{"id":56449,"date":"2025-11-22T06:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T06:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/56449\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T06:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T06:26:08","slug":"nc-state-tops-florida-state-21-11-behind-jolys-td-2-late-special-teams-turnovers-by-seminoles-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/56449\/","title":{"rendered":"NC State tops Florida State 21-11 behind Joly’s TD, 2 late special-teams turnovers by Seminoles"},"content":{"rendered":"

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Justin Joly had a clinching fourth-down touchdown catch with 1:47 left – coming after Florida State<\/a> committed turnovers on back-to-back late punt returns – to help N.C. State hang for a 21-11 win Friday night and become bowl eligible.<\/p>\n

It marks the 11th time that N.C. State reached bowl eligiblility under 13th-year coach Dave Doeren, coming a week after an ugly loss at No. 14 Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no quit here,\u201d Doeren said. \u201cHopefully by now you guys know that. My teams don’t do that.”<\/p>\n

The Wolfpack (6-5, 3-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) grinded to this win behind a defense that allowed one TD and got a huge showing from cornerback Devon Marshall with two interceptions and five pass breakups for an injury-hit secondary. The offense did its best work on a 15-play drive lasting nearly 9 minutes, ending with Will Wilson plowing through the left side for a 1-yard keeper and a 14-3 third-quarter lead.<\/p>\n

But it was the special-teams miscues by the Seminoles (5-6, 2-6) that stood out most in what coach Mike Norvell called \u201ccatastrophic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trailing 14-11, they forced the Wolfpack to punt near midfield, only for Caden Noonkester’s short kick to hit the helmet of FSU blocker K.J. Kirkland – then bounce about 25 yards back to Noonkester, who dove on the ball near the original line of scrimmage with 3:53 left.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball\u2019s that way,\u201d Doeren said. \u201cThere\u2019s all kinds of bounces in games. Sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don\u2019t. And that\u2019s football.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve never seen anything like that,\u201d FSU quarterback Tommy Castellanos said.<\/p>\n

FSU again forced a punt, only to see Squirrel White muff the catch and have it bounce right to N.C. State’s Tra Thomas with 2:21 left. C.J. Bailey followed with his second TD throw on the 12-yarder to Joly for the 21-11 lead.<\/p>\n

Duce Robinson had a 9-yard TD catch from Castellanos midway through the fourth for FSU’s lone touchdown.<\/p>\n

FSU: That caps another rough year in league play. FSU is 3-13 in ACC play since the start of last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we have not lived up to expectations,\u201d Norvell said. \u201cWe’re a fully capable football team. That’s not good enough. And it’s not been good enough for the six losses that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

N.C. State: The Wolfpack went from handing No. 15 Georgia Tech its lone loss on Nov. 1 to the Miami loss, only to regroup for a fourth straight win against FSU.<\/p>\n

FSU had a brief scare when Norvell said a player \u201cwent down\u201d as the team came off the field. Wolfpack cheerleaders near the tunnel took a knee as trainers and medical staff crowded around with a cart near the tunnel, but Norvell said the player was eventually able to get back up and walk back for further evaluation.<\/p>\n

“Lucky is when a ball bounces off a guy, back to us and your punter recovers it. That was lucky. And that’s God’s blessing, is what that is.” – Doeren<\/p>\n

FSU: The Seminoles visit instate rival Florida on Nov. 29.<\/p>\n

N.C. State: Rival North Carolina visits the Wolfpack on Nov. 29.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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\n Copyright 2025 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Justin Joly had a clinching fourth-down touchdown catch with 1:47 left – coming after Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[143,28,30,29,3731,10088],"class_list":{"0":"post-56449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-florida-state-seminoles","13":"tag-nc-state-wolfpack"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}