This is the biggest, most important season in the entire history of North Carolina State football.
“Geez, Matt, why are you bombarding us with hot takes right out of the gate? Recency bias, much? Come on. This is so unprofesional. Why do you have to make an extreme, far-reaching statement with zero nuance? Sigh.”
I know, I know. Saying anything is “the biggest ever” or “the most important in history” invites understandable reactions of dismay or disapproval. This is an occupational hazard in sportswriting.
However: What if something really is the biggest or most important in history? What then?
I can defend the claim that this is the biggest season in the history of N.C. State football. I start with the point that North Carolina State hasn’t won the ACC championship since 1979. I can make the point that the last time N.C. State won a conference championship with a team which lost fewer than three games was 1957. I can point out that the last time N.C. State won a conference championship with a team which won at least 80 percent of its games was 1927. I can then say that in each of those seasons — 1979, 1957, and 1927 — State did not play in a signature, top-tier bowl game, which leads to this next point:
North Carolina State has never played in a top-tier bowl game, a game currently given the label of a “New Year’s Six” bowl. That label was previoiusly known as a Bowl Championship Series game, and before that, a Bowl Alliance or Bowl Coalition game. We’re not talking about the Gator Bowl. We’re talking about the original elite January bowl games and their subsequent iterations and variations.
Yes, North Carolina State has played in a number of Peach Bowls, but not when the Peach was a New Year’s Six game as it is now. A team would have needed to have played in the Peach (or also Cotton) Bowl when that game was a top-tier bowl game, not a second-tier game. The Cotton Bowl was, for a long time, a top-tier bowl, but it ceased to be a top-tier game for roughly 20 years before it regained top-tier status with the New Year’s Six. The Cotton, for almost two decades, was relegated to second-class status when the third-place team in the SEC would play the second-place team in the Big 12 at 10 in the morning on New Year’s Day before fans who had to either go to bed very early on New Year’s Eve or just nurse a hangover from a late night and go straight to the stadium for some football, coffee, and eggs.
North Carolina State is one of only four Power Five conference teams which has never been to a top-tier bowl game. The other three: Vanderbilt, Rutgers, and South Carolina.
Indiana has made the Rose Bowl. Kansas has played in the Orange Bowl. Arizona has played in the Fiesta Bowl. The other really bad football schools in the country have had at least one bowl game moment in the sun.
Not N.C. State.
So, with a loaded and experienced team this year, Dave Doeren has to find a way to go 10-2 instead of 9-3. He has to find a way to get his team to an elite bowl game. If not now, when?
Has a previous season of State football ever mattered as much as this one? Maybe … but the idea that this is the biggest season in program history is certainly a convincing and credible one.
Author @MattZemek, Editor at @TrojansWire .
