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Good win in what was a must win game. Progress is clearly being made.
Who knows what happens against FSU? We could win, or we could lose too. If I were a betting man, I’d go with a loss.
Syracuse is a must win though. We can’t afford a let down in between two huge games.
Whiteshoes: I think the issue on defense is what you call out in the second paragraph — the talent level. I can’t imagine that the Archer/Tenuta combo left us stocked with a lot of great defensive players. Really, the only position we had quality depth with was the DL.
I just look at this and see mismatches everywhere in the back 7. To me it doesn’t really matter what the scheme is. We’re going to have to recruit our way out of it.
Now, maybe things also aren’t disguised well as you mention. That’s one of the downsides of watching games on TV. They only follow the ball, so it’s much harder to see those types of things than if you are there in person.
The problem and confusion isn’t with the people sitting in the PNC. When it comes to university branding, the existing customer isn’t your target market. They’ll buy or recognize anything.
NC State needs to start thinking outside of the border of the state of North Carolina………
Tex: I don’t live in NC any more. We have a serious branding problem outside the state of NC.
We’re State and we have a block S as our prime logo. Both are fairly generic.
Our problem isn’t with connecting with people who remember DT, were adults when we won it in 1983, or even with rabid college basketball fans. It’s with connecting with the larger audience with a brand that can’t be watered down or confused.
There is but one NC State. Be proud and wear it across the front.
Whiteshoes: If I read this correctly, you’re saying you’re not seeing consistent application of pressure? If so, then I’d tend to agree. I’d personally like to see more pressure.
There does need to be some variation though. Many fairly pointed out that Tenuta had one approach — blitz. Eventually if you know blitzes are coming in every time in certain situations, then its easy to scheme around.
I think my biggest issue with the defense consistently under DD is just the lack of turnovers. We were bend/don’t break under TOB but did force turnovers. We’re more fundamentally sound play in and play out under DD I feel, and we tackle better. We don’t seem to force many turnovers though.
Had more than one McDLT combos at the McDonalds in the Varsity Theatre building. Always thought that was a cool setting.
I was at NC State when that McDonalds closed. I can remember it because it happened during a pretty bad series of snow/ice storms. The cafeteria was completely closed and I was living on campus. We walked to McDonalds one day and had lunch. We walked back up there the next day and it was closed. It never re-opened.
Those are the best pants I have ever seen for NC State. If the shirts said NC State as opposed to just State, they would be as well.
Adidas: If you actually read this or care, please make these. They should be our standard uniform.
I will also tell you that if you make these for the consumer market, I will buy them. I would buy them for my children as well.
Foose and CD: Thanks! You kind of reinforced the point I was driving at. It doesn’t matter if you are playing “man” or “zone.” At a certain point the CB has to engage the WR and one of the two will make a better play. The offensive player is also aided by the understanding of where the ball should be thrown, and in this case by the accuracy of the QB. The CB is at a disadvantage here and in the case of Clemson, there is the physical mismatch on top of that.
Again, I think people expect zone is producing safety help, but zones can be flooded or the safeties forced to cover other options. It seems that Clemson either had the right play designs or the QB made the right reads to hit the proper match up. I’m not sure what people expect that the coaches should really do there.
At a certain point, this is only fixed with a talent influx. I’ve felt that way about our defense for a while. Special teams under this staff has looked very good (well, mi us the obvious FG issues this year). We don’t commit a lot of penalties. Reall, there’s a lot to like about the coaching.
Some of the offensive issues to me have been seemingly more schematic. Yeah, we could use a talent influx there as well and that would cure a lot, but some of the offensive approaches have left me scratching my head. Clemson wasn’t one of them though. Outside of maybe one or two series, this to me was the best game Canada has called all season.
Dog or someone more technically knowledgeable than I am, riddle me this. Why do people always complain about man coverage on the edge if the corner gets beaten over the top? I totally get it if a LB is trying to guard a WR in the slot or a RB out of the backfield and gets beaten, but a CB paired up with a WR?
From this uninformed poster’s opinion, it seems like regardless of man or zone, the corner eventually has to engage with the receiver on the edge, particularly if they’re going on a fly/streak or corner route. The only difference is seemingly whether that CB starts closer to the WR or with a 10 yard cushion. I tend to like them playing closer because you can at least legally jam and potentially throw the timing off. In soft zone, you are back peddling and likely have to swing the hips right about the time the WR is making the move to go to the post, curl, go in or out, or hit the jets to go for the corner. Seemingly that soft zone leaves an over matched defender in a more helpless position if he’s not got safety help as he’s trying to read, react and turn.
Are they really complaining just about no double team or help coverage from the safety (i.e. no cover 2 or 3)? They call out man coverage, but the symptom is no double?
