NC State LB Payton Wilson not seriously injured, but TE Trent Pennix will miss time
.JPG "N.C. State linebacker Payton Wilson (11) walks the sideline during the first half of N.C. States game against ECU at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022.")
N.C. State’s injury news Monday was mixed for the Wolfpack but probably better than expected.
The good: linebacker Payton Wilson is “sore,” according to Pack coach Dave Doeren, but did not suffer a serious injury Saturday in the opener at East Carolina.
The not-so-good: tight end Trent Pennix will miss four to six weeks, Doeren said, with an undisclosed injury. Doeren did add that the junior will not require surgery and should return this season.
When Wilson left the ECU game in the first half, then spent the second half on the sideline with his arm in a sling, the fear was the often-injured junior might be out long term again. But Doeren, during his weekly news conference, said Wilson’s MRI came back “completely clean” and that Wilson would not need any kind of surgical repair.
“He just needs time to kind of rest up on it a little bit,” Doeren said.
The Wolfpack, after winning a 21-20 squeaker at ECU, hosts Charleston Southern (0-1) this week in NCSU’s home opener at Carter-Finley Stadium. Doeren did not rule Wilson in or out of the game — Wilson was listed as a starter on the two-deep depth chart for Saturday’s matchup.
Wilson, who led the ACC in tackles per game in 2020, missed nearly all of last season after a shoulder injury in the Pack’s second game, at Mississippi State. After shoulder surgery, he also was held out of spring practice this year.
“The guy’s been through so much,” Doeren said Monday. “The knees, the shoulders. And he has one of the most elite competitive spirits that I’ve ever coached — the way he looks at the game, the warrior’s mentality he has for playing the game, the physicality.”
Doeren said Wilson was one of the players who had limited contact work in fall camp, with the intention of going into the opener with a fully healthy team. The downside for the Pack, the coach noted, was that some of those players weren’t as sharp as they can be, or will be.
The Wolfpack had a number of missed tackles on defense – ECU had 130 yards after pass catches and quarterback Holton Ehlers, who rushed for 57 yards, slipped free a few times.
“It’s a balancing act,” Doeren said. “We were very cautious and probably too cautious to make sure we had everybody healthy for game one. And we did, so it was mission accomplished. The price we paid maybe was not having enough contact that would have made us a little better.
“We maybe missed more tackles in game one than we did in three games last year combined. We’ve got to improve. Against great athletes in open spaces we’re capable of making a lot of the plays we didn’t make Saturday. That won’t sit well with our (defensive) staff, won’t sit well with our defensive kids, and they’ll get out and fix it.”
At the same time, Doeren wasn’t apologizing for the close victory, saying, “There’s no such thing as an ugly win” and noting what turned out to be a pretty crazy weekend of college football.
The Pack went into Greenville ranked 13th nationally and tagged as an 11-point favorite. The Wolfpack left Greenville 1-0.
“It was definitely a lesson in humility for our players,” Doeren said. “Playing from the ranked position, playing from the favored position, is something that’s new for our guys and something we have to learn to embrace and be better.”
The spread
The oddmakers made the Pack an 11-point pick in the ECU game and badly missed on that one. This week: the Wolfpack opened as a 44.5-point pick over Charleston Southern.
This story was originally published September 5, 2022 at 2:38 PM with the headline "NC State LB Payton Wilson not seriously injured, but TE Trent Pennix will miss time."
