Saket Vora

Yesterday night #20 Boston College came to town to take on our NC State Wolfpack. Expectations were low around town — we had just suffered two humiliating defeats at the hands of Akron and Southern Miss. People were fully expecting a crushing defeat at the hands of Boston College, which was ranked #20 in the nation.

As the game unfolded, thoughts started to change. Our defense was holding on strong, and while sophomore quarterback Daniel Evans often wore a ‘deer in the headlights’ expression on his face, he wasn’t throwing the game away with poor decisions. See, this was Daniels Evans first ever college career start in a football game. He is our backup QB that is supposed to come into the game when our main QB, Marcus Stone, gets injured or starts doing poorly. That’s what happened in the last game, and Evans looked surprisingly good. So Amato decides to have him start the game.

We were trailing late into the 4th quarter. We got the ball back but then an interception was thrown at around 3 minutes left. Despite Amato making some bad coaching decisions regarding clock management, our defense was good and was able to give the ball back to our offense with just under a minute left in the game. Evans starts getting into a rhythm, getting two first downs. 15 seconds left in the game, no time-outs left, 34 yards from the endzone:  Evans shifts around in the pocket to avoid getting sacked, then heaves a long pass deep towards the endzone. Our receiver jumps up, juggles it in his hands, but is able to cling on to it just as he’s hit out of bouds. TOUCHDOWN!

It was unbelievable. This can’t be NC State Wolfpack Football….can it? With 8 seconds left in the game, we go into the lead by 2 points. The Boston College kick return doesn’t go away, and we win!

It was the first time NC State has defeated a ranked opponent at home since 2002. Wow! What a win!