23 Continues to be Less than 24

'06 Football General49

Did you know that NC State has NOT SCORED a point on the first drive of a game or the first drive of a half this season?

In this entry from last Friday (By the way – we were on fire last Friday; I hope that you continue to visit us multiple times during the day to make sure that you aren’t missing things) we talked about offense coordinator, Marc Trestman’s improved performance now that he has Daniel Evans to run his offense.

In Friday’s entry, we also highlighted that in 17 games under Trestman’s leadership the NC State offense has managed to score more than 24 points only once – against Eastern Kentucky. Make that 18 games after Saturday.

We are definitely not looking to throw heaps of criticism in Trestman’s direction; but, we did find it sadly ironic that we were just talking about this 24 point mark the day before the Pack scored only 23 and our opponent scored 25. We do think that criticism does deserve to be directed at ANY member of the NC State coaching staff responsible for handing the ball to Andre Brown only eight times in an entire game. We also would like to teach the staff how to chip defensive ends with backs coming out of the backfield to help Daniel Evans get the ball past the line of scrimmage on well-designed swing passes. A well designed play doesn’t help a lot if you can’t get it executed.

At least the Wolfpack (slightly) moved up the national statistical rankings as highlighted here.

In closing, we generally agree with the following comments from one of our readers in the other entry. BUT, we are growing antsy for some friggin points with an offense loaded with talent at the skill positions.

I tend to cut Trestman some slack. He has had – up until this point – a one dimensional offense out of necessity ( and the abilities of the previous two QBs (though I thought Davis was better than Stone ) has been well chronicled.) Giving defenses fits starts with offensive balance. When you can provide a balanced attack on offense, the defense has to atleast respect the passing and the running game which will leave defenses guessing.

I will have MUCH more faith in him if he can consistently get to 3rd and short rather than 3rd and long. The total points doesn’t bother me all that much because every game is different. I think you will see the scoring opportunities increase as the season progresses. The only scoring totals that matter to me are the ones at the end of the game and as long as State’s points are > than the opponents points then i don’t care if its 2-0.

Updated Note: – Just found this link talking about the 24 point plateau as the Wolfpack’s Mendoza Line. Good stuff.

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

'06 Football General

49 Responses to 23 Continues to be Less than 24

  1. pack80 10/17/2006 at 8:29 AM #

    and I’m disappointed too. I have yet to get my washer fluid from Advance Auto

  2. packpigskinfan23 10/17/2006 at 8:30 AM #

    I like to throw “heaps of criticism” at Marc… but thats just for fun

    =)

    I can see why Andre Brown getting the ball only 8 times upsets a few people… but Baker was having MUCH more success than Brown on Saturday from the beginning. Sure that one run in the 4th dosnt make the #’s look that way, but thats my opinion…

    SFN: How was Toney Baker having that much more success than Brown when Brown averaged significantly more yards per carry on Saturday than Baker? How do we know how much success Brown would have if he only gets the ball eight times?

    And maybe Coach was a little pissed with him for dropping a ball at the 20 somthing yard line and somehow allowing it to go 25 yards back. Cant blame Chuck for that!!

  3. packbackr04 10/17/2006 at 8:44 AM #

    It is also odd that Trestman ran like 8 trick plays in a row against FSU but did not run 1 (that i recall) in the Wake game. I also wish we would go vertical more, Evans has proven the ability to go deep, let him try it…

  4. choppack1 10/17/2006 at 9:00 AM #

    I don’t know what to think. Some drives, Trestman will look like the best OC ever. Others, he’s like a poor man’s Mazzone. The good news is that our points have increased about 25% since Evans took over – and I’m seeing us become an offense that can move the ball. I still see some disturbing patterns repeat themselves – I think it’s a good point to mention all of the trick plays versus FSU, but none vs. Wake. I also read that we rarely passed on first down Saturday.

