a team like Georgia Tech. NC State was killing them in the time of possession battle and had even forced a turnover. The Wolfpack had been maximizing its possessions. Sure, there had been mistakes -- NC State's receivers couldn't hang on to the football, and the team was JUST missing on big play chances -- but they couldn't have asked for things to go much better.
Two plays later, Georgia Tech defensive back D.J. White had an interception of his own and this time it was returned for a touchdown. Two plays later.
"We're driving in to have a chance at a touchdown there, and it turns into a touchdown for them," NC State head coach Dave Doeren said. "Great play by them and for us, a bad play, obviously. To have it happen again, it just kind of sucked the wind out of the team and we never found a way to get back in it."
That put Georgia Tech up 21-13. Then on the ensuing NC State drive, Brissett was sacked and fumbled, and this time Nealy made it to the end zone. Brissett lay motionless on the turf for a time, but he ultimately returned to the game on the next series. That touchdown put Georgia Tech up 28-13.
NC State had gone from about to go up by six points to down by 15 points without Georgia Tech even touching the football on offense.
"I just look down right here and it's 9:26 on the clock in the second quarter and they get an interception return and then at 7:12, which is a minute and a half later, they get a 43-yard defensive touchdown," Doeren said, shaking his head. "So within a minute and a half, there was a 14-point swing in the game with their defense scoring for them. That's crazy right there."
NC State would run 25 plays in between times that Georgia Tech touched the ball. After the initial pick-six that put the Wolfpack down eight, the ensuing two drives netted 3 yards on nine plays (but 5:12 of possession, at least).
Those final two drives of the first half that totaled 5:12 and NC State had just over five minutes worth of total possession in the second half. Total. Georgia Tech owned it nearly 25 minutes.
But that one particularly crazy sequence where the two teams traded turnovers sticks out the most. You don't often see an interception that looked like a sure pick-six and a strip-fumble on that same play followed immediately by a pick-six AGAIN.
"I don't think I've ever seen anything like that," NC State defensive end Mike Rose said. "I've never experienced something like that. I don't think anybody has, honestly. Georgia Tech made some plays. They went out there and they made some plays. They went out there and they did what we wanted to do, and that's take the ball away. If we got more turnovers, we might not have put the offense in that position. It's a two-way loss."
On the play where Brissett was sacked and fumbled, leading to the fumble return touchdown that put Georgia Tech up by 15, it seemed like it was the worst-case scenario for the Wolfpack. Because Brissett didn't move.
He lay on the turf for awhile before finally walking off the field mostly of his own power. He said later that he had the wind knocked out of him on a shot to the ribs.
"It's hard (to see), but it's football. He's going to get hit now and then. For him to hop back up, that was pretty amazing, to see him recover," Samuels said of his quarterback.
Brissett sat down with the trainers in the meantime, getting checked out for a possible broken rib. As the doctors got near him with a stethoscope (checking for a punctured lung or anything internally wrong), Brissett said that he didn't want to let them listen, but he did anyways.
"Were you afraid they would find something?" a reporter asked.
"Kinda, yeah," he said.
That play happened in the second quarter. On NC State's next possession -- which was mere moments after that initial injury occurred -- he was back in the game. After a long run just before the end of the first half, he stopped to gather himself and moved deliberately getting off the field.
Georgia Tech kept pulling further and further away, leading by 19 at the half and by 33 going into the fourth quarter, then going up 40 with 10 minutes to go.
And yet Brissett kept going back into the game.
"Why wouldn't I want to go? I still could walk, so I should be fine to go out and play," Brissett said.
Brissett has put this team on his back in both wins and losses, and he wasn't going to let this game be different. A player is always going to choose to play, though.
"We talked about it," Doeren said, when asked if the staff had considered benching Brissett. "We actually asked him at one point and he said 'I want to stay in'. I think he's a guy that wants to be in there.
"We were trying to go score. We have pride in our team. We don't want to just put a guy in there aad not get anyting done. We're trying to keep the ball away from them and go score a touchdown at that point."
Brissett hit tight end David Grinnage with 7:05 to go to cut the deficit to 56-23. NC State kicked the ball off conventionally after that, and Georgia Tech had the ball the rest of the game. It had seemed odd to have the starting quarterback in the game that late while he had taken a beating and NC State has a must-win coming up next week, but that's the kind of player that Brissett is.
"I understand that we do have another game next week that we need to win. I honestly was thinking about there's still time on the clock, there's still a chance for us to come back and win," Brissett said.
