Column: NC State reversed the script from an upset loss to a win
Due credit should be given to Syracuse.
For a team laboring through what is almost certain to be a 1-10 season after it plays at No. 2 Notre Dame next Saturday, the Orange showed no quit on this Saturday in its final home game of 2020.
“We got what I thought we were going to get,” NC State head coach Dave Doeren said afterward. “We got a team that was playing for its senior class on senior day.”
With all that Syracuse and every other team has had to labor through in the COVID-19 pandemic to pull off having a season, it’s admirable that the Orange showed that kind of fight so late in a season like they are having.
Yet the truth is this was a Syracuse team that was outmanned by a better, more talented Wolfpack squad, and once the Wolfpack cleaned up its mistakes and stopped following the recipe for an upset, NC State was able to prevail 36-29.
Syracuse led 22-14 at halftime, and Doeren admitted that he was “far from calm.”
He was very upset, and he let the team know about it. He had reasons to lose his cool.
When you draw up the blueprint for how Syracuse could overcome being an over two-touchdown underdog, it would go something like this (many of which we outlined in our keys to the game and what to expect in the scouting Syracuse feature):
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