Dave Doeren grades NC State's final road test an 'A+'

Enter Sandman rocked Lane Stadium Saturday afternoon like it does every home game in in Blacksburg, Va.. NC State jumped out to an 14-0 second-quarter lead and quieted the crowd pretty quickly. 

The Wolfpack never let the Hokies build too much momentum and helped empty out the sold-out stadium in the second half. Even when Virginia Tech scored to cut its deficit to 7 points, at least ⅓ of the crowd had already exited the stands. 

NC State did not take this challenge lightly. The program fully acknowledged that this was a serious road test.

“First off, just credit to Virginia Tech fans,” graduate linebacker Payton Wilson said after his final true road game. “I don’t think there’s anything comparable to it. This is one of the loudest places I’ve ever played in my life.” 

After making trips to UConn, Wake Forest, Duke and UVA earlier this fall, the Wolfpack finished 4-1 on the road. 

Graduate quarterback Brennan Armstrong led the program to each of those wins. Three of those matchups, putting the dismantling of Wake Forest aside, were decided by one score. Even when the program has the crowd fully against it, it puts together enough clutch plays to record a win. 

That remained true against the Hokies. Virginia Tech scored in the second and third quarters to cut into NC State’s lead, and the Wolfpack immediately answered both times on 75-yard touchdown drives. 

“A+,” head coach Dave Doeren graded the performance after the game. He felt the Wolfpack handled the road trip well, showing poise and composure that sapped the energy out of an opposing fan base on the Hokies’ senior day. 

“The crowd was taken out of the game,” Doeren said. 

“I thought we kept their crowd out of it. We didn’t have any false starts due to crowd noise. A lot of teams, when you watch film, it’s not what you see. You see guys over and over and over jumping offsides, so I thought our kids did a nice job with that.”

When NC State ran onto the field, shortly after Virginia Tech’s entrance concluded, the team was yelling back at the crowd. The Wolfpack plays in front of sold-out crowds all the time at Carter-Finley Stadium, and it embraced the noise and the chaos against the Hokies. 

NC State heads into its own senior day 8-3 in large part thanks to its standout marks on the road. The end to the game, a 14-0 run by Virginia Tech, left Wilson unsatisfied but, after praising the Hokies’ fanbase, he is happy to wrap up his road career with a victory. 

“It’s just awesome to kind of go out like this,” Wilson said. “It’s not really the way we wanted to finish on defense there towards the end of the game. Our standard is our standard, and when we don’t live up to that, we’re not as happy as we want to be. But, this is my last road game with NC State, excited for it to be a W.”