NC State looks to end curse that has defined college football in North Carolina

Dave Doeren was talking about the curse. The “stuff,” as it might be described for a G-rated audience.

He was talking about the [expletive], as it’s more plainly known; about the phrase with the four-letter word rarely printed in a family publication — a phenomenon that has borne memes and Twitter accounts and a million mutterings, one that has become part of the identity of a university and the supporters of its athletics teams.

He was talking about N.C. State [expletive].

Decades of it, for the most part, with rare recent interludes of success in women’s basketball or baseball offering a respite but also reminders that the [expletive] can be difficult to escape. For instance: what other than the [expletive] could explain N.C. State’s ACC-champion women’s basketball team being sent off to play what was essentially a road game against Connecticut in the NCAA tournament last March? And the Wolfpack’s cruel fate in the 2021 College World Series?

[Expletive.]

But now Doeren was talking about eradicating it. Destroying it. Casting it into the abyss for good.

He is entering his 10th season as the Wolfpack’s head football coach, a season that has arrived with no shortage of great expectations and gleeful wondering of the possibilities; a season that will be defined by a storyline as old as time and good vs. evil: N.C. State hope vs. N.C. State [expletive].

Indeed, is this the year it all comes together for the Wolfpack, which enters the season ranked among the top 15? Is this the season the prophets have foreseen, the one whose absence has turned hopeful men into grizzled realists; the kind for which the elders at Players Retreat and Mitch’s have long waited, growing older on their barstools; the one that baby-faced freshmen roaming the bricks of campus have not yet lived to see?

Maybe. Possibly. Yet State has some history to contend with, some established mojo to reverse.

“Yeah, we’ve had some tough things happen,” Doeren said recently, during the ACC’s football media days in Charlotte, and that was one way to put it. “And I think adversity creates opportunities. Nobody likes feeling like you got the raw deal, which several of our teams have probably felt that way.”

Doeren understands more than most the dynamic about which he was speaking. He has seen the [expletive]. He has lived the [expletive]. He inherited it, like a cursed voodoo doll stuffed into a locked trunk hidden in the corner of the attic. Break it open, and there’s the spirit of N.C. State failures past — a ghostly image of a dejected Russell Wilson wandering off the field at Maryland in 2010; another one of a bewildered Philip Rivers, wondering in 2003 what things might’ve been like if State could’ve only fielded a defense.

Not that Doeren needs to go too far back. There was the time, in 2016, when he watched the Wolfpack miss a 33-yard field goal that would’ve beaten No. 3 Clemson in Death Valley in the final moments, a victory-turned-defeat that, had it gone the other way, could’ve changed the trajectory of his program.

There was last season, when a grand total of four points kept State out of the ACC championship game. A stop here. Another field goal or two there, and perhaps the Wolfpack avoids a one-point defeat at Miami, or a three-point loss at Wake Forest. Win either of those and State would’ve been heading to Charlotte for the conference title game and, who knows.

Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.

Few fan bases in college sports are more familiar with those words than those who, against all logic and reason and what’s understood about the limits of human pain, continue to cheer for N.C. State. As in: The Wolfpack should’ve had a chance for its second 10-win season in school history last year, and it would’ve stood a good chance to defeat UCLA in the Holiday Bowl — if not for the game’s last-minute cancellation due to a COVID outbreak among the Bruins.

And so yes, Doeren was saying last month in Charlotte in a particularly understated way: The Wolfpack has had “some tough things happen.” But, he continued a bit later, “It’s going to come full circle, and we’re going to be smiling at the end of it. And I believe that whole-heartedly.”

A brave man, to tempt the fates in such a way. For it is not just N.C. State’s own demons the Wolfpack must slay in the coming months. It’s the decades-long cursed history that has defined college football in this state.

