NC State football countdown to kickoff: 20
The NC State football season opener for 2022 is at East Carolina on Sept. 3 — or 20 days away from Sunday. The Wolfpacker continues its countdown for the season with notes about the number 20.
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20: Significant notes involving the number 20 in NC State football history
• Ask any NC State football defender who is a young player to watch for the future, and one of the most frequently mentioned names is redshirt freshman safety Sean Brown, who wears No. 20.
Brown though may have to be patient. NC State has a very experienced two-deep at both safety positions, with four players who have started at least five games in their respective careers (in the case of super senior Cyrus Fagan, some of them were at Florida State).
Thus, the most likely appearances from Brown this fall could be on special teams or in lopsided games. He played on special teams in four games a year ago, the maximum allowed to preserve a redshirt. Brown was also named the Co-Defensive Scout Team Player of the Year.
Brown hails from Hough High near Charlotte, where he was known as an aggressive and hard-hitting defender. He picked NC State over Power Five offers from Louisville, Michigan State, Missouri and Wake Forest. Brown enrolled early and missed his senior season at Hough because COVID-19 canceled the fall slate in 2020.
• Another defensive back became famous wearing No. 20 for NC State football.
Cornerback Dewayne Washington would become of the best Pack Pros in NC State history, but before that he was an all-conference standout for the Wolfpack. As a senior, Washington intercepted four passes. His 22 careeer pass breakups are tied for 14th most in school history.
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That led to Washington being the No. 18 overall pick in the first round of the 1994 NFL Draft, where he ended up with the Minnesota Vikings as part of a trade. He started 11 out of 12 seasons he played in the pros, picking off 31 passes in his NFL career. Washington returned five of those interceptions for touchdowns.
In 1994, Washington was named the Defensive Rookie of the Year by Pro Football Weekly. After four seasons with Minnesota, he signed as an unrestricted free agent by the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he starred for six years.
The NC State team award for Defensive Back of the Year is named in Washington’s honor.
• Under head coach Dave Doeren, NC State football has played on the 20th day of the month three times and has gone 2-1, including a lopsided 41-17 victory over Syracuse last season in November.
NC State does not have a game on the 20th of the month during the 2022 football season.
