NC State had the game in its hands, then let it slip through the most unbelievable crack imaginable.
With 6 seconds left, the Wolfpack were up 31-28, facing 4th and 7 from their own 5-yard line. The cleanest path was simple: take a safety, burn the clock, and walk away with the win.
Instead, quarterback CJ Bailey took the snap in his own end zone and rolled right, and Vanderbilt turned desperation into a touchdown. The defenders didn’t go for the tackle; they went after the ball, ripped it loose, and Cayden Daniels fell on it for the score and a 35-31 Vanderbilt victory.
Before the play even began, NC State’s win probability was listed at 99.9%. In other words, this was the kind of spot where a loss was supposed to be nearly impossible. And yet the only scenario Vanderbilt needed was the one that actually happened.
There were several safer routes NC State could have taken. A normal punt would have carried just a 0.01% chance of being returned for a Vanderbilt touchdown.
A punt out of bounds could have ended the game, and even if time remained, Vanderbilt would have had only about a 5% shot at completing a Hail Mary. Bailey also could have thrown the ball as far and high as possible, which likely would have drained the clock and left an intentional grounding penalty as nothing more than a safety.
He could have even run out of the back of the end zone himself - the “Orlovsky” - and still forced Vanderbilt into a near-impossible finish, since safety punts are returned for touchdowns less than 1 out of 1000 times on average.
Most teams rehearse this exact situation. They practice “take a safety” with the punt unit for this reason, because the long snapper helps place the ball farther from the defense and closer to the back of the end zone. That’s what makes NC State’s choice so hard to explain: why wasn’t it handled that way, and why was Bailey on the field?
The loss also stacks up against other wild finishes and comes out even worse. Temple already squandered a 14-point lead in the final 2:23 to lose to Toledo in 2026, and Army also gave away a late fourth-quarter lead to South Florida, but both of those defeats still required an opposing offense to make plays and score.
Vanderbilt didn’t need that here. It just needed to strip the football.
Miami’s 2023 loss to Georgia Tech is part of the same conversation, the one where the Canes had a 100% win probability and could have kneeled it out, but instead called a run, fumbled, and watched Haynes King lead the final drive. Still, that game included actual late offensive execution from the opponent.
The same goes for the infamous “Whoa, he has trouble with the snap!” finish between Michigan and Michigan State, which ESPN showed as the only loss in the last 20 years for teams leading with less than 10 seconds left.
Even there, a tackle on the punter could have changed the ending.
This one felt different. It was sudden, absurd, and almost impossible to process.
NC State had multiple ways to survive and chose none of them. That’s why this defeat is being framed as the worst loss in college football history, and why it could end up costing Dave Doeren his job at NC State.
In Other News...
NC States Secondary Just Lost A Key Defender Without Warning
The Wolfpacks secondary took another hit this week when defensive back Asaad Brown disappeared from NC States football roster, leaving his status with the program unclear. Brown had already been sidelined for the last two games with an injury after opening the season on the field, so his absence had been noticeable even before the roster change surfaced.
Brown had been one of NC States more useful pieces in the back end, starting multiple games in 2025 and giving the defense some flexibility in how it deployed him. For a unit that has already had to manage injuries, losing a versatile defender without any immediate explanation only deepens the uncertainty around how the secondary will hold up moving forward. [Read more 🡒]
NC State Fans Have A Real Reason To Question That Budget Number
A new Athletic report put a price tag on roster spending across the Power 4, and NC State landed in the middle of the pack with an estimated range of $22 million to $26 million for the 2025-26 cycle. It is the kind of number that immediately gets attention because it helps frame how competitive a program is trying to be in the modern college football economy, especially for a team like the Wolfpack that is trying to keep pace in an arms race where perception often matters almost as much as reality.
But the figure has already been met with skepticism from people close to NC State, who say it is too high and does not reflect the programs actual spending. The report also flagged other schools, including Tennessee, LSU and Notre Dame, as possible misreads, which only adds to the sense that these broad estimates come with plenty of guesswork. For NC State fans, the bigger question is not just what the number says, but how much it really says about where the Wolfpack stands financially compared with the rest of the sport. [Read more 🡒]
CJ Bailey Owned NC States Costly Late Mistake After Vanderbilt Loss
After NC States loss at Vanderbilt, CJ Bailey did not duck the tough questions about how the game ended or how he handled the night overall. The quarterback met with the media to talk through his mindset after the setback, the late fumble that helped define the finish, and the way the offense had to adjust on the fly after moving from a tempo look to a huddle approach.
Bailey also spoke about the support system around him, pointing to his family as a steady source of encouragement while he continues to grow through the season. For a young quarterback, nights like this can linger, but they also become part of the learning curve, and Bailey sounded like a player intent on carrying the lessons from one road loss into the next challenge. [Read more 🡒]