NC State’s painful season ends with 41-10 loss to UNC

I don’t figure the details are terribly important at this juncture, like who could need the exact specifications on the tornado that knocked over your house? NC State’s wearying, difficult football season is finished, and that is a welcome thing.

The events, such as they were, ran fairly standard for NC State this season: the Wolfpack buried itself in a string of mistakes as the injury-depleted defense collapsed and the team’s will was crushed.

North Carolina came out of halftime and very quickly made a laugh of State’s 10-6 lead by scoring four touchdowns. Once the margin hit double figures, the Wolfpack was done mentally, its back broken in multiple places.

The first half played out like some sort of weird exhibition, almost. Neither team seemed interested in accomplishing much of anything—but it never felt like that would last, and it sure as hell did not. UNC woke up big-time in the third quarter, hitting on the big plays through the air that were going to be available at any given time.

NC State was all too ready to concede once given the opportunity, and provided no pushback as the Heels mounted one scoring drive after another. It could have been worse, but it was pretty damn bad anyhow.