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NC State football at Wake Forest predictions from across the country

MattCarterby: Matt Carter11/13/21TheWolfpacker

When it comes to picking the result of NC State football at Wake Forest Saturday evening, a 7:30 kickoff televised by ACC Network, the opinion is mixed.

For instance, the ESPN.com duo of Andrea Adelson and David Hale are split. Adelson likes NC State, while Hale picks Wake Forest. It if is comfort to NC State fans, Adelson is 62-25 on her picks this year while Hale is 53-34.

But much like the ESPN crew, opinions are all over the place for this game.

Another example is the ACC Network and podcast co-hosts duo of Eric Mac Lain and Kelly Gramlich.

Pete Fiutak of CollegeFoootballNews.com gave this game a high must-see rating of 4.5, which 1 being Yellowstone and 5 being House of Gucci. He also went with the Wolfpack to prevail, 41-37.

“Every Wake Forest game is wild and crazy, but NC State will be able to hold up just enough defensively to allow red-hot QB Devin Leary and the offensive side take over to make the ACC Atlantic race really, really interesting,” Fiutak wrote.

The two will be tied up top record-wise after this with the Wolfpack in control of its ACC destiny.

Antwan Staley of Athlon Sports is going with Wake Forest in a shootout, 51-45.

“One thing to keep in mind is the Demon Deacons haven’t scored fewer than 35 points in a game,” Staley noted. “NC State hasn’t given up more than 31. So one of these trends will have to give, and it’s hard to bet against Wake Forest continuing to light up the scoreboard, especially considering that the Deacons may be a little extra motivated playing at home after last week’s loss.”

The staff at FanNation was split. Brendan Gulick and Caleb Spinner both picked Wake Forest, while Brett Hiltbrand and Andrew Lind chose NC State.

“I don’t think the Wolfpack will be able to completely stop the Demon Deacons offensively, but it will be interesting to see if they slow the pace of the game and force key turnovers,” Lind added.

At The Athletic, when analyzing the spread, which at the time was Wake Forest by 2.5 points, Dan Santaromita said put the money on the Demon Deacons, while Jason Starrett, Chris Vannini and Ari Wasserman all bet on the Pack.

Bruce Feldman went with Wake Forest to win, 35-27.

After a wild back-and-forth shootout against UNC, I think Dave Clawson will have this veteran squad ready will have them dialed back in and primed to avoid losing back to back games, avoiding a re-dux of what became a three-game losing skid late last season.

His counterpart, Stewart Mandel, a notorious skeptic of NC State football head coach Dave Doeren, also picked the Deacons with a 44-41 margin.

“No defense has successfully shut down Wake’s third-ranked scoring offense (44.7 points per game), but NC State has the defense to do it,” Mandel wrote. “The Wolfpack rank 17th nationally in yards per play allowed (4.9). I just don’t have faith in Dave Doeren’s team to beat two top-15 foes in the same year, seeing as he’d previously done it once in eight seasons.”

Alex Hinton of Action Network likes “the Wolfpack to win by at least a field goal.”

Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report picked NC State to prevail, 28-23.

“The Wolfpack have held opponents to 16.0 points per game while scoring at least 27 points in seven straight,” Miller wrote. “They’ve done most of their damage through the air, though, and Wake Forest’s secondary hasn’t been as bad as its front seven. This could shape up as a rare low-scoring game involving the Demon Deacons, as well as a second consecutive loss.”

Locally, Lauren Brownlow of WRALSportsFan went with NC State, too, 40-34, speculating that Wake Forest running back Christian Beal-Smith will be unavailable after being injured in the loss at UNC last Saturday.

“ I’m just not sure without Beal-Smith and coming off of a gut-punch loss last week that Wake Forest will be where it needs to in this one,” Brownlow said.

Meanwhile, 99.9 the Fan host Joe Giglio proclaimed, “Give me the wolfs and two points.”

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