What am I missing?
Nice to see and badly needed. Given the proximity to that many captive students and faculty, I’ve always been shocked at how little was happening on Hillsborough Street (over the past 25 years).
48 seconds left in half. Man coverage on outside receiver. Believe that failure was the game! Don’t understand this decision, would love to have heard explanation.
Respectfully, that game was pretty much over from the second Clemson threw over the top the very first time. The game was never really in doubt. Clemson could score any time they wanted. There was such a massive personnel difference in their QB/Receivers to our DBs, that it was only a matter of how much Clemson was going to score.
If you want to point to the sequence where the game turned, it wasn’t the defensive calls in those 48 seconds. Heck, the coverage on the TD was actually pretty good.
The turning point was the offensive possession before it. When you have the ball where we did, you have to think about the clock strategy. If you are going to kick, then that has to happen with almost no time on the clock. Conversely, if you’ve got a kicker who has struggled and who already had a PAT blocked, you should be calling the plays with 4 downs in mind. If someone wants to point to where we lost it, it was leading into missed FG attempt. IT was not what happened once Clemson got the ball back.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time this staff has botched clock management. TOB was surprisingly bad at it as well. It’s amazing really when you think about what these guys get paid.
I agree with the original post that the onsides kicks were the right thing. The only way to win that game was to generate extra possessions. Given we don’t force them on defense, we had to do them with special teams. The return for TD as great as it was didn’t generate an extra possession. We had to do that with onsides kicks or punt blocks. We were really close to a key punt block as well.
I won’t go as far as to say that because we tried onsides kicks that it means that the staff will ultimately be successful. I’ve seen way too many questionable things the last 2.5 years to jump to that conclusion. It does show that they understood the mismatch and were playing to win. That was better than quitting, which I saw far too much in the TOB tenure.
When evaluating college football recruiting at a school like NC State, I like seeing the kids that have offers from the big time programs. This is the kind of list I like to see.
What always concerned me most about TOB’s recruiting is that a lot of times we were about the only Power 5 school that offered. While that doesn’t mean you still won’t find a diamond in the rough, it’s hard to believe that everyone missed on them.
I think the keys to this year’s team is whether Anya can stay out of foul trouble enough to log significant (20+) minutes, how quickly Freeman recovers from injury and whether Kirk can actually mix it up inside. We’re a little thin down low.
This team will be dancing for sure. Good guard play and a defensive presence in the middle wins in college basketball, and we have both. It’d just be nice to see us take that next stop to a consistent Top 25 team all year.
Hmmm… If I were a betting man, I’d go with UVA to win the regular season, which is what I think this poll is about. UNC is getting a lot of national attention so I can’t blame the media too much for putting them first.
Teams that were a little too high:
– Louisville: Lost key parts and they’ll have scandal around them all year.
– GT: They should be down at DFL as long as Gregory is coach. No way they finish ahead of VT and they may not finish ahead of BC.
– ND: I can’t see how that team minus Grant is going to finish this high.Teams that I think are a little low:
– NC State: If I were predicting, I’d slot us at 5th, just behind Miami. We have good guards and a defensive presence in the middle. Those two things win in college basketball.
– VT: Buzz is a great coach. He just needs some horses. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them eek out a 10th place finish and would probably put them 11th.
– Syracuse: The storm is mostly past at this point. Love him or hate him (and I am in the latter category), Jim B. is still the coach. They’ll always play stall ball and that zone and that’s good for a 6th – 8th finish.Didn’t see this one in real time. I watched the first half on video last night and went to sleep. I could see that neither team was going to do much more. I’m probably more positive about this than most because I didn’t watch the second half.
Thoughts:
– Nice to see us jump out with the foot on the gas. Not nice to see us let up.
– We were more vertical/north/south in the first quarter than we were the entire game against VT or UoL. If we can get things going north/south (even in the running game), it will open up things east/west.
– Loved the movement into the counter play on the 4th and 1 TD run. That took guts to execute after the pre-motion penalty attempt didn’t work.
– It’s a win at Wake. We’ve not done that since PR was here. We’ve gone in there too many times without taking them seriously, played down to their level and lost. It was nice to see us come out strong and bury them.
– There seemed to be a big talent gap between these two teams. Wake looked smaller and slower at every positional match up.
– It was obvious that Wake couldn’t move the ball on the defense. Yeah, we gave up the one long play (which is a trend because it happens every game), but for the most part our front 6 completely handled them.
