ROAD TRIP!!!!! The Wolfpack take to the road for their first away game of the season against the Bulls of South Florida. They must have their own Mason-Dixon Line in Florida to consider Tampa “South”. It was probably a transplanted yankee who decided on that but really, who cares right? Before we get into learning about Da’ Bulls, let’s take a quick look at how State has done on the road for the last 3 years. NC State has a road record of 3-11 (not counting neutral sites) over the last 3 years. The last time the Wolfpack won on the road was October 20, 2012, a 20-18 victory at Maryland. The other two games? Well they were September 8, 2012 (@UConn 10-7) and October 22, 2011 (@UVA 28-14). So this Saturday will make it 692 days since State last won a game on the road. Yup…let that sink in reeeeaaalllllll good. Okay, on to Da’ Bulls!!!!
Where: Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, FL)
When: 3:30 pm
TV: CBS Sports Network
Weather: Scattered showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 91. Chance of Rain 40%.
HEAD COACH
Tell me if you’ve heard this before. A young coach, only 2 or 3 years at his first head coaching job, gets hired to take over a dumpster fire of a program left by the previous coach and is currently in his second season at his current school. No it’s not Dave Doeren, its Willie Taggart. Taggart was hired from Western Kentucky (alma mater) after only 3 years on the job rebuilding another dumpster fire program. Taggart is part of the (Jim) Harbaugh coaching tree, where he was a Running Backs coach at Stanford. This has nothing to do with Taggart but need to find someplace to stick it but USF’s stadium seats 65,857 but only had an attendance of 28,915 for the Maryland game last Saturday. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we’ll be seeing another less than half filled stadium this Saturday. Not much in the way of Home Field Advantage.
LAST YEAR
Taggart’s first year as the Head Coach of USF wasn’t a pretty one. In fact they went 2-10 and struggled mightily throughout the season as he decided to sacrifice the present to establish his system now. Sound familiar? Taggart brought in a transfer QB in Steven Bench from Penn State. Still sounding familiar? Where NC State’s own Brissett had to sit out a season due to transfer rules when coming from Florida, Bench was part of the free transfer pass crowd jumping the sinking ship that was Penn State after Sandusky. Taggart then went hard at recruiting and brought in a lot of young talent for the 2014 season. Let’s take a look at what went wrong last year because frankly nothing went right for them.
On offense they were really bad, couldn’t run the ball or throw it. They couldn’t sustain drives or score. Heck they had more fumbles than TD’s all season. Bench wasn’t very good at passing the ball so if there was a bright spot it was in White, where he has an average passing completion percentage but threw 3 times as many INTs than TD’s. On defense they gave up a lot on the ground, unable to get off the field on third down and opponents found it easy to score. They were able to force a lot of fumbles so there did have that. Overall it was a bad year all around and one you try to quickly put in the past.
KEY INJURIES
QB (Starter) Mike White (SO) – Left Forearm
WR (Starter) Andre Davis (SR) – Bruised Sternum
LG (Starter) Thor Jozwick (JR) – UNKNOWN (I couldn’t find the injury he sustained in the WCU game but he sat out all of last season due to a heart condition)
OFFENSE
Taggart’s offensive philosophy is a Power Run style. He likes to run a Power I or Double Tight End formation so expect to see a lot of Running of the Bulls. Not really the best of news for the Pack considering the front 6 of State’s defense has been pretty bad against the run has been a triple face palm. If you don’t believe me then check it out for yourself. Having a power running game is actually beneficial considering the less than stellar play from USF’s quarterbacks. Taggart decided last season that White is his QB of the future and decided to get him the most touches so he’d be the starter in 2014. USF returned 8 starters from last year’s squad but have several key injuries heading into the State game, White, Davis, and Jozwick. With White likely out of the game it falls to Steven Bench to lead the Bulls. Doeren and staff are very familiar with Bench, he was one of several QB transfers they brought in before last season. Bench is a dual threat QB and they saw potential in him but ultimately decided the best choice was Brissett and so far they appeared to make the right decision. Davis is the Bulls best receiver and with a couple of QB’s who aren’t very accurate to begin with losing Davis hurts an already anemic offense. A bright spot for Taggart and USF is the immergence of true freshman running back (#5) Marlon Mack. Mack is a 6-0, 195 lbs RB who burst onto the scene in the Bulls first game this year against Western Carolina, where Mack rushed for 275 yards and 4 TD’s. He followed up his school record setting performance with 73 yards on 22 carries against Maryland last week. With or without White in the game you have to figure Mack will be the focal point of the offense for USF. Mack’s biggest problem will be overcoming USF’s weak point which is their OL, add in the loss of the Norse God of Thunder and Lightning and it’ll be more difficult. Of course I’m sure he’s looking at tape of State’s front six and licking his chops and thinking how much higher he can break his record. I know the Kicker is on special teams but I’m sticking him here since he’s one of the few offensive weapons USF has. Senior kicker Marvin Kloss was a finalist last year for the Lou Groza Award for the nation’s best placekicker. He leads the nation in field goals made of +40 yards (11) and +50 yards (4) so he has a leg on him and could keep the Bulls in the game and might make the ending interesting.
DEFENSE
Due to necessity Taggart is switching to a 3-4 or 3-3-5 defense due to the lack of bodies and talent on the DL. South Florida returned only 5 starters on a bad defense so Taggart brought in a couple of JUCO’s to help beef things up. Backup DE Demetrius Hill shows a lot of promise so keep an eye out for him and starting CS Jamie Byrd is also trying to help improve USF’s defense. USF’s defense shows a lot of promise but is largely an unknown commodity. Against WCU they gave up 31 points in route to a 5 point victory, most coming through the air (374 yards passing). Against Maryland they gave up 24 points but showed more balance due in large part to their ability to force turnovers. Maryland fumbled the ball 7 times and lost it 4 with one recovered fumble being returned for a TD, and USF intercepted Maryland twice for 6 TO’s in the game. Now you can see just how bad USF’s offense was given 5 TO’s to work with and only scoring 10 points.
ADVANTAGES
OUTLOOK
I’ve got to tell you USF is an unknown. They have a horrible offense but their strength is their true freshman RB where State’s defense struggles against the run. I don’t care who Taggart plays at QB, White or Bench, neither one of them is even close to the effectiveness of Heinicke (ODU), so I don’t see them as being able to create a shootout with the Pack. USF’s defense had difficulty stopping WCU but beat up on Maryland like they stole something. State’s just as big a conundrum as USF, the offense is coming along but has trouble remembering when the game starts; at the same time State’s defense seems to think they are a matador and will use the OLE’ defense. You have to take into account State’s awful performances on the road the last three seasons and you can see why this game is a toss-up.
PREDICTION
I say offense wins in this game and give the edge to the Pack but it’ll be closer than we’d like it to be. 21-16.