UNC, N.C. State’s shared misery

There are few elements of culture and nature in which North Carolina, the state, cannot hold its own. North Carolina is home to perhaps the most enviable combination of beaches and mountains on the East Coast. It’s the birthplace of flight (sorry, Ohio) and it indeed boasts the nation’s best barbecue (condolences, Texas and Kansas City) — or, at the least, the nation’s fiercest East vs. West barbecue debate. North Carolina gave the world Michael Jordan, which has to make up, at least a little bit, for also giving it Jesse Helms. And this is the state that gave birth to Bojangles and Krispy Kreme, too.

One of the nation’s most stunning national parks runs through North Carolina. On the other side of it, one of the nation’s most stunning and untamable coastlines. In between, stock car racing rose out of the moonshine stills in the hills and, in the Piedmont and plains, the state began its love affair with college basketball in the 1950s, when people packed into N.C. State’s Reynolds Coliseum and watched the drama of the earliest ACC tournaments unfold under a smoky haze.

With respectful nods to Kentucky and Indiana and even Philadelphia, this state is college basketball’s holy land, or at least it was when college basketball was more a part of the national consciousness. Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State have combined to win 13 NCAA championships, and some of their most indelible moments come alive every March when CBS replays them in highlight montages: a freshman Jordan beating Georgetown in 1982; Jim Valvano looking for a hug in ‘83; Christian Laettner’s turnaround at the buzzer against Kentucky in ‘92.

Underneath all the glory in that one particular sport, though, has always remained a question with no easy answers: Why haven’t the schools in this state shared more success in college football?

The lack of it has been particularly glaring for the state’s most prominent public schools. UNC and N.C. State fans share a healthy disdain for one another, and for large segments of both groups, a fate worse than a crushing defeat would be having to admit they have anything in common with the other side.

UNC, the nation’s oldest public university, has always represented the gentry, and its sporting triumphs extend well beyond men’s basketball. N.C. State, which came along almost 100 years after UNC, has always represented the working class, and that improbable ‘83 championship remains a testament to the power of dreams, a reminder that sometimes they come true.

In football, though, the Wolfpack and Tar Heels have much more in common than either school’s supporters would ever be comfortable acknowledging. There’s a lot of shared misery.

UNC last won an ACC championship in 1980, when Lawrence Taylor was still in school. N.C. State last won an ACC championship in 1979, in Bo Rein’s final season before he died in a plane crash after accepting the head coaching job at LSU.

In the 42 years since either one last won the ACC, the conference has grown from eight to 14 schools. Florida State arrived, and has won the conference 15 times. Maryland won the ACC four times in that span, before leaving for the Big Ten. Clemson, with 13 league titles in the past 42 years, has turned into a national power. Pitt won the ACC last year and Virginia Tech has won it four times, and those schools were not yet close to becoming ACC members in 1980. Georgia Tech has won the league twice and shared the championship another time. Virginia has shared it twice. Duke once. Wake Forest won it by itself in 2006.

And as for UNC and N.C. State?

Well, the Tar Heels at least reached the conference championship game in 2015, and before losing were perhaps a dubious whistle on a late onside kick recovery away from having a chance to tie Clemson in the final minute. And N.C. State won 11 games back in the 2002 season and managed to beat Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, despite limping to a 5-3 finish in the ACC. More often than not, though, the rivals have usually traveled the same roads to nowhere.

About 10 years ago, Roy Williams, the former UNC basketball coach, liked to say that if he could combine the best parts of Desmond Hubert and a young Brice Johnson (who went on to become an All-ACC player) the Tar Heels might be onto something. The same sort of Frankensteinian logic applies to college football teams in this state. If one were to combine the best elements of N.C. State and UNC — State’s passionate fans; UNC’s picturesque stadium; State tailgating scene; UNC’s national brand — perhaps you’d have the makings of a legitimate football school.

