Dave Doeren earned his first ACC win at Syracuse

When the NC State’s football team loaded its charter flight to Syracuse, New York, eight years ago for a Nov. 1, 2014 contest, there was a definite sense of pressure on a program that was in the early stages of its building under head coach Dave Doeren.

The Wolfpack had lost 12 consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference games and was not favored to win its next one against the struggling Orange at what was then called the Carrier Dome on the Syracuse campus.

Doeren had lost nine of the last 10 games of his inaugural season, including all eight conference contests, and in year two had lost four consecutive league games after opening with four non-conference victories.

Doeren and his program desperately needed something good to happen for them during that mid-season stretch. They thought it might have happened at Louisville the week before playing Syracuse.

Trailing 17-9, Pack linebacker Airius Moore picked up a third-quarter fumble and returned it 72 yards for an assumed score. Game officials reviewed the play and reversed the call on the field, negating the touchdown in what turned out to be a 30-18 loss.

“Even though that play didn’t stand, it was huge for us,” Doeren said after his second season. “We needed some kind of spark, something that would let us know things would be OK.”

A week later, Doeren and his team went to Syracuse, where it ended its 12-game ACC losing streak after the defense caused three second-half turnovers.

One of them, an 82-yard interception return by big-play defensive end Pharoah McKever, gave the Wolfpack the lead. Another fumble caused by linebacker Rodman Noel set up an insurance score in the 24-17 victory.

Since then, the Wolfpack has notched 15 defensive touchdowns, including two this season that were huge plays in critical wins — third-year sophomore cornerback Aydan White’s 84-yard interception return against Texas Tech and redshirt freshman safety Sean Brown’s recovery of a blocked punt against East Carolina.

All time, three of those defensive touchdowns are against the Orange, who the Wolfpack will travel to play this weekend in New York.

Dave Doeren looks back fondly on that Nov. 1, 2014 contest, and not just because his son Connor was dressed up as a piece of bacon to go Halloween trick-or-treating around the team hotel the night before and at the stadium the next day.

“That’s was my first ACC win, and you never forget that,” Doeren said earlier this week. “It was a heckuva play by Pharoah.

“It was pretty big to get your first conference win, and to do it on the road with a defensive score was a momentum builder, for sure. That was the first of many steps we’ve taken. It’s part of the evolution of our program.”

After a loss against Georgia Tech, Doeren’s second edition won three straight to close out the regular season. NC State beat Central Florida in the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl to cap an 8-5 season.

Including that year, the Pack has posted winning records in seven out of eight seasons, including three bowl victories and a no contest against UCLA last year. Going into Saturday’s game against the Orange, the Pack is 5-1 overall this season, thanks to last weekend’s 19-17 win over Florida State, which was saved by at late interception.

Big defensive plays have been a hallmark of the Wolfpack’s success since Dave Doeren took over the reins in 2013. The Pack is 15-2 in games in which the defense is directly responsible for touchdowns via fumble, interception or blocked punt.

McKever, a former wide receiver from Tabor City who played defensive end and tight end for three seasons with the Wolfpack, made two of the biggest of those play — the game-winning interception at Syracuse in 2014 and a blocked punt against Notre Dame in 2016 that led to the only touchdown of the infamous game played during Hurricane Matthew.

After graduating from NC State with a degree in sociology, McKever transferred to Florida International for his fifth-year senior season. He caught 27 passes and scored three touchdowns as a fulltime tight end.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].