The original anticipation was that we would be spending Sunday morning discussing what everyone was saying about NC State football’s season opener at Virginia Tech, but COVID-19 had other plans.

A cluster on the Wolfpack squad led to a delay of that game until Sept. 26, although it would be revealed Saturday that Virginia Tech was not in position to play, either. Their newly-scheduled opener against Virginia on Sept. 19 has now been postponed till a to-be-determined date. That means NC State is back to being VT's opener, while the Pack begins play next Saturday against Wake Forest.

So instead we were forced to watch a lot of NC State’s future opponents as a consolation.

Here are some observations from what we saw.

On the surface, UNC winning 31-6 looks like the Heels took care of business. The reality is this was a 10-6 contest entering the fourth quarter, and UNC was lucky to be in that position. Syracuse let two touchdowns slip through its grasp after an unnecessary blindside block took away a punt return for a score and a dropped pass by a wide open receiver in the end zone. Syracuse All-American candidate Andre Szmyt also missed a chip-shot field goal attempt.

So instead of Syracuse being potentially up 17-10 going into the fourth, it was 10-6 UNC.

That said, it also looked like a C-effort from the Heels, and they were still able to dominate the fourth quarter and pull away easily in the end. Quarterback Sam Howell threw two interceptions and UNC also muffed a punt return. It had its own punt return for a TD called back, although that block in the back did actually free up the run unlike Syracuse's penalty.

The main takeaway though is UNC clearly has lot of skill talent, and it probably would have been better off giving the talented running back combo of Michael Carter and Javonte Williams more carries (combined 21) rather than throwing 34 times with Howell.

Both teams, more so Syracuse which really struggled a year ago up front, have question marks on their offensive lines, a theme repeated throughout the afternoon. The lack of sufficient skill talent on Syracuse to go with the line that really looked in bad shape could mean a long year on offense for the Orange.

The good news for Syracuse was that their secondary looked pretty strong, and they gave UNC's offensive line problems.

NC State will play at UNC on Oct. 24 and at Syracuse on Nov. 28.

The first takeaway from watching Duke, whom NC State hosts on Oct. 17, is that Clemson grad transfer quarterback Chase Brice should be good enough. He completed 20 of 37 passes for 259 and rushed for a score in his Blue Devils debut that came against a top-10 opponent on the road. That’s not bad, and Duke may need Brice to carry the offense because the running game was lacking.

Duke finished with just 75 yards rushing, with primary running back Deon Jackson averaging only 3.5 yards on his 15 carries.

On the other side of the football, Duke hung tougher than perhaps Notre Dame’s 441 total yards may suggest. This was a 17-13 game with the Irish in front going into the fourth quarter before it seemed like Duke started to tire on defense. It had particularly hard time containing Notre Dame running back Kyren Williams, who had 19 carries for 112 yards and two scores and caught a pair of passes for 93 yards

Overall, you can probably expect a well-coached Duke team with a potentially-good situation at quarterback but some limitations.

In 2016, while most people focused on Florida State beating an overachieving Michigan team in the Orange Bowl to finish with a 10-3 record, we noted how they were a dropped interception in the end zone at NC State away from being a 4-4 team in the ACC that year.

The next two years Florida State went 3-5 each time in conference play, and last fall they were 4-4. The bottom line is over the past four seasons they have been an average (even occasionally below average) ACC team and at some point we may need to pay more attention to that than the brand name that is Florida State.

Case-in-point, a Saturday home loss to Georgia Tech in which it was outgained 438 to 307 in total yards and allowed a true freshman quarterback in GT’s Jeff Sims to throw for 277 yards.

FSU quarterback James Blackman does not have a lot of help with the FSU's still lackluster offensive line, but at some point he has to prove he can consistently be the starting QB. He was 23-of-43 passing for 198 yards and a score and turned it over three times (one pick, two fumbles) while compiling a 21.7 passer rating.

One thing we can say about FSU: bravo to its special teams for blocking seven potential points (two field goals and an extra point).

On the other sideline. Georgia Tech has reasons to be excited in year two of its rebuild under Geoff Collins. Sims looks like he could be a headache for Coastal Division defensive coordinators in years to come with his dual-threat capabilities, although he made some rookie mistakes with two bad interceptions. What’s notable is that they seemed to have bought into Collins' enthusiasm.

Also they had a solid game from one-time NC State commit Jamious Griffin. The sophomore running back ran nine times for 42 yards.

NC State hosts Georgia Tech in its regular season finale on Dec. 5 and Florida State on Nov. 14.

Give Wake Forest credit for beating Clemson’s reserves in the second half, 13-10, but that’s about all you can say for the Deacons as they were outclassed by arguably the best team in college football.

Clemson led 27-0 at halftime, and as Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson said after the game, "As a coach, they could’ve easily had 60. … I think in some cases, Clemson beat themselves with drops and things.”

However, how fair is it to judge Wake Forest on opening a season against a powerhouse like the Tigers? The main takeaway from this game was simply: it’s nice to not have to play at Clemson this year like what would have been the case pre-coronavirus.

That said, it may take a little time for Wake Forest’s offense to gel after heavy personnel losses off last year’s team. Starting quarterback Sam Hartman took a really hard hit late in the game to end his night after playing well at times. The offensive line was manhandled and thus the running game never had a chance.

The bright spot was Wake Forest looks like it has the makings of a really good receiving corps in the future with freshmen like Donavon Greene and Taylor Morin.

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