NC State football: What they're saying about the loss to Notre Dame

NC State unraveled in the fourth quarter against No. 10 Notre Dame during a 45-24 loss to the Fighting Irish, dropping to 1-1 on the season. Turnovers, missed assignments, penalties and drops proved to be the difference late in the contest.

Here are some of the most interesting excerpts from the media outlets who covered Saturday’s game.

Matt Carter, TheWolfpacker.com— NC State football needs to use coming weeks to get right

Notre Dame’s superiority on the field was firmly established when NC State failed to seize its moment. That can be the first lesson of many learned from the first couple of weeks of the Pack’s season. Make your layups, like a 34-yard field goal.

Next lesson: don’t shoot yourself in the foot, like dropping passes, committing costly penalties, making poor throwing decisions and leaving opposing skilled players uncovered. Notre Dame was easily good enough to beat the Wolfpack without any help from NC State. The Pack gave them some, anyway.

NC State is also getting crushed in explosive plays. The problem is not limited to just a lack of big plays on offense. The defense, after surrendering a 71-yard TD run at UConn, allowed an 80-yard scamper on the first play from the return to action after a lengthy weather delay in the second quarter.

Ethan McDowell, TheWolfpacker.com— NC State football report card: Notre Dame

Coming out of the break, the Pack immediately gave up a massive 80-yard rushing touchdown on a look that Payton Wilson, who finished the game with 14 tackles, said the Pack was not prepared for. The Wolfpack defense is far more volatile than last year’s unit so far. It shows flashes of dominance but, when things go wrong, they unravel in a major way. 

Notre Dame’s first three touchdown drives took a total of 7 plays. Most of the Irish’s points after that were the result of short fields after Pack turnovers, and the defense was on the field for more than half an hour of game time. For those reasons, NC State ends Week 2 with an average grade despite giving up 45 points.

Jadyn Watson-Fisher, The News and Observer— NC State upset by performance vs. Notre Dame, QB Brennan Armstrong critical of himself

Panels in N.C. State’s new $15 million scoreboard experienced technical difficulties during the mid-game rain delay on Saturday, with panels shorting on and off, for the remainder of the day.

That seemed like an accurate representation of the team’s performance on the field: only partially functional.

The Wolfpack (1-1) fell to No. 10 Notre Dame (3-0), 45-24, in its home opener. It didn’t feel like any phase of the team fully clicked.

Quarterback Brennan Armstrong completed 22 of 47 passes, throwing 3 interceptions. His receivers didn’t help out, either, dropping passes or not fighting defenders hard enough.

The defense recorded 5 tackles for loss and and 2 forced fumbles, but it also allowed five passing plays of 15 yards or more and three rushing plays of 10 yards or more.

Special teams were the most consistent aspect for the Pack — with the returners combining for 93 yards and punter Caden Noonkester averaging 40.5 yards per attempt — but they still weren’t perfect. Kicker Brayden Narveson went 1-for-2 on his field-goal attempts, making a 49-yarder but not the attempt from 34.

Luke DeCock, The News and Observer— NC State football’s retooled offense already needs retooling after Notre Dame thumping

It was possible, if you turned the lights down low and squinted a little bit, to look at N.C. State’s offense in the opening win at Connecticut as a mirage. A bare-bones playbook, a vanilla approach, all designed to do just enough to win and keep as much of the new offense hidden from Notre Dame as possible.

Unfortunately for the Wolfpack, there didn’t appear to be much to reveal. Some of that was scheme. Some of it was talent. Some of it was strategy. None of it looked particularly good in anything other than flashes.

Notre Dame has, over the course of its now 29-game regular-season winning streak against the ACC, made better teams look worse than this, but we’re two weeks into the season and the Wolfpack’s retooled offense already needs retooling after a 45-24 thumping by the Irish. The benefit of the doubt has been lost.

Jack Soble, BlueandGold.com— How interceptions helped turn the tide in Notre Dame win over NC State

Xavier Watts was playing the deep middle, right behind the first-down marker on third-and-17 with the Irish up 24-17 just after the start of the fourth quarter. NC State graduate quarterback Brennan Armstrong fired over the middle to freshman receiver Kevin Concepcion, but the ball bounced off his hands and careened in Watts’ direction.

Watts dove, got two hands under the ball and secured the catch. It was his first career interception, but most importantly for Notre Dame, it helped turn the tide.

“The turning point, to me, in the game was when we fumbled in our own territory [near the end of the third quarter], and the defense forces a missed field goal,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said after the game. “But then we go three-and-out, right, and then the defense has an interception.”

Shortly after Watts picked off Armstrong, graduate Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman found junior tight end Davis Sherwood for a touchdown to extend the Irish lead to 14.

Ethan Bakogiannis, Technician— NC State football suffers stormy 45-24 loss to Notre Dame

The turbulent weather and torrential downpours that cast a dark shadow over Raleigh ushered in an anxiety-inducing omen to the droves of Wolfpack faithful that filled Carter-Finley Stadium.

But if an hour’s worth of thunderous booms and obnoxious flash flood warnings didn’t spell it out clearly enough for NC State football, then No. 10 Notre Dame’s 45-point, three-interception performance did — it was not the Wolfpack’s day.

NC State (1-1) was simply outmatched in its 2023 home opener against the Fighting Irish (3-0). The red-and-white kept Notre Dame in its sights in the first half — even through a nearly two-hour long weather delay — but the Irish turned on the burners after halftime, leaving NC State in the dust with a 21-point fourth quarter to win 45-24.

“Games like this are not lost by any one person or player or coach,” said head coach Dave Doeren. “They’re lost by teams. We have to look at what we can do better in key moments and make layups and gimme plays.”