Pack Therapy: Great win, good season

By Joe Giglio, WRALSportsFan

There’s a tendency to confuse the last thing we see with the only thing.

NC State’s overtime win at North Carolina a week ago was great. Ben Finley, who started the season fourth on the depth chart, outplaying Drake Maye, the ACC player of the year, was remarkable. It will be a story told for years to come.

That was a great way for the Wolfpack to close the regular season, with a fourth win in the past five trips to Chapel Hill.

But the entire season?

In an interview with the Fayetteville Observer, Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren qualified the 8-4 season as “great” under the circumstance of using four different quarterbacks.

The season was good. Being resourceful is Doeren’s strong suit. He has always done his best work when his back is against the wall.

But going 4-4 in the league, the same record Georgia Tech had with an interim coach, is not great. Losing to Syracuse (7-5) and Boston College (3-9) was not great, under any circumstance.

This season started with a veteran group dedicated to winning the program’s first ACC title since 1979. There’s no shame in aiming high and falling short.

But you can’t chalk the entire season up to injuries, the team was mostly healthy when it lost at Clemson in the season’s most important game. One win also doesn’t wipe away the disappointment of those confounding losses to the Orange and Eagles.

NC State was good this season. Doeren has mostly been good in his 10 seasons, winning eight games three times and nine games three times. However, true greatness — a conference title, a division title, a 10-win season — has eluded Doeren’s grasp.

I don’t blame Doeren for the spin. It’s recruiting season and there’s a lot of work to be done before the ’23 season begins.

There’s a huge group, 30 players participated in the Senior Day ceremonies, leaving the program. With the portal and NIL, it’s going to be a wild offseason in college football. The '23 schedule also shapes up to be one of the most difficult under Doeren.

The coach should sell the program the best way that he can. That doesn’t mean we all have to buy it, though.