    Of course, some of my biggest complaints remains w/ the allocation of TOs. Not trying to get 3 before heading into the half, etc.

    One thing I also thought of on the long ride home Saturday – this is the 3rd time in recent memory where a careless TO right before the half has cost us a shot at something special.: The TA fumble at FSU w/ us in control of the game. The Stone INT at BC w/ the game tied 10-10 – and now this.

    Jeff: I said the EXACT same thing about the TA fumble @ FSU when it happened on Saturday. Painful.

    This program continues to be inches away from something very rewarding, but always seems to make a key mistake or two which make that less likely.

  5. packbackr04 10/17/2006 at 9:11 AM #

    chop^^ you bring up an excellent point… great teams always find a way to capitolize on seemingly minute things. And it may not seem too huge at the moment but it ends up costing us bigtime in the end. i am reminded of the sean alexander commercial…. we absolutley have to start taking advantage of openings we are given.

  6. StateFans 10/17/2006 at 9:21 AM #

    The timeout problem has persisted since the first day that Chuck got on campus. Even with Philip back there we wasted timeouts and put ourselves into positions to lose football games. It is horrible.

  7. Dan 10/17/2006 at 9:26 AM #

    SFN, I agree 100%. I really cant understand how anyone could have watched the games Andre Brown has played and not desire to use him as much as humanly possible. The kid dominated FSU twice. He has won other games all by himself. He breaks off big runs almost like clockwork. He excels at making the first tackler miss which gives the O-line a little more room for error.

    I have hardly any basis for this, but just from his comments I believe that the decision to use Baker more comes from Amato. He seems to be in love with that kid. And Baker is good. Real good. He’s just no Brown. Brown is unreal.

    The only problem I had with Trestman in the last game was predictability. Everyone in the stadium knew the ball was going to a RB on 1st down, and that we were passing on 2nd and 3rd. The times we mixed it up we were very successful.

  8. BJD95 10/17/2006 at 9:27 AM #

    The difference between Brown and Baker is that Brown can bust a big one at any time, and usually does so about every 10-15 carries (or so it seems). It would be like benching a hitter who gets a HR every 10-15 at bats for making an error in the field, or because he strikes out too much. It unquestionably hurts your lineup.

    Now, I’m not saying you bench Baker, who is a good back in his own right. He should get carries every game. But not at the expense of Baker, who needs a minimum of 20 touches per game, IMHO.

    It made sense to run trick plays against FSU – it uses their defensive speed against them. Wake’s defense is NOT that fast, and their bread and butter is discipline. Plus, they see trick plays all the time in practice. Pretty clear to me why we didn’t try more trickery.

  9. noah 10/17/2006 at 9:40 AM #

    1) Trick plays work against teams that over-pursue on defense. They work to neutralize a athletically-superior defense by making them stay at home. Against Wake, it would be a complete waste of time. You keep it simple and you can beat them to the edge and by finding the seams in the zone coverage.

    2) Which is it? We don’t throw the ball down the field enough or we don’t run the ball enough? I don’t have a problem with getting the ball to Toney Baker. He’s a big-time runner who did very well on Saturday.

    Andre Brown only had that one big run, didn’t he? I remember looking up at the stats at one point (before the run) and he had something like seven carries for five yards. And of course, a very costly fumble. It’s not like he was a hot hand.

    SFN: One big run every 8 carries is a percentage that I will take every time. The point of the under-utilization of Brown is a larger point that we are talking about in the context of this particular game.

    3) On the swing passes to the backs that got batted down…that’s a problem with the tackles. The defensive ends are beating them around the corner. Also, on at least one pass, it wasn’t a designed swing-pass. It was a checkdown and the DE was there to make the play.

    4) I don’t have a problem with the play calling…I have a problem with the execution. We dropped a couple of passes on third down that would have kept drives alive. We had some stupid penalties that killed at least two more drives. I assume the coaches and the players share that responsibilty equally.

