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\n Football
\n November 22, 2025
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\n By AARON BEARD
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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Justin Joly had a clinching fourth-down touchdown catch with 1:47 left \u2014 coming after Florida State committed turnovers on back-to-back late punt returns \u2014 to help NC\u00a0State 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 eligibility under 13th-year coach Dave Doeren, coming a week after an ugly loss at No. 14 Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no quit here,\u201d Doeren said. \u201cHopefully by now you guys know that. My teams don\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/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 nine 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\u2019s short kick to hit the helmet of FSU blocker K.J. Kirkland \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve 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 NC\u00a0State\u2019s 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\u2019s lone touchdown.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Takeaway
\nFSU: 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\u2019re a fully capable football team. That\u2019s not good enough. And it\u2019s not been good enough for the six losses that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
NC\u00a0State: The Wolfpack went from handing No. 15 Georgia Tech its lone loss on November\u00a01 to the Miami loss, only to regroup for a fourth straight win against FSU.<\/p>\n
He Said It
\n\u201cLucky is when a ball bounces off a guy, back to us and your punter recovers it. That was lucky. And that\u2019s God\u2019s blessing, is what that is.\u201d \u2014 Doeren<\/p>\n
Up Next
\nFSU: The Seminoles visit instate rival Florida on November\u00a029.<\/p>\n
NC\u00a0State: Rival North Carolina visits the Wolfpack on November\u00a029.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Football November 22, 2025 By AARON…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-58597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58597","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=58597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}