Welcome to the A. C. C. Panic room alongside Lauren Brownlow. I'm copias and N. C. State entered Winston. Salem on saturday Brownlow against Wake Forest and there's been a handful of what you could describe as the most important game since dot dot dot for the Wolf Pack. You got to go back to 2010. Most likely where that one would have clinched it. Russell Wilson Maryland. All that would've clinched in the atlantic but they end up losing that game. You can talk about 2000 and 17 for NC State where had a win, I forgot what the sequence was. But things were headed in the right direction even after that loss to Clemson, the cal band board game and last night I wouldn't have clinched anything because there's still two weeks left to the season, right. NC State would have put themselves in a really prime spot to win the atlantic division. Yeah. I don't know if you saw the percentages breaking down on the broadcast but like it was interesting to see what would happen if state had one versus what would happen if weight one because basically like now according to like FBI or whatever they use like Wake now has a 14% chance to win the atlantic division in spite of the fact that they are in complete control. And that's and that's the thing before we before we actually get into the dynamics of another loss for N. C. State in Winston. Salem. You know some more of the Jedi force ghost of Philip rivers and Russell Wilson are watching this going, yeah, I know the feeling of going with the Salem and losing and that's the thing like really good state teams have come there against worst Wake squads. And let's right like what one of the things right? That's that's one thing I was going to say usually that's been a thing where like they get tripped up there and they shouldn't. Whereas like this year this is a this is a game between two really good teams and you know certainly for most of the year anyway weeks been better so far. So it probably at least in my lifetime this was the most important game between NC State and Wake Forest in football in my lifetime at least. But the season's not over. And I think that's one thing we have to clear up kind of going forward the way I mean it's really simple. N. C. State has to win out and Wake Forest has to lose out for N. C. State to have a shot at the atlantic division. Now N. C. State what they got Syracuse and they got north Carolina to close the season. That's entirely possible. Go go into an oak. And that stretches entirely possible. Absolutely Wake going oh into it's also entirely possible because the first step is next weekend against Clemson a Tiger squad That has not gone away. I know that nationally everybody has moved on from Clemson because that's where Dabo has gotten the Tigers in terms of what the expectations are. You're either a college football playoff team or we do not talk about you. But in the context of what we do, Clemson refuses to go away and that is not a gimme game for the Demon deacons next week. Especially when you look at the history of Wake for squads as november rolls on and lack of depth. Now the super senior season is coming out of a pandemic. And all that stuff has given this Wake Forest team a different look. They've actually done an old team, they've got some depth. So it's gonna be a really interesting matchup on saturday between them and Clemson. Yeah I mean look Clemson is not an offensive juggernaut still you know Davos said it at the beginning of the year like they're not going to be that this year. But the real question is do you have to be an offensive juggernaut to move the football and Wake Forest like no I don't know. Maybe you do basically. That's the thing. That's the thing. And before we talk about the game you know I did want to I get people emotions run hot when your team loses in a really really important game. And I had tweeted something out last night which I believe you know people are like oh you're trolling yada yada yada basically said that 11 26 N. C. State north Carolina black friday is going to be the petty bull and what we just set up is exactly why it's gonna be a petty bowl let's say Clemson beats Wake Forest let's say N. C. State wins their next game. And now you're set up for a final weekend where NC State's got to beat north Carolina to even have a chance at the atlantic division. What's north Carolina season all about the rest of the way? Yeah they're kind of play spoiler. That's all they've been doing the last couple of weeks. That's really concentrate on doing. That's all it really is. It's the ruin your vibes tour. And I think another aspect of that is you know look at like what's the one thing that you can definitively say that matt brown has done differently and way better than larry fedora. I mean there's a number of things but I can tell you one thing that is significantly different. What is it in ST James? Yeah and this is where the pettiness comes in. We're we are set up for one of the most ridiculous statements that's going to be made of north Carolina beach NC state in a couple of weeks. Wake Forest is going to win the division. They're off to an sec championship game. But what what is Mack Brown was talking about? Well we got the state championship and that's gonna rile people up. Which is really funny because like it didn't seem to bother anybody know did. But it's really gonna rile people up this year and then if your N. C. State and you lose that game where you spent a good chunk of the season talking about how they're overrated. They're overrated. Nobody's respected us. They're overrated. Look at us look at devin leary yada yada yada. Well then you got to win that game and that's why I love college football. Like I understand you're close to it and your team lost things like that. But for me this is why you love college football. Like now there's intrigue to it. Yes. You know the whole psychos thing that you know it's kind of taken over in college football. That's old memory guy. You know he's up against the window. Yes it makes me feel seen joe yes does guys where I almost feel like I should pull up the sickos meme here on the on the thing for people who can't do it. These are the types of things that get you pulled into college football. The little local rivalries and everything else and that's where things are going to be set up. You and me Brownlow. We've seen enough of these matchups in the past. You know how it goes. As one listener pointed out folks are gonna be freaking stressed in that game and honestly isn't that why we watch so I watch right we watch for this kind of stuff That's that's the pool for these kind of things. Yeah I mean I'm trying to remember I don't remember State was playing for a bull. I think they were already out of it when the time of brian streak over you and see started over the butch Davis teams like that was the state team playing for nothing except for to play spoiler just to beat Carolina and like there's not it's nothing wrong with that. It's kind of fun in a way like why not? Like why not play spoiler and win the state title or