NC State’s trip to Charlottesville turned into a rough opening-night reality check.
The Wolfpack arrived at Scott Stadium with plenty of preseason optimism and four straight wins over Virginia in the series, but that history didn’t matter once the ball was kicked off. Virginia rolled to a 34-8 win Saturday, handing NC State its first season-opening loss since 2017 and leaving Dave Doeren blunt about what he saw.
“My team simply wasn’t ready for this game; give them (Virginia) credit, they came out, punched us in the face, and we totally didn’t respond,” said Doeren.
The final margin matched the tone of the night. NC State came in as roughly a 5-point underdog, but the Cavaliers controlled the game from the start and finished with a 413-168 edge in total yards. In a sellout crowd of 62,000, Virginia looked stronger at the line of scrimmage and cleaner in the turnover battle, and Doeren didn’t try to soften that assessment.
“Virginia was more physical. They won the line of scrimmage and the turnover game, and that’s on me.
I told my team, ‘That’s on me.’ I always take how we play personally, and today was personal; we weren’t ready.”
The biggest problem for the Wolfpack was Virginia quarterback Beau Pribula, who kept NC State off balance as both a runner and a passer. Doeren said the Cavaliers’ offensive line was going to be a challenge, but the quarterback-driven run game was what really hurt his defense.
“Ok, we knew their offensive line was going to be good; we knew it was going to be a tough battle, but to be honest, it wasn’t really the tailbacks that hurt us; their run game was about the quarterback (Missouri transfer Beau Pribula).”
Pribula did plenty of damage before halftime, accounting for 80 of Virginia’s 164 rushing yards in the first two quarters alone. He then helped turn the game with a pair of deep strikes off the threat of the run.
Late in the second quarter, Pribula used a ball fake and hit Xavier Brown out of the backfield for a wide-open 47-yard catch-and-run touchdown that made it 17-0 with 11 minutes left in the half. In the third quarter, he found Da’Shawn Martin behind the defense for a 48-yard touchdown that pushed the lead to 24-0 and effectively put the game away.
Doeren gave Pribula his due after the game.
“No doubt about it, he made us pay dearly on both those plays. Give him a ton of credit. While they were both defensive lapses by us, he made the throws when he needed to.”
Pribula finished 9-of-11 passing for 155 yards and two touchdowns, and he added 110 rushing yards on 15 carries in his first game at Virginia after one season at Missouri. His college path before that included a role as mostly a backup runner at Penn State.
For NC State, the message afterward was simple: clean it up and move on to Richmond.
“You know, we just have to correct these mistakes and come out next week against Richmond ready to play, more focused. That’s on me,” said Doeren.
And if there was any small comfort for the Wolfpack, it was this: Richmond likely doesn’t have another quarterback quite like Pribula waiting on the other sideline.
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