Big Game Looming For Boone?
Sealing the deal is the theme.
If NC State can seal the deal against Clemson there will not be a repeat of the crushing loss the Wolfpack suffered at Death Valley last season.
The Pack has a chance to put the Atlantic Division in a stranglehold with a win Saturday over the Tigers. A victory means one triumph over the final three games will send NC State into the ACC Championship Game.
When Dave Doeren arrived in Raleigh he had to find a way to close the gap with Clemson and Florida State, with Louisville joining the ACC a season later to form a three-headed monster in the Atlantic. The Wolfpack has a chance to complete a season sweep of the trio Saturday.
NC State has to seal the deal.
That is the opportunity the Pack has. That is the mindset it needs.
“Every week is a new week and a new opportunity,” senior safety Shawn Boone said. “We have got a challenge ahead of us. They have got a challenge. It is going to be a hard-fought match. Whoever executes and whoever plays their heart out, at the end of the game that will be who has won the game.”
The folks who regularly attend games at Carter-Finley Stadium have been pining for this type of significant contest for several years.
Earlier in the season, NC State battled and emerged victorious against Louisville in a nationally televised Thursday night game. As great as that evening was for the Wolfpack, that was a prelim for what the set up on Saturday.
The Wolfpack have yearned to get to this point but it was fundamentals and focus that got them here. They will need more of the same in what is Boone feels certain to be an electric atmosphere.
“I am banking on better than Louisville,” Boone said of the crowd for Saturday’s game. “That is how crazy I think it is going to be.
“It is college football and you have got two great teams that are both playing for something. So it means a lot. We have just got to go out and make sure we execute our game plan and go out there and hunt.”
The Clemson game can set up the final third of the regular season for NC State, one way or another.
The lessons are there for the Wolfpack to draw on, both last week against Notre Dame and last season at Clemson.
The seniors have a chance to do something that has never been done at NC State and finish the job they started when joining the program after the 3-9 campaign in 2013.
NC State has to seal the deal.
“Our main goal is to finish this one,” Boone said. “This time, like every game we have played this year, it is to play a hard fought game, execute and finish.
“It is a really big honor but it won’t mean anything if we don’t finish it the right way. Our goal is to finish this the right way in these next four games that we have.”
