I like Tudor’s perspective in this article (and quoted below).
While a lot of positive can come from the Wolfpack win tonight, a loss will very little impact on the direction of the program and on generally how positive the air around the program will be. Basically, we are playing with house money.
Caulton Tudor always does a great job of embedding some points/thoughts without explicitly stating them. In this article, his references to defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable – and the many stops he has had in his coaching career – serves to remind Wolfpackers that it was only a couple of months ago that Huxtable and his defensive coaching staff were on super thin ice inside the walls of the Murphy Center.
Has the last month of the season changed all of that? Is tonight’s game still relevant in the assessment of the defensive coaching staff for the entire season?
Depending upon the opponent N.C. State faces on Sept. 12, 2015, the Wolfpack has a chance to begin its next ACC football schedule in October riding a seven-game win streak.
That would be an impressive accomplishment for a program that staggered through a 12-game league losing streak until finally posting a 24-17 win at Syracuse on Nov. 1.
The key to making that now-and-then win streak possible is winning the Bitcoin Bowl on Friday (8 p.m., ESPN) in St. Petersburg, Fla.
[snip]
UCF’s defense was among the best anywhere during the final several weeks of the season. Opponents have averaged 17.9 points – 9th best nationally – and the majority of those points were posted by the Pirates (who average 37.7 points per game), Missouri (27.4) and Connecticut, which got a 37-29 win thanks to four Knight turnovers.
[snip]
Three Knight defenders were voted first-team all-AAC and three more landed on the second-unit defense. Safeties Clay Geathers and Brandon Alexander are likely to be on NFL rosters a year from now. Down linemen Jaryl Mamea and Thomas Niles have a shot at the pros. Ditto for linebacker Terrence Plummer, a 240-pounder who has enough quickness to cover backs while still being strong enough to disrupt a passing pocket.
Parts of the UCF defensive scheme were put in place during Dave Huxtable’s long stay – 2004-10 – on O’Leary’s staff. Huxtable previously worked at ECU (twice), Georgia Tech and UNC. He left the Knights after the 2010 season for Wisconsin and then was lured to State as defensive coordinator when Doeren got the Wolfpack job after the 2012 season.
O’Leary still rates Huxtable among the best defensive minds in the game, but it wasn’t until the past two games that the Wolfpack defense began to show progress under his guidance.
Even after holding the Tar Heels to seven and Wake Forest to 13, 2014 opponents still averaged 27 points on Huxtable’s unit.
How that defense responds to Central Florida’s running back William Stanback and wide receiver Breshad Perriman (6-4, 220) will be as much of an indication of where the program is heading in 2015 as anything quarterback Jacoby Brissett does.