As it is, both schools have been left longing for relevancy in the one sport that now matters most in college athletics. The Wolfpack failed to win the ACC with the likes of Rivers and Wilson, both of whom went on to become longtime NFL stars with Hall of Fame resumes. The Tar Heels failed to win the ACC with the likes of Mitch Trubisky, the No. 2 selection in the 2017 NFL Draft, and Sam Howell, who left school after last season as arguably the best quarterback in school history.

UNC started last season surrounded by considerable hype, and ranked 10th nationally, before finishing 6-7. Along the way, a porous defense was the subject of much consternation among Tar Heels fans. N.C. State began the 2003 season, Rivers’ senior year, surrounded by considerable hype, and ranked 16th nationally, before an early defeat at Wake Forest proved ominous on the way to a lackluster 8-5 finish. Along the way, a porous defense was the subject of much consternation among Wolfpack fans.

The Tar Heels never quite got over the hump in the mid-1990s during Mack Brown’s otherwise successful first go-round. State never quite got over the hump before that, under Dick Sheridan. UNC fans wonder what might’ve been had that onside kick recovery stood against Clemson in ‘15, the same way State fans wonder what might’ve been had the Wolfpack just beaten Maryland in the regular-season finale in 2010. For decades, supporters of these schools have traded roles and insults and taken their turns rooting for the next great hope at quarterback, and now it’s N.C. State that has ascended into the same sort of position in which UNC faltered in 2021.

For the Wolfpack, there’s hope. What could go wrong?

High hopes for Wolfpack

N.C. State enters the season ranked 13th in The Associated Press Top 25 — its highest (and first) preseason ranking since 2003, and a season that quickly went a little sideways. The Wolfpack hasn’t started a season this highly ranked since 1975, back when Lou Holtz was head coach. The reasons for N.C. State optimism are many: Devin Leary is back at quarterback, and is the ACC’s Preseason Player of the Year. The defense, with linebackers Payton Wilson, Isaiah Moore and Drake Thomas, is expected to be as strong as any in school history.

“I think when we all came to N.C. State, we wanted to put N.C. State in a place it’s never been before,” Moore said last month, and he and his teammates now have a chance to do that — or at least to lead the Wolfpack to its first ACC championship in 43 years.

When last we saw a Wolfpack football team, it had done the most un-N.C. State of things in the final moments of what turned out to be State’s final game last season. The Wolfpack in that game faced a nine-point deficit against UNC with less than two minutes remaining. And then came a 64-yard touchdown pass from Leary to Emeka Emezie and an onside kick recovery and another touchdown pass from Leary to Emezie, this one from 24 yards. Two touchdowns in 26 seconds and, one could reasonably argue, a wooden stake through the heart of N.C. State [expletive]. Or, was it? The bowl game cancellation followed, after all.

And besides, history has proven the persistence of the Wolfpack’s demons. This season, then, will go a long way toward determining its hold. It’s a season toward which Doeren and his players have long been building. They’re all aware of the history and the cursed nature of N.C. State athletics. The Wolfpack’s last ACC championship in men’s basketball came in 1987. Only people who are about 50 or older carry memories from the days when State routinely contended in men’s basketball or football. Decades largely filled with futility have created the perception that the Wolfpack is more or less doomed, that it’s stuck in an ever-repeating loop of playing the role of Charlie Brown, slipping and falling as Lucy pulls the football away at the last second.

“I know our fan base feels the same way ... that there’s been some bad things for whatever reason,” Doeren said recently. “I would love to set the record straight that we want to get that right and see the right things happen. I believe when you do the right things over and over and over, eventually it comes back to you. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”

And so now the hopes are high, as high as they’ve been in a long time. It brings to mind the memorable scene in “Shawshank Redemption,” when Andy tries to convey the power of hope, of not giving up, to his fellow inmates in the prison cafeteria. And across the table, Red stares back at him with a look of skepticism, and offers a warning:

“Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Few people on Earth might understand such a claim more than those devoted to the Wolfpack. And yet here they find themselves once again, crazy enough to believe.