The hallmarks of another disastrous fourth quarter were there, right down to the brutal CJ Bailey turnover. And as Keyjuan Brown broke another big running play with the score tied and less than 10 minutes to go, it felt like the game was slipping away. But Harvey Dyson’s hustle play turned everything around—NC State made some good luck for itself, for once.
Dyson forced a fumble that State recovered, denying Louisville a red zone scoring opportunity for the second time that afternoon, and NC State took
the ensuing possession the other way for the game-winning points. It ended up being a surprisingly anti-climactic finish to the afternoon, but that’s just fine by me. Dyson’s third-down sack on Louisville’s final possession pretty much forced the Cardinals to punt the ball away, and NC State’s offense was able to grind out the remaining time on the clock.
There were a lot of rough moments in this game—the tackling was a bit less than exemplary at times—but the Pack fought through the setbacks and made the plays when they meant the most, and give the guys a lot of credit for coming through. They needed this result badly.
CJ Bailey had an excellent game overall and took full advantage of Louisville’s spotty and whoopsie-prone secondary to pile up a career-high in passing yards. NC State needed the effort, since it lost Duke Scott to injury in the first quarter and the running game wasn’t much help. If NC State didn’t have to settle for a couple of red zone field goals (or suffer the INT in the end zone), it’d have been a much more impressive day on the scoreboard.
But it was enough anyway. State finished with 26 more plays from scrimmage, and held the ball for over 37 minutes. The two teams piled up almost the exact same number of yards, but Louisville was boom-or-bust, while NC State was more consistent. The defense managing to cancel out some of Louisville’s explosives with takeaways was a big difference. These teams’ season-long turnover trends both flipped completely in the opposite direction on Saturday, which will happen sometimes. Given how NC State has lacked for breaks this year, nobody’s going to feel bad about this.
