Lyndon Cooper has already had one emotional run-in with NC State. On Saturday in Nashville, the Vanderbilt center gets another shot at his old program - and this time, he’s not selling it as anything bigger than the next game on the schedule.
That’s a noticeable shift from last season, when Cooper was at Pittsburgh and the Panthers rolled past the Wolfpack 53-34. After that one, Cooper climbed a ladder and led the Pitt band like a maestro before heading to the locker room. He later stood at the podium with the entire Pitt offensive line and addressed the moment after NC State had reportedly put his photo inside the locker room.
"This game was personal for me," Cooper said last fall. "I tell my story a lot about what happened to me at my other school. ...
Those boys put my face up in NC State's locker room, they put my face on the D-line room. They had 60-plus transfers come out of that school, but when it came to Coop, they wanted to make it a little personal.
"I wanted to make sure that we knew it was personal to me and to the team."
Now he’s on the other sideline again, this time with Vanderbilt, and the setup is a little strange in its own way. Cooper will be back in his home stadium with the Wolfpack coming to town, and he’ll be lining up with true freshman quarterback Jared Curtis under center. That’s familiar territory for him, too, after Mason Heintschel carved up NC State for 423 passing yards and three touchdowns in last year’s matchup.
But Cooper isn’t leaning into the revenge angle publicly this week.
"It's a big game because it's the next game," Cooper said on Tuesday. "I'm not too much worried about the other team.
I'm worried about getting the unit together, making sure the offense is all on the same page and making sure Vanderbilt wins. ... It's gonna be a good matchup for us to get ready for SEC play."
The NC State connection goes back further than last season’s Pitt win. Three years ago, Cooper was the starting left guard for the Wolfpack when they went to Charlottesville and beat Virginia 24-21 in Week 4.
That game was especially meaningful for former Cavaliers quarterback Brennan Armstrong, and Cooper helped make it work after stepping in for the injured Dylan McMahon at center. He played 68 snaps, allowed one pressure and turned in one of the best games of his career in red and white.
His time in the starting lineup didn’t last long after that. According to Pro Football Focus, Cooper dipped below a 53 overall grade in the next three games he started, including a 36.1 mark in his final start against Duke. That game was especially rough in pass protection, where he was tagged with a 29.6 grade.
By Week 9, Anthony Carter Jr. had taken over at left guard and McMahon was back at center, pushing Cooper into a battle for snaps. NC State then ripped off five straight wins while MJ Morris, Cooper’s former high school teammate, chose to redshirt and Armstrong helped carry the Pack to a nine-win finish.
After the 2023 season, both Cooper and Morris entered the transfer portal, and their paths moved on from Raleigh. Asked Thursday about seeing Cooper again, NC State coach Dave Doeren didn’t want to revisit that history.
"Yeah, I'm not going to talk about that," Doeren said. "He's a player for them.
What we're trying to do is go play against Vanderbilt. Those kinds of conversations aren't for the game."
NC State and Vanderbilt kick off Saturday at 12:45 p.m. ET in Nashville.
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