Coming into today's game, the Tar Heel offense was averaging 4.5 yards per snap and had eclipsed 400 total yards once. They piled up 481 total yards against the Pack on nearly nine yards per play, easily season highs in both respects. If you'd showed me those numbers prior to the game, I would have stayed home and slept in. That incredible offensive effort with that defense? By how much would they win? Thirty? Forty?
I was there and I'm still not entirely sure how the Pack did it, but they did.
A tale of two halves for the NC State defense:
UNC Offense, 1st Half: 26 plays, 318 yards (12.2 yds/play)
UNC Offense, 2nd Half: 31 plays, 147 yards (4.7 yds/play)
Once the Pack tightened the screws and cut out the big mistakes, Carolina's offense looked like the ineffective unit I expected to see coming in. And for the first time in a while, State was able to get off the field on third downs, limiting the Heels to 2 conversions in 10 tries.
NC State's offense turned it around in the second half as well:
NCSU Offense, 1st Half: 37 plays, 167 yards (4.5 yds/play)
NCSU Offense, 2nd Half: 31 plays, 239 yards (7.7 yds/play)
Just an incredible effort by the team in the second half, impressive under any circumstances but especially these.
Thanks, Pack. It meant a lot to go out this way. To everybody. (See TOB starting at about the 13-minute mark.)
Some photos from the game and the ensuing celebration:
Williams reception. (big)
Touchdown. (big)
Kuhn's 3-0 against Carolina. (big)
Enjoying the win. (big)