North Carolina
Lea and Welter: UNC vs. NC State rivalry shows Dave Doeren gets more out of talent than Mack Brown
Chris Lea and Pat Welter break down NC State's 39-20 win over UNC.
All right, the regular season is now over. We have the circle of life in the 919. Duke beat NC State, North Carolina, beat Duke and now NC State has beaten North Carolina and that this was the best offensive output for NC State of this season. As disappointed as you are in UN C in this game, you have to give all the credit in the world to NC State. I mean, at one point in the season, Chris, they're four and three and then they go through the whole MJ Morris is your starter and you're not even sure if he's going to stay with the program. And Brendan Armstrong resurrected to finish this season culminating in this incredible performance in this game. And we talked about the output he had, we played for Virginia versus UN C for 500 yards equally as impressive tonight. Absolutely. And one of the things that's impressive about it is he was playing through injury. You saw many times during his game, he didn't take off and run like he probably would have in other games. He got hit in their last game against Virginia Tech nursing a little bit of a rib injury. He said this is coming back from an injury. He had a couple of years ago with NC State against Virginia, excuse me. He told us that after the game and so he protected himself a little bit more in his game, still able to have his best game of the season and help lead NC State to their best game of the season. He's not doing it alone because NC State has himself a player. Dare I say maybe a future Heisman candidate KC, probably you guys already knew the guy before. Now, I think the whole country does, but I'm on the sidelines. Chris A mei is down there, the hero from two years ago to Holt is down there. I'm like to, you got to tell me what you think about KC conception. He's like man, incredible player. I mean, it leaves you speechless what he's doing out there. But credit to the coaching staff and new offense, Corner Robert and I, who they never could seem to get things clicking in gear early on in the season. Then he just figured out. Oh yeah, let's just keep it simple brand Armstrong runs the ball and we're going to give it to every way possible. UN C could not stop him. And the thing you didn't mention is he's a true freshman doing this. Let the team in rushing yards also let the team in receiving yards versus North Carolina and after the game, Dave Dorn dressed the elephant in the room, right? We know that sec teams have tried to go after Drake May with NIO money. So of course, other teams are probably going to come after Casey Concepcion with nil money. So he said, hey, all the Wolfpack nation out there, we need 1000 people, 5000 people to donate $1000 each. So we can help keep these players but also attract other players from the transfer portal. That's going to be a real thing. And that's one of those things, those things, we're going to have to look out for starting on Monday when the portal is going to be close to opening up. One of the themes for NC State and Dave Doran is that they've gotten the most out of their talent that's been exhibited really in this rivalry. I mean, last year, Ben Finley is your quarterback out there going up against Drake, man who wins the game state in Chapel Hill. And that's the problem for UN C. They've had these really talented teams. I mean, just think about this. They had Sam Howell who was a starter for the Washington Commanders. Now, they're going to have Drake May who's going to be a top pick in the NFL. There's not a lot of programs that even have one starting NFL quarterback short of maybe your Alabama's Oklahoma's Ohio State's US C and then it's going to be UN C, they have squandered an incredible talent at the most important position in the game. I can't help myself but be disappointed that they could have done more. And I asked Matt Brown after the game, like, what is the common thread between your team finishing last season? 0 to 52 and four to end this season? And then in the little moments within games themselves, never seeming to have the resolve to get over the hump. Despite all the talent, he didn't have an answer. He pointed back to things. He's reiterated before, hey, we're going for a nine win season. I think that's pretty good. And that felt a little bit empty to me at the time. They had a collapse at the end of the year last year, losing their last four. If you take it back to, after they beat Miami, this team really started to sputter after that, they lose to Virginia. You lose another one after that, you beat Campbell. You should and you beat Duke on their third string quarterback in two overtimes, right? And Duke has all the excuses in the world to not win that game. And then after that, you lose two more games for North Carolina. So again, another season where they're sputtering at the end again, as you said, having all the talent in the world, you just don't know what is that issue, but also hats off to Dave Dorn and his crew. It really shows the coaching job because at the beginning of the season, this team could barely move the ball unless it was Brendan Armstrong using his legs. They weren't moving it through the air, they weren't moving it with their running backs. Brendan Armstrong was really the offense in the first five games of the season. And now you have this game where they get over 500 yards. Dave Doran told us after the game, he stripped down the inefficiencies. He looked at the most efficient plays they had and who are the best play makers and they literally just focused on that. And you saw Robert and I's offense really come to life for this team in this game. So now we go to our next steps here and we talk about this is the ultimate example of not how you start, but how you finish. And UN C came into the year with all the hype, the playoff expectations. AC C title kind of talk and they're the ones that went to the finish. NC State is the one that finishes strong and they're going to have people coming for their coaching staff because going so far Tony Gibson already in some sort of rumors. Meanwhile, UN C might be looking for different staff because of their poor performance. And Matt Brown was addressing that after the game plan to make any staff changes and he wasn't going to talk about that immediately. Then he said what he said every year he's going to sit down and meet with different people. It's hard to imagine that gene Chizik survives this last year was bad enough. Things didn't get better. That's one of those head scratchers too because I remember when we covered Un CS first game of the season versus South Carolina, we went to Charlotte together and we talked about on the car ride home. UN C looked really good on. They really turned it around and literally, it just started getting worse and worse and worse after that. That is a head scratcher. You would think there probably will be some type of a change after that. You know, we'll see what happens with Carolina, but again, hats off to NC State, what they've done, hats off to Carolina for how they started the season. Now, their challenge is not only just starting the season, strong ending the season strong. They haven't done that in the last couple of years and it's probably going to begin with the bowl game, which is ultimately going to be, look more like a spring game, I think for Carolina, I imagine when they live to the finish line here, you're going to get a trickle in of guys skipping the ball game. And even if they play in the ball game, it might be a repeat of the Mayo ball from two years ago when they played in it, but they didn't play it and Drake made non committal after this one understandably, he's a classic kid, you know, you know, he wants to play in the ball game, which he has said yes, but that's going to be difficult to do when you're going to be potentially number one or number two pick and you're going to a game that doesn't have a lot of consequence. And Carolina as a program need to decide if Connor Harrell is the guy or they need to go to the transfer portal. But the other side of things, I imagine NC State is going to this ball game strong under Dave Doran. They performed well in them. I think, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if all their big guns play. You know, guys like Peyton Wilson and, and Brandon Armstrong, these guys want to finish their career, right? Tail of two programs, right? And it feels like NC State's guys always want to finish the season together. Uh Peyton Wilson said after the game, you know, they got rid the cancers in the locker room and now the locker room is completely bought in. We'll see what happens. North Carolina always seems to have a mass exodus after that last regular season game and they go into the bowl game with not a lot of their firepower that they came into the bowl game with. So we'll see what happens. But interesting game right here. NC State was their third straight against North Carolina winning 39 to 20 right here at Carter Philly Stadium.