In May, we originally started a countdown to NC State football's season and ACC opener against Louisville, a game that was originally scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 3.

In mid-June, the game was moved up a day to Wednesday, Sept. 2 in order to not conflict with the Kentucky Derby which was postponed from the traditional first Saturday in May to Saturday, Sept. 5 over Labor Day weekend.

In late July, the ACC scrapped its original football schedule to create a new 11-game model due to challenges presented from the coronavirus pandemic. A week later, NC State learned the dates of its new schedule which was set to begin Saturday, Sept. 12 in a road game against Virginia Tech.

Then an identified COVID cluster within the NC State athletic department shut down fall camp for eight days in late August, prompting the Pack to push back the opener against Virginia Tech to Sept. 26. Now NC State will open its season at home against Wake Forest on Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. on ACC Network.

Today, Sept. 7 marks 12 days from the Wolfpack's season opener.

Each day, The Wolfpacker will do a countdown to the season with a reflection on the significance of that number to NC State.

In a Zoom with the media after spring practices were canceled, Dave Doeren singled out Boykin for high praise when asked about which early enrollees stood out.

“I thought Devan Boykin really showed up, did a lot of positive things,” Doeren said. “Very athletic defensive back, excited about him. He’s a guy that could play early for us, and probably will.”

That's not a surprising development, even if Boykin was not either the most heavily recruited prospect (NC State was his lone major offer) or the most highly rated (Rivals.com listed him at No. 31 in the state of North Carolina). Boykin's athleticism and production suggested he was underrated by recruiters and evaluators.

A year ago before his senior year of high school, the 5-foot-10, 184-pounder was timed at 4.46 seconds in the 40-yard dash at a Shrine Bowl combine, and at a Nike Camp he had a 36.5-inch vertical leap. He is the son of his high school coach and was the offensive player of the year in his conference as a junior before being defensive player of the year in 2019.

He was also a pretty good basketball player, averaging 16.3 points per game as a junior.

The beauty of Boykin is his versatility. Although he is listed as a cornerback on the official GoPack.com roster, Boykin was originally targeted as a safety and could easily be a candidate to play nickel, as well.

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