NC State football: What they're saying about UNC win
NC State football pulled off maybe the most satisfying performance of the year, knocking off No. 17 North Carolina, 30-27, in double overtime in Chapel Hill on Friday evening. Here is some of what those who covered the game are saying.
Matt Carter, The Wolfpacker — Column: A sweet win for NC State football
So while North Carolina ended up missing two field goals, including a chip shot from 27 yards in the fourth quarter, the Heels were fortunate to still be in the game.
Yet, NC State was able to showcase their trademark resiliency from a group of players who are starting to wrap up their careers in Raleigh.
When the NC State offense was sputtering in the second half, they rose up after super senior Tanner Ingle made a big interception late in the fourth quarter with a go-ahead 26-yard touchdown pass from Finley to fifth-year redshirt junior receiver Devin Carter.
After giving up a game-tying touchdown as time expired in regulation, the defense rose up and made UNC try two field goals in the overtimes.
With all the frustrations and distractions and bad injury reports over the last two weeks, the NC State football team found a way to dig deep and outplay North Carolina and emerge with a rightful victory.
There can only be one logical conclusion after this game. For all the faults and struggles that NC State football fans saw and endured this year, their team was still better than North Carolina.
And there’s nothing finer than that.
Ethan McDowell, The Wolfpacker — Locker room report: NC State recaps its joyful win over UNC
Ben Finley’s older brother, Ryan Finley, never lost at Kenan Stadium. After the dramatic overtime victory led by the former fourth-string signal-caller, who finished the game with more passing yards than UNC star Drake Maye, he picked up his first personal win under center and over the Tar Heels.
“I think he went 2-0 here in Carter-Finley West but, just having my first start and being able to go out there with the guys and get that W, it’s the greatest feeling ever,” Finley said.
“Five weeks ago, being fourth string quarterback, just kind of messing around on scout team, still getting better and then having those guys still trust me when I came back up to the starting roster, it means the world to have the support from the entire team.”
Finley also got in on the flag-planting fun.
“I was just running around trying to hug everyone,” he said. “I think I grabbed the NC State Flag and planted it on the field or something— as I should have.”
Those who were in Kenan Stadium and pull for N.C. State witnessed a game and victory Friday that won’t soon – if ever – fade from their memories.
They’ll remember the Pack’s Devin Carter, Isaiah Moore, Jordan Houston and Derrek Pitts Jr. running about the field with a large NCSU flag, planting it with gusto a few times. Ben Finley, too. He had his turn.
“Just spur of the moment,” Carter said, smiling.
And why not? The Wolfpack had just beaten No. 18 North Carolina 30-27 in double overtime – “A big ol’ Band-Aid on the season,” Finley said – in a victory the Pack celebrated twice.
When there are only bragging rights on the line, there tends to be a lot of bragging. And was there ever in Chapel Hill as Friday afternoon bled inexorably into night, a football game that wouldn’t end in part because neither team could stomach the yearlong consequences of losing.
N.C. State somehow outlasted North Carolina in two overtimes, giving up two touchdowns on the final play of regulation — only the second counted — and then escaping with a 30-27 win on a missed 35-yard field goal. A Wolfpack season that seemed to have veered the wrong direction over the past two weeks ended in wild celebration.
“This will make a lot of things feel better,” N.C. State coach Dave Doeren said. “It’s a 365-day you-know-what sandwich that the other school gets to eat. And we didn’t want to eat it.”
You’d never know, dropped into Kenan Stadium after wearing earplugs and a blindfold for three months, which of these teams was headed to the ACC title game, which quarterback was once a Heisman Trophy candidate, which team had watched a promising season dissolve into frustration.
Rivalry games, even with nothing tangible on the line, have a way of doing that. This one especially does.
Which is partly how Finley, who had been toiling away on the scout team, was zinging the ball around like his older brother once had against the Tar Heels. Ryan was 3-0 against UNC in his N.C. State career. Ben lost the pandemic game here in 2020, after Devin Leary was injured (the first time), but got his vengeance Friday.
“I didn’t try to get into UNC,” Finley said, “but according to Drake, I couldn’t have.”
