NC State is going to need some reserves to step up if it is going to continue the successes of its 4-1 start.

Yet in 2020, that is almost expected.

Wolfpack fifth-year senior guard Joe Sculthorpe can recall a preseason meeting when NC State head coach Dave Doeren noted how a positive case for COVID-19 could result in multiple other players having to sit out due to contact tracing. Then Sculthorpe recalled how Doeren said this season would be unique.

“Coach Doeren made it a point and emphasis, ‘This is the first time,’" he said, ‘everyone on this team from first string to back in the third string, fourth string, scout team guys, you have a legitimate chance to play this year.’”

Doeren’s words are proving true, especially on offense, but not necessarily because of COVID-19 protocols. It is more due to injuries.

On the offensive line, for instance, redshirt freshman Timothy McKay has been lost for the season, and sixth-year senior Tyrone Riley, fifth-year senior Justin Witt and redshirt sophomore Derrick Eason were all left off the depth chart Monday for health reasons.

The net result is that redshirt guard Dylan McMahon has become next man up, among others, on the line. Yet Sculthorpe is not worried.

“I think Dylan is a great player,” Sculthorpe noted. “I think he was a starter before the season, he played like it, but unfortunately you can only have five offensive linemen start at one time.

"I thought Dylan had a great game last week, just as well. I thought he played really, really well. I thought he played just like if he’s been playing the last two or three years.”

Of course, the most visible presence of that “next man up” approach will be in the offensive backfield, where redshirt junior Bailey Hockman will return to the starting quarterback role he had in the first two weeks after Devin Leary, a redshirt sophomore who started each of the last three wins for the Wolfpack, broke his left fibula against Duke Saturday, needing surgery that will require him to potentially miss the rest of the season.

“He’s always been ready,” senior receiver Emeka Emezie noted of Hockman. “He’s prepared as a starter, always. He’s started games here before, too, and he’s won games here before, too. We know he is ready.”

Indeed, Hockman is 2-2 as the Wolfpack’s starting quarterback since becoming eligible for the 2019 season following a transfer from Florida State. Sculthorpe noted that the offense will have Hockman’s back. He added that would be the case regardless of who is taking the snaps from center, joking even if it was the center himself, redshirt junior Grant Gibson, lining up at quarterback.

“We know [Hockman’s] going to step up, he’s going to play, he’s going to have a great game,” Sculthorpe said. “We have a lot of confidence in him. He has a lot of confidence in himself.

“He’s ready to show the world that he’s a legitimate college quarterback and going to have a great game. With that, we have just as much faith in him as we had in Devin.”

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