NC State football countdown to kickoff: 35
The NC State football season opener for 2023 is at Connecticut on Aug. 31 — or 35 days away. TheWolfpacker.com’s countdown for the season looks at the significance of the number 35 in Pack history.
NC State Football And The No. 35
• Wearing No. 35 for NC State football this season will be fourth-year redshirt sophomore Christopher Scott Jr.
Scott has bounced around since arriving in Raleigh. The Dacula (Ga.) High product was recruited as a receiver, and as a true freshman during the pandemic season of 2020, Scott caught two passes for 49 yards in limited action against North Carolina and also saw snaps on special teams in the Gator Bowl loss to Kentucky.
An injury cost Scott the entirety of the 2021 season, and he was then moved to cornerback during preseason camp in 2022. Scott played three games this past fall: Charleston Southern, Connecticut and Texas Tech. However, he also had surgery that forced him to miss the most recent spring practices.
Scott is officially listed on the GoPack.com roster as a wide receiver, but it is not confirmed that he has once against switched positions.
One thing that is confirmed is Scott has speed. His fastest 100-meter dash time in high school was 10.79 second, and his personal best in the 200-meter sprint was 21.83 seconds. The latter is the fastest that any current NC State football player produced while performing in high school track, while the time in the 100 is second only to sophomore running back Michael Allen’s 10.70 seconds.
The desire to add speed to the receiving corps is what put Scott on the NC State football recruiting radar. The one-time Eastern Kentucky commit was offered after his senior season and picked the Wolfpack over a scholarship from Vanderbilt.
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• The most talked about stat from former Wolfpack quarterback Devin Leary’s memorable 2021 campaign was the new school-record for touchdown passes thrown in a season that he set. Leary’s 35 scoring tosses broke Philip Rivers’ prior NC State football best of 34 that had stood since 2003.
Leary threw for at least two touchdowns in all but one game that season, and he had four TD throws in five contests, all of them ACC affairs.
Perhaps more impressive about Leary throwing 35 touchdown passes for NC State is that he accompanied that with just five interceptions.
That would be Leary’s lone season in which he was the healthy, uninterrupted starter for NC State. A broken leg ended his 2020 campaign prematurely, and then a torn pectoral muscle sidelined him for the latter half of 2022. He then transferred to Kentucky during the offseason.