    SFN: Totall agree^. I am tired of hearing how Anthony Hill is an NFL TE. NFL TE’s don’t drop 50% of the balls that are thrown to them.

  10. sautz 10/17/2006 at 9:40 AM #

    I also cut Trestman some slack. I think he still has a bit of a NFL mindset in that the defenses are better and ball control is much more important. I think he will come around soon as the trick plays against FSU were a sign of that.
    However, if we can’t put more points on the board that slack will only last so long… or maybe I’m just spoiled from those halcyon days of Coach Chow.

  11. newt 10/17/2006 at 9:41 AM #

    On the bright side, we were 4-4 in the red zone against WF, with 3 touchdowns and a field goal.

    SFN: Awesome point. Plus, Wake had one of the best red zone defenses in the country prior to the game.

  12. 86packr 10/17/2006 at 9:45 AM #

    Deacs may be well disciplined, but I still think we were too conservative. The stats may say otherwise, but it seemed like we ran Baker on just about every first down in the second half. I also don’t understand why we abandoned the 15-20 yard sideline passes to our athletic receivers that were so effective against FSU and BC. Those were huge plays for us.

  13. RickJ 10/17/2006 at 9:52 AM #

    Through 6 games, we’ve turned the ball over 12 times and gotten 5 turnovers. As a result, we have not been playing much with the “short field�. 5 turnovers is less than 1 per game with the App. State game being the only game where we got more than 1. Maybe this is caused by some deficiency in our defense that someone can explain to me.

    I do know we absolutely caused 2 fumbles in the second half of the FSU game very near our goal line that were recovered by FSU players other than the guy that fumbled. On the second one, the SOB picked it up at about the 4 yard line and ran for 8 yards.

    Good teams find a way to score some “cheap� points. We aren’t doing this so far this year.

  14. noah 10/17/2006 at 10:03 AM #

    “I also don’t understand why we abandoned the 15-20 yard sideline passes to our athletic receivers that were so effective against FSU and BC. Those were huge plays for us.”

    How many times do we have to go over this?

    FSU played man-to-man press coverage that ALLOWED us to do that. Wake Forest played cover-2 zone coverage with the safeties deliberately taking that away. Had we gone to those passes, the safeties would have intercepted them every single time.

    You attack a cover-2 by going over the middle to the seams and with swing passes to the sides in front of the receivers.

    Also, I seem to recall Andre Brown being the target on a lot of those swing passes. He wasn’t doing anything up the middle…getting him loose in space against Wake’s corners seemed like a good idea.

  15. Dan 10/17/2006 at 10:14 AM #

    Noah, first off, I agree with you on execution costing us the win. The fumble beat us.

    But if you look at Andre’s runs, he had more than that one run. Out of the 8 carries he was given, 5 of them were very successful. Both times he was given the ball on 2nd down, he had big runs of 13 and 45. His stats are skewed not only by the big run, but also by the big loss attributed on the fumble. He had gains of 80+ yards on the day on 7 carries removing the fumble. He wasnt stopped.

    “Which is it? We don’t throw the ball down the field enough or we don’t run the ball enough?”

    I think its both depending on the down. We were pretty forumulaic regardless of what the defense was doing. 1st down to the backs. 2nd and 3rd down pass. We should have thrown a little more on 1st and ran more on 2nd.

  16. MatSci94 10/17/2006 at 10:43 AM #

    “Did you know that NC State has NOT SCORED a point on the first drive of a game or the first drive of a half this season?”

    This is in contrast to last season, where it seems like the only decent drives we had were the first of the game and the first after half. I took that to mean that either the playcalling was better when scripted out, or the QB was more comfortable in the scripted scenario.

