The Wake Forest Demon Deacons (2-3, 1-1 ACC) snapped a three-game losing streak and picked up their first conference win of the season as they rallied back from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit to upset the NC State Wolfpack (3-3, 0-2 ACC) Saturday afternoon at Carter-Finley Stadium.
The Deacons put together back-to-back scoring drives in the fourth quarter to take the lead with just over a minute to go and then senior linebacker Branson Combs picked off NC State freshman quarterback CJ Bailey to seal the win.
Bailey wasn’t even slated to play today as Grayson McCall started the game under center for the Pack in his first game back since suffering a concussion in Week 3 against Louisiana Tech, but on his first drive of the game, disaster struck as McCall was rendered unconscious after three Wake defenders all crashed head first into the fifth-year quarterback’s own head on an attempted run up the middle.
“Unfortunately, football is a very violent sport at times and that was a big hit that he took,” said NC State coach Dave Doeren. “I hate it for him. You just hate to see a guy get hit like that and obviously the results of those kinds of hits are scary.”
The quarterback has suffered from concussions before and the injury that ended his final season in Coastal Carolina also came from a traumatic head injury.
As he was carted off the field, McCall did at least wave to the Carter-Finley crowd and Doeren reported that he was doing well at the hospital.
“As far as Grayson goes, all the reports back from the hospital are positive,” Doeren said. “Once they’re done going through all the tests and everything, we’ll have more information at that time.”
Bailey did well for the Pack though, throwing for 272 yards and two touchdowns, but it was a very freshman-esque throw that sealed the loss.
“I was proud of [CJ],” Doeren said. “I thought he came into the game with poise and he gave us a chance to win the game. Made a lot of nice plays with his arm, with his legs. He was a good leader on the sideline. I know he’s down for throwing a pick on the last drive, but CJ didn’t lose that football game.”
Overall though, the Wolfpack offense just had too many wasted opportunities.
Despite battling back from an emotionally brutal moment to take a two-score lead, the Pack just couldn’t keep their foot on the gas.
“I was proud of how they came back after Grayson and got us back into the game,” Doeren said. “We regained momentum, had the time of possession, flipped the turnover margin in our favor, we were running the football effectively but then we didn’t finish the game. That hurts.”
In the third quarter, NC State’s defense forced back-to-back turnovers, both around midfield, but those were followed up by subsequent three-and-outs by the offense.
Then after Wake made it a three-point game, NC State failed to respond with yet another three-and-out before the Deacons put together a seven-minute, 16-play drive, converting on multiple fourth-down situations before taking the lead.
While the Wolfpack’s defense had some big moments, with two forced turnovers and three sacks, they still were the ones that ended up folding when the pressure was on.
“We didn’t make enough plays in that last 11 minutes to close the game out and they did,” Doeren said. “There were plenty of opportunities to close that game out for us. We had them at third-and-long, fourth-and-long, fourth-and-5, forced a fumble but didn’t recover it, dropped an interception. Just kept their drives going in situations we had been dominating them in.”
Wake Forest converted on all three of its fourth-down conversion attempts and gashed the Pack defense on the ground for 161-yards on just 31 carries.
Wake Forest junior running back Demond Claiborne was the biggest factor in the game, running for 139 yards and two touchdowns for the Deacons, almost all of which came in the second half of the game.
In the end, it also proved that the fumble from the McCall injury, which Wake Forest recovered and ran all the way down to the NC State one-yard-line in the first quarter, proved to be a difference maker.
The Pack will look to earn its first conference win of the season next Saturday as they host the Syracuse Orange.
