RALEIGH -- Last season, a struggling Duke football team pulled off an upset win over N.C. State 21-20 by opening up a big lead and then holding on for the victory.
But this year's surprising Blue Devil squad could not do the same. Duke lost to the Wolfpack 24-23 in Raleigh Saturday after giving up 17 unanswered points in a span of 10:46 in the third and fourth quarters.
"I'm disappointed," Duke head coach Fred Goldsmith said. "You can't not score when you have the ball down there and give your opponent a lift, and I felt like we kept bringing up those situations.
"It just so happens that it wasn't until late in the third quarter that they took advantage of it, but that won it. We didn't play well enough to win and North Carolina State did. That's all there is to it."
Duke relinquished the lead to NCSU (7-2, 5-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) midway through the fourth quarter. Wolfpack running back Tremayne Stephens picked up 21 yards on the second play of State's game-winning drive against a Duke defense concerned about giving up big pass plays. Stephens followed that run with an 11-yard gain that could have lost the game for the Wolfpack. Duke recovered an apparent Stephens fumble, but he was determined to be out of bounds. Replays showed Stephens fumbled the ball before stepping out of bounds at the end of the run.
On the subsequent first-and-10 from the Duke 48, running back Rod Brown tore through a Duke blitz for a gain of 43 yards. Two plays later, wide receiver Mike Guffie easily scored on a two-yard touchdown pass from Wolfpack quarterback Terry Harvey. The extra point gave State a one point lead with 5:50 left in the game.
"This is a very, very big win for a lot of reasons," N.C. State coach Mike O'Cain said. "Duke was a heck of a football team."
The Blue Devils had one more chance. Duke quarterback Spence Fischer moved the offense to the Wolfpack 28-yard line with just over two minutes left. A costly holding penalty on first down moved Duke (8-2, 5-2 in the ACC) back to the 38. From there, the offense could gain only five yards on three pass plays -- with the biggest missed opportunity being a dropped ball by tight end Bill Khayat at the 25-yard line on second down.
"That's probably the first one Billy's dropped [all season]," Goldsmith said. "Bless his heart, he deserves one. It shouldn't come down to whether Billy drops a ball."
On fourth-and-15, Goldsmith called on field goal kicker Tom Cochran to try and win the game with a 51-yard field goal.
His attempt sailed wide left. It was Cochran's fourth miss of the day, all from 43 yards or longer. Duke had no timeouts left and N.C. State ran out the clock.
"I just missed it," said Cochran of his last kick. "I tried to think about the basics. I hit the ball well, but I pulled it a little bit, like I'd been pulling all my balls all night. It was just not a good night for me."
Goldsmith called on Cochran to attempt a total of seven field goals during the game. The kicker accounted for Duke's only points in the second half. The offense was unable to get into the endzone after a 23-yard touchdown reception by flanker Corey Thomas with 12:41 left in the second quarter.
"We moved the ball up and down the field on these guys, and we couldn't put it in the endzone when we needed to," Fischer said. "I take full responsibility for that because I'm the quarterback and it's my job to put us into the endzone, and we didn't do that today."
Those missed opportunities loomed large after a succession of breakdowns in the Duke secondary allowed the Wolfpack to get back in the game. Duke held a 23-7 lead early in the third quarter, and the Blue Devils appeared ready to cruise to 9-1 after stopping N.C. State from crossing midfield twice during the early part of the quarter.
But the Wolfpack came roaring back by opening up its offense and throwing the ball downfield. On third-and-10 from his own 8-yard line, Harvey hit Adrian Hill behind the Duke secondary. Hill scampered down to the Duke 10 before Ray Farmer dragged him down. The 82-yard pick up brought the crowd to life, and two plays later, Harvey hit Hill again, this time for 16 yards and the touchdown.
Duke then took the kickoff and moved the ball to the State 24. When the drive bogged down, Cochran missed from 43 yards out at the 13:15 mark of the fourth quarter, his third miss of the evening.
State took over, but Duke defensive end James Kirkland appeared to have steadied the Blue Devil defense with a 13-yard tackle for a loss on the Wolfpack's first play. But Harvey went deep on second down, and this time found wide receiver Greg Addis for a 53-yard pickup to the Blue Devil 35. The Wolfpack failed to pick up another first down on that drive, and kicker Steve Videtich made a 47-yard field goal to cut the Duke lead to 23-17.
Duke got only one first down on its next drive and was forced to punt after a crucial third-and-9 play to tight end Jon Jensen went for only seven yards. State then made its march for the game-winning touchdown.
"The first one I thought, maybe we underestimated how far Harvey can throw the football," said Goldsmith of the two long pass plays. "It was obvious after that he could throw the ball that far, and then they got us with the second one the same way.
"Even those two plays shouldn't have beat us. You don't like for that to happen, but by gosh, we should have had a lot more points before those things ever happened."
Goldsmith said that the 20-7 lead his team built by halftime wasn't indicative of how badly they had outplayed N.C. State. Duke scored on the game's opening possession when Cochran connected from 23 yards out after Duke's drive stalled inside the State 10-yard line. N.C. State went to the run for all but four plays of its following drive. The result was a 13-yard touchdown run by running back Rod Brown on an option pitch from quarterback Terry Harvey.
After that, the first half featured good ball movement by the Duke offense and several big plays by the Duke defense. Cochran missed his first field goal of the day with 2:10 left in the first quarter after the offense stalled at the State 25 yard line. But the Wolfpack couldn't escape from trouble. Kirkland stripped Harvey of the ball in the backfield three plays after the missed field goal, enabling linebacker John Zuanich to pick up the loose ball and go into the endzone.
"I just happened to see option," Kirkland said. "Coaches always teach us to swat at the ball and when I saw it, I swatted at it and made sure I secured the tackle. It came out, and John picked it up and ran it in."
After another good defensive series and a partially blocked punt early in the second quarter, Fischer moved the Blue Devils into the endzone on a five play, 46-yard drive capped off by the Thomas touchdown. On the ensuing series, linebacker David Hawkins stripped Harvey and Eric Sheidt recoverd at the NCSU 15 yard line to set up Cochran's second successful field goal try of the game.
N.C. State drove to the Duke 37 with less than 10 seconds to go. Duke cornerback Brandon Pollock picked off Harvey's last pass of the half and stumbled before going 44 yards to the Wolfpack 26. N.C. State tried to leave the field as the clock had run down to zero, but the Blue Devils and Goldsmith successfully argued that there was still one second left in the half.
Cochran came on to attempt a 45 yard kick, but he said after the game that he rushed it, causing him to mishit the ball and leave the kick well short. It was one of many opportunities that the Blue Devils let get away from them all game long.
"I don't think I've ever been in a game where we've taken the ball under such good field position, driven the football and come away with so few points in the ball game," Goldsmith said. "I feel like if you keep doing that, eventually it's going to catch up to you, and it caught up to us."
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