On the wall inside a North Carolina meeting room in the Kenan Football Center, there’s a large outline of the state and, next to it, the words “STATE CHAMPIONS” written in vertical Carolina blue letters. That’s always among the Tar Heels’ goals, to defeat every team in the state, and it has been an emphasis during both of Mack Brown’s head coaching tenures at UNC.
Within the outline, there are four schools placed roughly where they fit geographically. Appalachian State, to the west. Wake Forest, a little farther east. Duke, a little farther east of that. Those three schools on Friday had their names covered with Carolina blue logos, a symbol of UNC’s victories against all of them earlier this season.
There was one more name left uncovered, and after Friday there will be no crossing through N.C. State with interlocking light blue “NCs.” Brown walked past that map Friday night, after the Tar Heels’ 30-27, double-overtime defeat against the Wolfpack, and for a few moments before he began speaking he looked as stunned as many of those who’d packed into Kenan Stadium to witness the latest dramatic installment in a bitter rivalry.
Ben Finley was still on fire during his postgame press conference.
Moments after delivering a 30-27 double-overtime win against in-state rival UNC during his first career start at NC State, the third-year quarterback took a shot at Tar Heel quarterback Drake Maye, complimented the cleanliness of [Finley’s] jersey – a nod to the play of his offensive line – and reminisced about planting the Wolfpack flag on the 50-yard line near the powder blue logo.
“As I should of,” Finley noted.
No one – particularly those clad in red Friday night – will argue that fact.
Finley, who started the season as NC State’s scout team quarterback, was better than even the highest of expectations: completing 27 of 40 passes for 271 yards and two touchdowns, including a go-ahead score to Devin Carter late in the fourth quarter. At one point, he completed 11 straight passes in the second quarter. He was sacked once but spent most of the game with all the time in the world in the backfield.
“I don’t even look like [I] played a game, my shirt is pristine white,” he said. “Anytime you can go out there and camp out there and deliver balls, it’s a privilege.”
Ryan Henkel, North State Journal — Cardiac Pack: NC State pulls off upset 2OT win over UNC
NC State had just gotten a hard-fought stop on third down to force rival UNC to try for a field goal.
The Wolfpack was up three in double overtime in their biggest game of the season — Senior Night at Kenan Memorial Stadium against the hated Tar Heels in their annual Black Friday matchup.
The emotional roller-coaster of the game had left many whiplashed as the Tar Heels managed to convert three straight fourth downs to force overtime with no time left on the clock. UNC was again primed to keep the game going.
“He’s gonna miss,” NC State junior receiver Devin Carter said of what he was thinking on the sidelines on that final play. “That was the first thing in my mind. We called the timeout, iced him, and I thought, ‘He’s gonna miss.’
“I can’t explain why I knew. It’s just that good things happen to the good guys.”
He was right. NC State (8-4, 4-4 ACC) saw its regular season end the same way it had started: winning off of a missed kick. In Week 1, it was East Carolina’s kicker missing an extra point. On Friday, it was UNC kicker Noah Burnette missing the 35-yard field goal in double overtime to seal a 30-27 win for the Wolfpack.
“We knew that if we got this win at UNC, it would be a big ol’ Band-Aid on the season,” said starting redshirt freshman quarterback Ben Finley. “Anytime you can beat your rivals, especially at their home on Senior Night, it’s huge.”
Joe Giglio, WRAL — In the end, the Heels provide salvation for the Wolfpack
Finley was one of the unlikely heroes for NC State. (The defense, and coordinator Tony Gibson, provided the likely variety.) The fourth-string quarterback was the best No. 10 and the best quarterback on the field.
Given that’s Drake Maye’s number, and Maye will likely be the All-ACC quarterback and is the front-runner to be the ACC player of the year, that’s saying a lot. In that 21-20 win at ECU, way back on Sept. 3 — a lifetime ago — Finley was in street clothes on the sidelines. He was fourth-string.
Finley was running the scout team most of the season until injuries and incompetence led the offense to his capable right arm. It wasn’t the final numbers for Finley, 27 of 40 for 271 yards with two touchdowns, rather his willingness to take chances.
“He’s carefree,” receiver Devin Carter said of Finley.
Carter was Finley’s favorite target with 130 yards on six catches and a touchdown. The 26-yard touchdown Carter caught to put State up 24-17 was exactly the kind of shot State had been reluctant, under starter Devin Leary and backup Jack Chambers, to take.
