ACC Football – Virginia Tech Upsets NC State, 23-21

NC State football suffered a 23-21 loss to Virginia Tech after getting outplayed on both sides of the football inside Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday night. 

The Wolfpack (3-2, 1-2 ACC) not only suffered the worst loss of the Dave Doeren era, it did so while looking rudderless on offense with just 59 total rushing yards and the defense surrendered 400-plus yards with multiple explosive plays from a previously hopeless Hokies offense.

This was a Virginia Tech team that had been hammered by every Division I opponent to this point and the Wolfpack  which came in with three wins over Division I opponents couldn’t find a way at home inside Carter-Finley Stadium. 

Takeaways 

Uninspiring First Half of Football

In a game where NC State absolutely didn’t need to allow its opponent to hang around, the Wolfpack played so uninspiring in the first half it went into the locker room trailing. The Hokies put together three long drives and had 230 yards of offense in the first half, but only mustered up 13 points on one touchdown and two field goals. That’s largely because Virginia Tech is not a good football team. But NC State somehow looked worse on offense.

CJ Bailey was 11-of-12 for 105 passing yards with one touchdown through the first two quarters, but was constantly under duress for the first time this season. Going into Week 5, Bailey was sacked just four times on the entire season. On Saturday night, he was sacked four times in the first half. One of them was an intentional grounding call, but he threw it away to avoid being sacked on fourth down.

Worse Second Half

State came out of the gate strong in the second half with a scoring drive that concluded with CJ Bailey passing for his second touchdown. After that point, State generated one other scoring drive, but had three other drives that spanned a total of 14 plays for 38 total yards, including a 3-and-out and getting stopped on fourth down to end the game.

Mind you, this is a Hokies defense that had allowed an average of 37.7 points per game against Division I opponents through the first three games. That included 45 points against Old Dominion that ultimately led to the firing of Brent Pry. Two weeks later, NC State allowed that same defense to sack Bailey a career-high five times and gain fewer than 60 rushing yards.

Along with countless gashing plays given up to Virginia Tech’s offense, the defense also had several notable players go down to injuries. Starting safety Brody Barnhardt was forced to leave the game along with starting linebacker and captain Sean Brown went to the locker room. Barnhardt was replaced by Zack Myers while Brown was replaced by LeCorian Hodge neither of which had meaningful snaps in their careers.

So not only did State give up 400-plus yards to a hapless Virginia Tech offense, it also came away with injuries to several key players it needed to even have a chance to turn things around against a gargantuan second half of the schedule. 

Next:

Virginia Tech: Saturday at home vs. Wake Forest

N.C. State: Saturday at home vs. Campbell