whatever. You know whatever you can cling to. You got to cling to something this college football season unless you're duke and then you have nothing to cling to. Let's talk about the actual game, shall we? It was a weird game. Um I knew going into the game that Wake Forest was not going to hurt itself the same way that it did against north Carolina the week before. That was an uncharacteristic wait team that we've seen in the fourth quarter. They took way too many penalties. Some questionable play calling. They only had I think five penalties in this game. N. C. State on the other hand was doing some uncharacteristic things. What 14 penalties uh They hurt themselves giving Wake Forest extended drives because of these penalties a lot of holding calls out of P. I. Calls all while also getting turnovers and they got they got weak force to turn the ball over. They took advantage of Sam Hartman the quarterback who has been kind of in a little bit of a funk here as of late but he still put up big numbers to his like again. And when I say it's weird is that you can look at the final score and think it was a shootout. But then you can look at the stats and also wonder man, how did it get to this point? But you know turnovers probably negated because Devin leary did something uncharacteristic. He turned the ball over and this is something that I know you talked about on twitter where NC State's defense has been their calling card all season long and I know they were dealing with a bunch of guys getting hurt in the process of this game but they still did their best as they could even though that that there was a killer drive there that we'll get to in a second. But N. C. State's offense typically can get things going at some point. They never really could. That was the thing with me and this has been my frustration with watching state most of this year. The defense has defied every obstacle put in front of it. You know the offense has remained relatively healthy although to be fair to them, I know that they were I know that bam Knight got banged up. I know that Ricky person was essentially playing through an illness. They talked about that in the broadcast that that makes a little tougher. Certainly there on the ball but at the same time, like this has been a thing all year with them and it just feels like you watch them offensively. You see how good their receivers can be. You know, you see how good devin leary can be in some of the throws you can make, you see this offensive line and how much experience it has in talent. It hasn't you go, but what's, what's wrong? Like, why, why is it not all coming together? Like why are they kind of middle of the pack offensively in the country in terms of like yards per play? Like what is the disconnect? Why can they not When they can move the ball? Why can't they score? You know, and I know they had turnovers last time, but that was my frustration watching them last night, you know, in the first half because it's like the defense is doing like, you can't, you can't tell me what state fans would have thought if you told them like Sam Hartman's like three for 19 or whatever the heck he was in the first half and you know, they're holding on for dear life and they can't make weight pay and score. And that was, you know, at a certain point, you kind of, I know that the defense gave up some third and longs and I'm not saying that they shouldn't be held responsible for that. Um, but state of so many chances to score points and against a team like wait that can put up points in a hurry eventually that's going to come back to bite you. Yeah. And you know we talk about the weirdness that also happens in Winston Salem. I mean there was a game a couple of years ago where a better camera angle might turn replay review around. That happened again as N. C. State's trying to make this come back and they get the onside kick or did they? I mean you got you got a ruling on the field obviously and then the head judge you know saying his own interpretation. They go to the review. The problem is because it's Wake Forest and Wake Forest is like the land of the bad camera angle. Apparently they can't get a good look at it. And you know if you're a half a second later getting the ball if you just go with the initial ruling on the field. I'm not saying it's the state Wednesday game. I'm simply saying that these are the types of things that happen to N. C. State in Winston Salem. It's the strangest thing and it's just gonna keep eating at State fans when they can think about the what ifs because that's where we are under Dave Doeren. Let's think about this. I know there's a lot of Dave Doeren discourse on social media right now in my emails and things like that but turn in the last three of the last four meetings right. Turn any one of those Wake forest results around. What are we talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's different. It's different. This one, this one's amplified because of the atlantic division implications. But those back to back years, you just flip the wake forest result and it completely changes how you discuss NC State's season. It goes from pretty good too. That's great. And I know they caught him at the beginning of the year, last year in a pandemic season. But you, so three of the last four years these results, you flip them and you talk about state completely different. But who knows? I mean, there's still, there's still plenty of season left and we'll see what happens over the next two weeks. Yeah. I mean like I said, like I said at the beginning, you know, with the percentages being what they are, there's a reason that wake, even the wake one, they dropped, they dropped 14% and the reason they drop is because they've still got to win one of these next two. And I know that sounds like, okay, well why wouldn't they, you know, it's not gonna be so easy. States got their next to at home. Syracuse just got absolutely destroyed by Louisville yesterday. Like I was surprised because Syracuse has been kind of scrappy this year. Syracuse couldn't recover from Lamar Jackson's outfit. Uh, neither could I, I love what he flexed so hard. How can Syracuse recover from that? That's fair. I love him so much. But it's the best, you know, it's like that just happened now. They've got a bowl, I think they've got that kind of puts them out of bowl eligibility at this point so that takes something off the table for them and then you know north Carolina has been absolute garbage on the road all year. Would it surprise anyone if north Carolina went in there and finally played well on the road? Like no of course not. But at the same time we have no reason to assume that that's going to be the case and so state has plenty that it can control because even if it gets in a three team tie with Clemson obviously like I think I think joe Julia tweeted last night that they would win that so well that's gonna wrap it up for this edition of the panic room. Um Yeah buckle up. It's gonna be an interesting next couple of weeks in the A. C. C. We'll see you then