NC State determined to ‘stand up and fight’ to claim bowl eligibility as season winds down

NC State exited its final open week of the season with a clear goal of finishing strong as two games remain in the regular season and it sits with a 5-5 record.

The Wolfpack entered the year with high expectations, many of which hinged around making a deep run in the postseason. Now, the team is looking to earn at least one more win just to punch its ticket to any bowl game. 

With that in mind, NC State coach Dave Doeren has preached it’s about how his team finishes the season. That was the same mindset a year ago, which resulted in a five-game winning streak to reach the Pop-Tarts Bowl, so the 12th-year coach is looking to tap into that again this season. 

“We’ve built a program that’s had success over a period of 10 years and I take a lot of pride in that,” Doeren said Monday evening. “The guys, they put a lot of pride into finishing, a lot of pride in facing adversity and overcoming it. There’s all these things. And a lot of pride in winning, in general.”

Another victory would give the Wolfpack its fifth straight bowl appearance and its 10th total under Doeren. The first team in NC State’s way? A red-hot Georgia Tech, which beat then-No. 4 Miami in its last time out, on Thursday night before a rivalry game with North Carolina closes the regular-season campaign. 

The Pack is well aware of what the Yellow Jackets are capable of on both sides of the ball, but NC State seems more focused on itself going into the pivotal showdown. 

“We know what we have to get done,” senior linebacker Devon Betty said. “Every single day, we’re competing in practice, taking it seriously, despite everything that happened this season. You can still see from the boys, man. We know we gotta win. It’s there. No worries there, we’ll get there.”

Senior safety DK Kaufman, meanwhile, believed the Pack’s mindset hasn’t changed with its back against the wall at .500 with two games to play. 

“I think our mentality is always the same — we’re just trying to go out there and win,” Kaufman said. “We’re trying to play 11-man football, complementary football. … Turnover margin, win that you win the game.”

NC State has pride in its ability to play at a high level, but the Wolfpack is in danger of not reaching the seven-win mark for the first time since the dreaded 4-8 2019 campaign. The Pack has won at least eight games in every season since then, including a pair of nine-win years. 

Doeren said urgency always exists within college football, but as his time winds down with this current group of seniors, he alluded to the fact it feels even more pressing. 

The Wolfpack just completed its final open week of the season and the coach thought the team practiced well during that stretch as it prepared for a short week to play at Georgia Tech. 

“You can see there’s some resolve,” Doeren said of his team’s practices. “There’s the NC State grit that you see in this program that we’ve always had. How we finish matters. Now, we gotta do it against a team that’s peaking a little bit.”

Georgia Tech presents a unique challenge with a possible two-quarterback system to keep NC State’s defense on its toes for 60 minutes after it claimed its marquee victory of the season. No matter who the Wolfpack sees on the other side of the field, the team noted it has to execute to win the game. 

The squad doesn’t seem like it has given up at this point of the season, even though it hasn’t sniffed the preseason predictions, which included a season win total of 8.5 before the opener kicked off. That’s off the table, but Doeren hasn’t seen his team give in. Instead, it has leaned on its culture through adversity. 

“The last thing you want to do is settle,” Doeren said. “The fact that we’re 5-5, yeah, it’s disappointing for sure. But I care a lot about how you finish and how you face up to the tests that you have left. This one’s going to be a physical test. … It’s a great opportunity to stand up and fight.”