Not on Friday. The Wolfpack just let it loose.
Brett Friedlander, SaturdayRoad.com — Finley family, NC State, still own UNC in Chapel Hill
Ben Finley picked up an NC State flag as he and his teammates celebrated Friday’s double-overtime victory against rival North Carolina. After waving it toward his team’s joyous fans a few times, he planted it at midfield just above the Tar Heels’ logo.
It was a gesture meant to stake the Wolfpack’s claim to bragging rights for the next 12 months.
But he could easily have been taking ownership of Kenan Stadium, at least symbolically, as his own. Or more precisely, reclaiming it in the name of his family.
Finley’s older brother, Ryan, went 3-0 against UNC as State’s quarterback from 2016-18. Two of those wins came at Kenan at a venue he derisively nicknamed “Carter-Finley North.”
Carter-Finley Stadium, the Wolfpack’s home venue, is actually located due east of Chapel Hill as the crow flies. It’s a mistake Ben corrected in the postgame media room after doing his part to keep the Finleys undefeated as starters in the rivalry between State and UNC.
“It’s cool to keep the tradition going for the Finleys,” Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said after the wild 30-27 victory, secured when the Tar Heels’ Noah Burnette missed a 35-yard field goal on the 2nd overtime possession. “I can’t say enough about Ben and his performance today.”
Associated Press — Ben Finley leads NC State past No. 17 UNC in first career start
Burnette — who also missed from 27 yards in the fourth quarter — made a 26-yarder in the first OT and the Wolfpack tied it on Christopher Dunn’s 31-yarder. Dunn was good from 21 yards in the second overtime and NC State, which never trailed in regulation, handed North Carolina its second straight loss.
“I was running around trying to hug everyone,” Finley said. Finley’s older brother, former NC State QB Ryan Finley, orchestrated two wins in North Carolina’s Kenan Stadium.
“It’s nice to keep the Finleys undefeated here,” coach Dave Doeren said.
Carter had six receptions for 130 yards and a touchdown for the Wolfpack, who snapped a two-game skid and pulled out a thrilling victory over their in-state rival for the second straight year.
“I loved the way our kids played. They fought their guts out,” North Carolina coach Mack Brown said. “They didn’t play great in the first half, but they were really good on defense, maybe the best defense we’ve had this year.”
Carter caught Finley’s back-shoulder pass just outside the end zone and backed in for a 26-yard touchdown with 3:54 remaining in regulation for the Wolfpack’s first points of the second half. Finley was so far down the depth chart that he estimated he hadn’t thrown a pass to Carter in a year and a half.
As a fourth stringer, Finley didn’t imagine ending up in this situation.
“Just kind of messing around on the scout team and still getting better,” he said.
Finley became NC State’s fourth starting quarterback in a seven-game span. He completed 27 of 40 passes.
“It’s just an NC State thing,” said redshirt junior wide receiver Devin Carter. “I really can’t explain it. Good things happen to the good guys.”
NC State football engineered another thrilling victory over its rival, the No. 17 UNC Tar Heels on Friday, Nov. 25 at Kenan Memorial Stadium in a 30-27 instant classic. A year removed from Emeka Emezie posterizing Cam’Ron Kelly in the Pack’s come-from-behind win, Carter secured a go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter on a similar end zone lob.
The Wolfpack’s passing attack faced doubts heading into the contest, but redshirt freshman quarterback Ben Finley quickly took control of the offense in a legendary performance. Finley connected with Carter for a 52-yard dime on the opening drive and didn’t look back, finishing 27-40 with 271 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
Before last week’s game against Louisville, the last time Finley took the field in a game, he turned the ball over three times in NC State football’s blowout loss to North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2020.
Two years later, Finley once again found himself leading the Wolfpack in his first career start against the Tar Heels. This time, the script was flipped. The Wolfpack went down to the wire against the Tar Heels and pulled off a thrilling 30-27 upset in double overtime.
“Five weeks ago, [I was] a fourth-string quarterback,” Finley said. “Just messing around on the scout team, still getting better and then having those guys still trust me when I came back out to the starting roster means the world to have the support from the entire team.”