  17. packpigskinfan23 10/17/2006 at 10:43 AM #

    noah~ how many times do WE have to tell YOU, there are ways around that cover2… and concidering Trestmans NFL career, HE should know that by now…

  18. packpigskinfan23 10/17/2006 at 10:45 AM #

    SFN- you wont change my mind on the Brown/Baker thing… I dont think its the BEST decision in the world… but I can understand what they were trying to do with the RUNNING game…

    the passing game on the other hand…

  19. drhammondo 10/17/2006 at 10:54 AM #

    Andre Brown had 8 rushes for 51 yards, with a long of 45 yards. The fumble does NOT count as a -20 yard rush, it only counts as a 4 yard loss (that’s where he fumbled), check the box score and play-by-play. Therefore, if you take out the long run, he had 7 rushes for 6 yards, and if you take out the 13 yard gain earlier, he had 6 rushes for NEGATIVE 7 yards. The reason why Andre Brown was used so little is that his strength is as a cutback runner, which doesn’t work against a defense that is disciplined and stays in their lanes like WFU.

    Re: Brown’s potential to break a big play and it being worth giving him the ball. If we give him the ball on 1st down and he loses a yard, or makes a 1 or 2 yard gain, odds are we’re going to be in a 3rd and long situation–and we all know that we DO NOT convert those. On the flip side, if we give the ball to Toney Baker and he gains 4 or 5 yards (he averaged 4.4 against WFU), then we are in 2nd and 5 and 2nd and 6, and those are VERY manageable situations. Yes Brown presents the potential for big plays, but giving him the ball also leads to a lot of 3-and-outs, and if we can’t sustain a drive, he won’t have the opportunity to break a long one–he’ll be standing no the sideline watching the defense.

  20. StateFans 10/17/2006 at 11:01 AM #

    All sounds great.

    In the end…we scored 23 points. Not enough to win (again).

    Period.

  21. noah 10/17/2006 at 11:12 AM #

    “how many times do WE have to tell YOU, there are ways around that cover2… and concidering Trestmans NFL career, HE should know that by now…”

    Really? Tell me what they are. Tell me how you throw into double coverage with success.

    Specifically.

  22. packbackr04 10/17/2006 at 11:18 AM #

    noah, all valid arguments. my two cents (which counts for absolutley nothing) was just that i personally would have liked to have seen if we could have made the Deacs make a mistake with just 1 try at a trick play, or a double move on the corner and go deep down field and let a WR make a play…

    ALso, Hill drops way too may passes.

  23. statered 10/17/2006 at 11:26 AM #

    PNoah, psted this to you in the previous thread but you haven’t responded to it and wondered what you thought..

    I don’t think we attacked the seams or the space between the LBs and safeties enough. I think we tried entirely to often to swing it to the flats and I don’t think that is prone to be successful against a decent zone. Having said that, the seams and the middle of the field are probably the most difficult throws to complete and maybe we didn’t think DE was quite ready for that at this point. I would have liked to have seen us try a bit more.

  24. Dan 10/17/2006 at 11:37 AM #

    I posted this on the game blog, but here it goes again (sigh)

    http://www.gopack.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=41953&SPID=3730&DB_OEM_ID=9200&ATCLID=651774

    Brown had 8 carries.

    1) On 1st and 10 – 1 rush for -1 yards
    2) On 2nd and 10 – ran for 13 yards
    3) On 1st and 10 – ran for 6 yards
    4) On 1st and Goal from the 1 – 1 yard carry for a TD (Note: that 1 yards carry IS NOT A STOP)
    5) On 1st and 10 – minus 20 yards on the fumble.
    6) On 1st and 10 – 5 yards
    7) On 1st and 10 – 2 yards
    8) On 2nd and 4 – 45 yards

    Those are the facts. Add up the rushing totals in the boxscore. It matches.

  25. Dan 10/17/2006 at 12:10 PM #

    “I don’t think we attacked the seams or the space between the LBs and safeties enough”

    I think you are right, but I dont think Noah was arguing against that at all. Noah was arguing against the deep outs that people saw against the man coverage vs FSU

1 2

Leave a Reply