Here is every NC State team’s record in one-possession games during the Dave Doeren era. Bolded in red are the seasons where State was one game shy of playing in the ACC Championship and/or winning ten games.
2013: 1-1
2014: 3-0
2015: 0-1
2016: 2-4
2017: 3-3
2018: 2-1
2019: 1-1
2020: 4-2
2021: 3-2
2022: 4-2
2023: 4-1
2024: 3-4
2025: 2-1
In 2018, the Miami Hurricanes went 4-0 in one-possession games on its way to its first ever ACC Championship Game appearance. In 2021, Wake Forest went 3-1 in one-possession games, but 3-0 in the conference, and backed into its second-ever ACC Championship game appearance. In 2022, UNC went 6-2 in one-possession games on its way to its second-ever ACC Championship Game appearance. In 2023, Louisville went 5-1 in one-possession games on its way to its first ever ACC Championship Game appearance.
There are more to name, but you get the point.
Whenever a team loses a tight game, it’s usually the final inflection point that gets the “decisive moment” treatment. While technically accurate, the reality is that there are 47 other things over the course of that game which could have changed the outcome. That list includes everything from minor coaching decisions to quarterback reads to penalties to dropped passes to whether or not the school remembered to put a camera on the goal line.
Natural variance, or “luck” to put it crudely, is a driver of several of these things (not all!). There is no way around it short of eliminating the element of chance. That’s the reason why so few teams could ever sustain a high winning percentage in one-score games over a multi-season sample. I once calculated every ACC team’s record in one-possession games over a ten-year span. Every team except Clemson, who played in far fewer of these games, recorded a winning percentage between .400 and .600.
Oftentimes, a special season means stealing as many tight games as you can before normal distribution comes knocking, and it will come knocking. The four teams mentioned above all started 9-1 or better before posting a combined 4-12 record over the last four games of their respective seasons. None won a title.
But that is the throughline with a lot of these average football programs that have won 10 games or been to the ACC Championship Game during the timeframe that NC State has failed to do that. They are playing and winning a lot of close games.
For the Wolfpack, the most notable seasons here are 2014 (3-0), 2020 (4-2), 2022 (4-2), and 2023 (4-1). 2014 can be tossed, as those wins came against Georgia Southern, Syracuse, and UCF. State was not that good, and it was easily beaten by most of the quality teams on the schedule.
State’s 4-1 effort in 2023 nearly carried it to the ACC Title Game, but even there, the devil is in the details. The Pack had fourth-quarter leads of 14, 17, and 21 in three of those four wins. You have to bend and crush those games to fit them into the “close game” drawer. State was 3-2 in games with a one-score margin entering the fourth quarter. If it was 4-1, it wins 10 at a minimum, and if that one more is the Louisville game, the Pack plays against a third-string quarterback in the ACC Championship.
2020 and 2022 were both pillars of resiliency for Doeren’s program. These teams were solid in close games. Unfortunately, State lost its starting quarterback before the season’s midpoint in both of those years. The Pack played six quarterbacks throughout those two seasons. It also played nine ranked teams over 23 regular season games. State got housed multiple times in each of these seasons as a result of those circumstances.
In the four opponent seasons listed at the top of this article, Miami, Wake Forest, UNC, and Louisville played a combined zero games without their starting quarterbacks and played a combined six ranked teams over 48 regular season games.
A formula to get over the hump as a sub-elite team should start to take shape here. First, you have to not suck. These teams were all flawed but all had stars and identities they could build around. Next comes the easy schedule. Then, you have to maintain relative health. Lastly, you have to win close games, which means you have to minimize the mistakes that flip these types of contests, put yourself in a position where you only require a reasonable amount of luck, and then hope that luck arrives. State has arguably had one season with all of these ingredients, which was 2023 with Brennan Armstrong.
A lot of people believe 2026 will be that kind of year for NC State. I am not among them at this time, but the ingredients are at least in stock. Doeren’s 14th team has one ranked opponent on the schedule, which is a barely-ranked Louisville team that comes to Raleigh. It’s pretty unlikely that State will suck. If the offensive line plays well, there is enough at quarterback and in the ground game to be a worthwhile offensive team. If it isn’t decimated by injuries, there’s a near guarantee that this year’s group will play in a lot of close games, and it has no excuse to ever get blown out. No ACC team on this schedule will dwarf the Wolfpack.
There are a lot of things you have to do right to finally get this done. It helps to have the football gods on your side, but you have to do your part too. The Pack cannot afford to operate another assembly line of comical errors like the one it ran so efficiently in Durham last year. It must control what it can control, something it hasn’t always done. But . . .
If it can be crisp and stay healthy as it works through this schedule that is decidedly low on daunt, maybe, just maybe, the football gods will shine upon NC State.