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Notre Dame at NC State under weather delay at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, N.C.

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•09/09/23•

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Carter-Finley Stadium. (Photo by Tyler Horka)

RALEIGH, N.C. — Notre Dame at NC State is in a weather delay with 14:45 left in the second quarter. The Fighting Irish have a 3-0 lead and the football at the Wolfpack 20 yard line when play resumes.

That might not be for a while.

The game went into a delay at 12:50 p.m. It will not resume until there are no lighting strikes within 20 miles of Carter-Finley Stadium for at least 20 minutes. At that point, the teams have to go through a warmup. Then action will get going again.

**EDIT: Play is scheduled to resume at 2:35 p.m. ET barring no further lightning delays.**

Both teams immediately went to the locker room as soon as the delay started. Fans were evacuated from the stadium, too. That process understandably took a while. By a 1:05, though, just about everybody had left their seats. And that’s when the rain really started coming down.

Around 1:15, a lightning strike hit so close to the premises that it but NC State’s new $15 million scoreboard out. The images on the screen came back for a bit, but then they went out into a comeplete blackout not long after.

Here is the explanation for the video board malfunctioning from a local reporter.

The last time Notre Dame played at NC State, storm bands from Hurricane Matthew greatly affected the game in 2016. The Wolfpack won 10-3 in a sloppy, soaked game on the natural grass surface.

NC State’s field held up nicely in the rain Saturday for the first 20 minutes of the storm. But at 1:25 p.m. ET, some standing water started accumulating on the playing surface. The sidelines started completely puddling up well before then.

Notre Dame struggled enough offensively before the rain arrived. It could get even more difficult to move the football when the game resumes. In the first quarter, Notre Dame had 39 total yards. Quarterback Sam Hartman was 5-for-8 for 25 yards. He was sacked twice for a loss of 26 yards. Most of Notre Dame’s yards came from sophomore running back Jadarian Price, who totaled three attempts for 23 yards.

NC State wasn’t good offensively in the first 15:15 of the game, either. The Wolfpack went into the delay with 44 total yards. Wolfpack quarterback Brennan Armstrong is 3-of-7 for 24 yards. Both teams are 1-for-4 on third down.

At 1:28 p.m. ET, phones started buzzing in the press box altering people in the area of a flash flood warning until 4:30 p.m. ET. The alert labeled the event as “dangerous and life-threatening. A minute later, another lightning strike lit up the area.

It will be a while before Hartman and Armstrong have chances to improve their play against a pair of stingy defenses.

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