DURHAM, N.C. ? Philip Rivers threw three touchdown passes to Tramain Hall to break the ACC career record as North Carolina State spoiled Ted Roof’s head coaching debut with a 28-21 victory over Duke on Saturday.
N.C. State (6-3, 3-2) won its 10th straight against the Blue Devils, who have lost 30 in a row in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Duke (2-6, 0-5) threw a scare into the Wolfpack with a touchdown and field goal in less than a minute late in the fourth quarter. But the Blue Devils failed to score after getting the ball back deep in their own territory with 53 seconds and no timeouts left.
Rivers’ three TD passes gave him 82 for his career. The senior broke the record of 79 set by Chris Weinke at Florida State from 1997-00.
Rivers had scoring plays of 33, 17 and 57 yards to the speedy Hall, who took on more of an offensive role without injured tailback T.A. McLendon, who sat out with a knee injury.
Roof, Duke’s defensive coordinator, took over the Blue Devils on Sunday after Carl Franks was fired after compiling a 7-45 record in 4 1/2 seasons.
And while Duke played its best ACC game this season, Rivers was too much to handle for the Blue Devils’ defense for the fourth year in a row.
Rivers threw for 369 yards and 12 of his TD passes have come against the Blue Devils.
N.C. State led 14-10 and Rivers was intercepted on a batted ball at Duke’s 9 in the third quarter. But he came back on the next series to drive the Wolfpack 81 yards, making a key third down run and then finding Hall over the middle while being dragged down by Ryan Fowler.
N.C. State’s running game was nonexistent without McLendon, who missed the game after two arthroscopic knee surgeries in a six-day span.
And the Wolfpack’s alarming injury situation got worse in the opening half when third-leading receiver Richard Washington was lost with bad ribs, offensive lineman Ricky Fowler reinjured his knee and leading tackler Andre Maddox left with a bruised knee.
Only Maddox returned in the second half.
Still, Rivers was able to throw for 193 yards and two scores to Hall to help offset Duke’s strong running game in the opening 30 minutes.
Roof’s major change came on offense, where he started Adam Smith at quarterback for the first time since the season opener and rotated him with the seldom-used Chris Dapolito.
Dapolito was able to run the option to perfection several times and Roof kept N.C. State’s defense off-balance with a series of reverses.
Duke’s only mistake of the half cost the Blue Devils an opportunity to go into the locker room with the lead for the first time since Sept. 6 against Western Carolina.
A 42-yard run by Chris Douglas set Duke up at the N.C. State 3, but three runs by Douglas gained just 1 yard and Smith fumbled the fourth down play with 6 seconds left.
Douglas finished with 125 yards on 25 carries.
