Just how tough were the ‘penalties’ that UNC football faced 4 to 5 years ago when they were caught for years of allowing and even providing impermissable benefits? Well, they were ‘tough’ enough to be able to recruit the talent on a team that was able to go 11-1 in the regular season and beat us pretty badly on Saturday. Think about that for a while and compare their strategy of never admitting, accepting or backing down with the ‘NC State strategy’ of how do deal with significantly LESSOR violations of the early 1990s.
Ultimately, State was able to scrap enough to put up a respectable score and show that the gap between the programs isn’t nearly what it looked like in the first quarter when Dave Huxtable’s defense completely melted down and allowed 35 points on 308 yards. (This is INSANE!)
@TravHaneyESPN NC State has given up 35 points in the first quarter twice in the last 3 seasons. Has any P5 school given up 35 points in a Q
— Scott Jernigan (@sjernigan14) November 29, 2015
In the final three quarters, the Wolfpack (7-5 overall, 3-5 ACC) outscored the Tar Heels 27-10, outgained them 380 yards to 245 and had the edge in first downs 23-14. But the first quarter so severely tilted things in North Carolina’s favor, it didn’t matter.
“From the second quarter on, I think we played well,” Burris said. “We just can’t have that first quarter letdown.”
There are a lot of post-mortems for the entire season that we will address in the coming days/weeks. For now, we will turn our attention to following the bowl dominoes to see if NC State ends up in Charlotte at the Belk Bowl or in “Tier Two” at either the Military or Pinstripe Bowl. If you recall last year, a strange set of last minute events pushed State out of a spot in the Belk Bowl. This year, the question will focus on the desire to have Virginia Tech in Frank Beamer’s last game.