But Brissett has been off since that second half of the Florida State game, seemingly. Yes, the defenses he's facing have improved, but he also just doesn't look quite right. His receivers haven't helped -- he had at least five dropped passes in the first half alone -- but he hasn't been all that accurate either, missing a wide-open Bryan Underwood down the sideline on the second play of the game that wouldn't been a huge play, if not a touchdown.
That was a big missed opportunity, certainly.
"Second play of the game, we have Bryan Underwood going down the sideline and we overthrow him, "Doeren said. "We ran that play a bunch in practice and it was money. He just missed him. He's a very good quarterback, and at times, you're going to miss guys. Obviously we'd love to get him back in a rhythm where that's a completion and a touchdown and we're all happy. But there's no doubt that he's good enough to do what we need him to do. We've just got to get him back there."
Through the first five games this year, NC State was 4-1 and had only a relatively respectable loss to their credit (to Florida State). And through those five games, Brissett -- a Florida transfer -- was putting on a clinic. He was 115-of-167 passing for 1,364 yards (272.8 per game), throwing for 13 touchdowns to just one interception.
It's worth noting, of course, that NC State's competition for much of those first five games wasn't exactly stiff. But the first half of the Florida State game seemed to provide a glimpse into what this team could be.
Just like that, it was gone.
In the five games since Florida State, NC State is 1-4 and Brissett is 74-of-147 for 831 yards, five touchdowns and four interceptions.
He alone is not the only reason that the NC State offense has gone cold. But his struggles haven't helped matters, either.
"You see a lot of plays down the field where our guys go up with their guys, and we don't come down and make those plays enough. That's an area where we've got to get better. We've got to make more explosive plays. Earlier in the year, we were making 10 or more explosive plays," Doeren said. "It's just hard to nickel-and-dime yourself down the field. You have to be able to go down the field with some shots and make some big plays."
Brissett, who was waiting until he spoke to the media before getting treatment on his ribs, said that he was definitely going to be playing next week against Wake Forest.
And he feels like the loss of confidence is merely temporary.
"Just got to hit the next one. It's still there," Brissett said. "The players are still getting open. It's just on me to find a way to get them the ball."
Georgia Tech's loss to Duke earlier this season basically means that its season is over, as far as winning the ACC Coastal is concerned. They still have an outside shot, of course, but the Jackets will need quite a bit of help that the Blue Devils probably aren't going to be willing to give.
And yet, here the Yellow Jackets sit at 8-2 and while it's not likely that they'll knock off Clemson next week, it's certainly possible.
A big reason why is their defense has at least been able to make plays ... sometimes. Often enough, anyway. Entering the North Carolina game, the Yellow Jackets were last in the ACC in yards per play given up. The defense was just good enough, but it was barely on the field because its offense dominated time of possession. Georgia Tech managed to beat Miami earlier this year, for example, even when Miami averaged over EIGHT yards per play.
Now, the defense is able to get some stops and it actually managed to outscore NC State 14-0 during a stretch where its offense didn't even take a snap.
Georgia Tech finished with just one sack, but had three tackles for loss, two interceptions and five pass breakups. They did just enough to hold NC State in check and made the Wolfpack pay for all of their miscues. They've outscored their last three opponents by a combined 147-61 (91-33 in the last two games). Oh, and Georgia Tech has now scored 35 or more points in four straight games and has put up 50 points in two of its last three games.
Maybe Georgia Tech can knock off Clemson next Saturday. Maybe it can't. Heck, the Yellow Jackets could lose their final two games, both against top-25 teams. But that would still put him at 8-4 and yet again, one of the top three or so teams in the Coastal.
What seemed like a foregone conclusion a little over a month ago is now anything but. NC State has showed clear signs of progress in Year 2 of the Dave Doeren era, there's no question, and yet the schedule has set up very well in his first two years to get to a bowl game.
Last year, quarterback play just wasn't good enough. This year, NC State just hasn't quite been able to win the more winnable games, with the exception of Syracuse, even at home.
Next week's game against Wake Forest at home seems like the most likely chance for the Wolfpack, but the Deacons showed a lot of fight in their home loss to Clemson last week, so who knows?
It's very possible the regular-season finale for NC State at North Carolina could be, essentially, for a bowl berth.
NC State players, though, say that they don't care -- they want to win them both.
"We want to win both. Of course, we want to be bowl-eligible. But we want to win both games," Rose said.
NC State really needs something good to happen and in a bad way. The Wolfpack have struggled with Wake Forest over the years, but mostly only in games in Winston-Salem. North Carolina has plenty of issues of its own on both sides of the ball. Both games are winnable. And both games, certainly, are loseable.
Doeren has been recruiting well and will be given ample time to build this program, as he should be. But it won't get any easier for him with the fanbase if he can't manage to get this team to 6-6.
