The season of recalibrated expectations comes for everyone, eventually — even Clemson, at this very point last fall, after the loss at Pittsburgh. It is the moment when whatever plans were made in August are officially moot, and nothing pushes a team further down the spiral than losing its quarterback.
That’s particularly acute at N.C. State, where there was never a real backup plan for Devin Leary, now out for the season after surgery to repair a torn pectoral muscle.
Grad transfer Jack Chambers is a wonderful story but does not appear to be an ACC quarterback — he wasn’t even first-team all-Big South last season — and the play-calling at Syracuse certainly confirmed that was the staff’s assessment. Freshman M.J. Morris is clearly talented and just as clearly not ready to take over, while Ben Finley is in uniform but apparently taking some kind of gap year.
