"Nails:" Devin Leary Comes Through In The Clutch
Safe to say NC State football did not expect to have to wait until the third game of his redshirt sophomore season to see “what he is and what he could be” with Devin Leary, a former highly-touted quarterback recruit.
It’s also safe to say the results were worth the wait. Leary was spectacular for NC State Saturday in a 30-29 win at No. 24 Pitt, completing 28 of 44 pass attempts for 336 yards and four touchdowns, including leading a game-winning drive with under two minutes to play.
“Devin was nails,” said head coach Dave Doeren. “We’ve been waiting for him to become the guy. We’ve always known what his arm was. This team believes in him. You can see it in the locker room. They rally around him. He’s just calm, poised, he’s got a really, really good arm. He’s a tough kid. He really played a heck of a football game. I’m very proud of him and very happy for him.”
It’s not exactly Leary’s fault that it took this long to get a full accounting of his abilities. He appeared in eight games last year, making five starts. He showed both flashes and struggles, completing 48 percent of his passes for 1,219 yards, eight touchdowns, and five picks. However, by the time Leary was the starter, the Wolfpack had injuries all over the place, including at offensive line, tight end, receiver, and running back, meaning he never had a full complement around him.
Throughout the summer and fall camp, the thought was that Leary would be “the guy” going into the season, and he was named the starting QB five days until fall camp. However, when NC State had to shut down its fall camp for eight days due to positive COVID tests, Leary was one of the players impacted by contact tracing, and he missed 20 practices. He wasn’t ready for the season opener against Wake Forest, a game that NC State won with Bailey Hockman under center.
When Hockman struggled last week against Virginia Tech, Leary entered the game partway through the third quarter and impressed, completing 12 of 16 pass attempts for 165 yards and a score. But with the Wolfpack down big, that was hardly a normal game script. Leary’s action against Pitt was his first “real” chance to show what he could do with a full deck, and he passed that test with flying colors.
“I think as hard as it was for him to not play in the Wake Forest game, it was the right thing for us to do coming out of the quarantine that he had,” Doeren said. “It’s given him time to get back to where he needed to be. He’s done a great job of taking coaching from coach Tim Beck.”
The most impressive part of Leary’s big day was leading the Wolfpack’s first game-winning fourth-quarter drive since the 2014 season opener against Georgia Southern. And we’re certainly going to get to that. But we’d be doing Leary a disservice by only focusing on the final drive. He made big throws in big moments all day.
He was four for eight for 49 yards on third down, and NC state picked up 14 first downs through the air Saturday. And it’s not as if Leary did this against a bad defense. Pitt came into this game with the No. 1 defense in the ACC, having allowed just 10 points and 121 passing yards per game, including a combined 30 points and 227 passing yards in two games against ACC foes Syracuse and Louisville.
Leary’s first touchdown drive of the day was a big one; Pitt had just opened the game with a 75-yard touchdown pass. A response was sorely needed. And a response was there, as the Pack drove 75 yards on 17 plays to tie it up, culminating in a 6-yard pass from Leary to Cary Angeline.
“I kind of just take it play by play,” Leary said. “We just have to go 1-0 every single play, and if I’m preaching that to my teammates; they’re going to look at me to approach the situation the same way. That’s how I take it mentally.”
Early in the second quarter, Leary led another scoring play of five plays and 69 yards, culminating in an absolute dime to Emeka Emezie for the receiver’s first of two touchdowns, a 35-yard strike to the pylon that put NC State up 17-7.
Leary made gorgeous throws throughout the day, showing off the arm talent the coaching staff has raved about. He also made great use of his full set of receivers.
While Leary certainly had his favorite targets throughout the day, with Emezie hauling in seven catches for 101 yards and two scores, Angeline five for 60 yards and two scores, and Devin Carter three for 72 yards (including a glorious one-handed snag in the third quarter), he spread the ball around, with nine players recording at least one catch for the Pack.
“It’s very huge,” Leary said. “I think it really starts in the offseason, just building as much chemistry as I can with every single receiver on our depth chart. Coach [George] McDonald preaches to them, as well, that every man has to be ready to go into the game because you never know when the next guy is going to be up. On my part as quarterback, you have to know how every guy runs his route. You have to have a certain amount of chemistry with every single receiver, and I think it paid off today.”
After that second quarter touchdown, however, the offense went quiet, and would not score again until the fourth quarter. The defense kept NC State in the game, but the Panthers eventually pushed their way to a 23-17 lead.
After Pitt kicked a fourth-quarter field goal for the six-point lead, it was time for another response. Leary had one. On a seven-play, 72-yard drive, he completed four of six pass attempts for 63 yards and a touchdown.
His first two attempts went for first downs – a 22 yarder for Carter and a 10 yarder for Thayer Thomas. After a trick play in the red zone lost NC State six yards, Leary found himself behind the sticks at third and 16. No matter, as he wound up and unleashed a 25-yard laser to Angeline to give the Wolfpack the lead.
After Pitt regained the lead at 29-24 with a rushing touchdown, NC State faced a much steeper test in finding one final answer: 1:44 on the clock with no timeouts.
Leary wasn’t worried. He was calm, and that helped him rally the troops for the big drive.
“We were all aware of the situation,” Leary said. “We were all aware of the score. We knew what we had to do, and going in, I just told them, ‘Let’s just go 1-0. Each and every play, we have to win the play and manage the clock as best as we can.’ I thought we did a very good job with it.”
That they did. On the last drive, Leary was, as Doeren put it: “nails.” He completed six of nine passes for 79 yards and the game-winning score with 29 seconds to go. After the drive started well, with NC State moving to the Pitt 32 on four straight completions, it stalled out a bit, and the Pack faced a must-have fourth and nine.
Again, Leary was ready. He found Thomas for a gain of 14 to keep the chains moving and the Wolfpack’s chances alive.
“Fourth down and no timeouts, it’s do or die at that point,” Leary said. “You have to make a play. It’s one of my favorite things to do. All the eyes are on me, the ball’s in my hands, and I have to make a play. Thayer did a great job and ran a great route. I had great protection. We were able to get the first down, and I believe we got out of bounds, as well, to stop the clock. That was a huge play for us, and being able to stay calm in those situations is very key.”
Two players later, Leary made another great back shoulder throw to Emezie, who made another great catch, securing NC State’s first ACC road win since 2018.
“It’s like Coach Beck tells me all the time, ‘Just give our guys a chance,’” Leary said. “As long as we give them a chance, it’s all we can do.”
Leary gave his guys a chance time and again throughout the Wolfpack’s comeback victory.
It was, at the end of the day, just one game. But for a team and quarterback seemingly starved for strong quarterback play since Ryan Finley moved on to the NFL, and starved for a fourth-quarter comeback for a lot longer than that, it was a great start.
If Leary can bring the poise, accuracy, big-play ability and, yes, the “clutch gene” he showed off in the fourth quarter on a consistent basis, it may have been the start of something special.