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Well, it's been almost 24 hours since John Dunlap caught that last-second heave from Daniel Evans and I think I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that State won the game and I don't have to run a Monday correction for the story I wrote.

So here are a few thoughts I have in the wake of the Pack's huge win.

1) It was a beautiful(or frightening, take your pick) example of just how fickle the fates can be to the career of a college football coach.

Consider the case of Amato. In the pre-season national pundits were claiming Chuck was on the hot seat (although there wasn't much local sentiment for that at the time). Then came "non-qualifier" gate. Then came the rout at Southern Miss. Now there was rumbling about Amato's job status on the local level. Our man Ed Hardin had written a piece before the Southern Miss game saying that Chuck had to beat the Golden Eagles. Charlotte's Tom Sorenson had written a "Chuck must go" column earlier this week.

Was Chuck really in trouble? That may be a moot question now. Now, thanks to that one pass from Evans to Dunlap, State is a team with a new lease on life. Thanks to that one pass, Wolfpack fans are talking about bowl games instead of new coaches.

Is Chuck a better coach because Dunlap made that catch? Would he have been a worse coach if the pass had been incomplete and State had lost the game?

Rather than get all philosophical on you, I will conclude this segment with this platitude from noted wise man, Bill Parcells.

"You are what your record says you are."

Right now, Amato is the coach of a team that is 2-2 overall and more importantly, 1-0 in the ACC. That's all that counts.

2) I wrote on Saturday about the problems State was having defensively heading into the BC game. Clearly, the Wolfpack made some big strides in that area, holding the ACC's most prolific offense to just 15 points.

It's interesting though, to read this comment from linebacker Pat Lowery, about why State was so much better against BC than against Southern Miss.

"I think everybody was expecting us to make a lot of big changes, but we didn't do anything different at all. We just turned up the intensity."

Lowery's at least partially correct. State didn't suddenly scrap its schemes, but it did have at least one thing it didn't have against Southern Miss - senior cornerback A.J. Davis.

Davis missed the first three games with a sore hamstring and it was clear State felt his absence. For example, his backup was burned twice on Akron's final drive.

Against BC, it was hard to measure Davis' direct impact, beyond a very nice pass breakup or two. Rather, you could see it in how long Ryan was taking to get rid of his passes. And after a while, you could sense that Ryan just wasn't that sharp, that he didn't have a ton of confidence in his reads. That's what happens when a good corner shuts down his side of the field and limits a quarterback's options. That's what Davis can do when he's on the field and on his game.

3) Another big difference maker on defense was Tank Tyler. Tyler missed the first quarter of the game as a punishment - either for getting ejected against Southern Miss or the revelation last week that he had been arrested for assault over the summer, take your pick - handed down by Amato. It was remarkable to see how much better the interior run defense was once Tyler came in and started plugging the middle. Tyler's replacement, redshirt freshman Teddy Larsen, has looked solid this season, but clearly there's a difference between being a "rotation guy" who comes in for a series every now and then, and a starter, who goes against the offense when it's fresh and sharp.

4) One other area where State did do something slightly different on D (not that I'm totally disagreeing with Lowery. He's a really nice kid). Backup outside linebackers Lerue Rumph (who was a starter last year) and Ernest Jones (who has never seemed to live up to his potential) saw their most extensive action of the season. Jones had 9 tackles. Rumph had 8. For a team that had gotten almost no production out of its outside linebackers before Saturday, that was a huge boost.

5) It'll be interesting to see what Daniel Evans does against FSU. In a way, BC, with its more passive approach to pass defense, was a good team for Evans to get his first college start against. Thanks to that scheme - and also thanks to very good work from his offensive line - Evans had time to think in the pocket, to go through his progressions.

Don't expect FSU to give Daniel that kind of time. The Noles' defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews runs the type of agressive, attacking D that State has tried to emulate.

It'll put more pressure on Evans, but it could present opportunities as well. Evans said last week that his strength is making reads and getting the ball out of his hands quickly. If he can do that against FSU, he'll be throwing to receivers who are up against single coverage much of the night.