– I was fine with all the passing once the lead was safe. We’re not going to be able to just run it over teams. If you want to see exhibit A of why that doesn’t work, check out GT this year. Yeah, they had a fluke play and beat FSU, but their lack of any ability to throw the ball makes them incredibly one dimensional and fairly easy to stop. VT and Louisville just stacked the ball against us and dared us to throw (which we couldn’t). If we’re going to beat anyone with a pulse the rest of the year, we’re going to have to find a passing game beyond 7 yards.I’ll leave the thread with a final thought. If we’re unhappy and complaining after that win, what must WF fans be thinking now? Grobe’s teams were never that anemic, particularly not at home against NC State. We’re worried about our hire, but if I were WF, I’d be shopping hard for a new OC and recruiting coordinator.
There was plenty of blame to go around in that last loss. We can’t lay it all on one guy who was pressed into service and as unprepared (for whatever reason that is). I don’t think anyone is.
If anything, having one guy go down and cause that sort of impact just shows you where the program is. The replacement is either too young, not prepared mentally, not knowledgeable enough, doesn’t have the right physical assets, hasn’t had enough real reps to handle the pressure or some combination of these factors (and maybe something else).
To me, that’s also a sign of youth. In college or high school football, when your best talent is young, then I think the team is going to struggle. The NFL is different and that’s more position by position.
What that also tells me is that we may be in for a bumpy year next year as well. Even if we come on strong late in recruiting (which I kind of expect we will), those guys are going to be young. People should keep this in mind when thinking about their expectations for the season.
Note, this isn’t the UNC spin of the consistently youngest team in America. I don’t hear (at least at this point), the staff saying that. It’s just something to be mindful of — the recruiting class rankings based on graduation year, and the notable differences in those rankings by year.
foose: I noticed all the same about when Jones went down and Pratt came in. That’s when we went from controlling them pretty well to the defense seemingly falling apart for 21 quick points. Big mo swung fast then……..
It kind of shows you where the program is at talent wise. We lose one guy, and the whole thing quickly unravels.
Now that doesn’t explain what happened on offense……… Shad’s suspension has been a distraction. I’m sure the guys are down about it. It seemed like the RBs missed some blocks in pass protection that maybe Shad picks up. I can buy that in game 1, but in game 2, we should have figured out how to scheme accordingly.
We knew coming into the season that Shad might not play this year. We played two games without him. It shouldn’t have THIS big of an effect.
Really, the bye couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ve got a lot of things to fix with all four units (offense, defense, ST and coaching). We also need to get some guys healthy (OL seems banged up to me, and Jones looked like a huge loss).
Grey: I hear you and I’d have said that if we’d have come out flat and gotten down. We didn’t. We got out hot, got up and the it unraveled. Not so sure….
Here’s to hoping a bye week fixes what ails us. It was always the best thing that happened every year for the last staff.
Heelh8r: I think you answered your own question if that was your assessment of the talent. It was kind of set up for disappointment.
I was an 8-4 (4-4) type of person. I figured we’d take a small step forward. I based this on having some good backs and TEs, depth at DL, getting some LBs healthy and another year in the system. I wasn’t buying what the press was selling on JB and I had no clue what we had on the OL and with the kickers. We’re trending about where I thought we’d be — maybe a game behind. I think a lot are disappointed because of what they thought coming in, regardless of whether it was realistic.
I agree with those saying 2.5 years in is way too early to really be making judgements. Things could go one way or another, but regardless there is seemingly no way Yow makes a move until after year five or maybe year six. We may as well just sit back, relax and hope for the best.
BJD: I’m with you on the VT performance being more unsettling than the Loiusville one. I had UoL down as a loss and VT down as a winnable swing game. What was more baffling was kind of how it happened. I’d said in the UoL post game that we shouldn’t let them beat us twice. I figured that if we were losing to VT it’d be because we came out flat, started slow, dug a hole and played into Beamerball. It was the exact opposite, which pointed to in game coaching adjustments, injuries or the team letting up. None of those three are good.
On the comparisons to other P5 programs, the ones that stick out to me are Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana. If we don’t get this thing righted, that could be the scenario. Right now we’re probably most like Purdue or Pitt.
I don’t see us as like Maryland. Sadly as much as I dislike the Terps, they have real hope of a massive outside influx in cash to the Athletics department in the form of Under Armour. They are where Oregon was in the late 80s. The question is whether UA seems the same synergy from helping them that Nike saw with Oregon.
It seems what you are really saying is that if we were “all in” we would pay a high enough salary to draw a higher quality coach (and staff). But, frankly, I’d rather have Gott than Marshall or Smart. Am I in the minority on that?
Tau: I should keep this on topic, but I’ll be short. The quoted part is what I am saying.
If you look back at that search we heard money’d be no object. Then we were outbid by Zona, put out something with VCU that they could get close enough to match that the risk of the move wasn’t worth it, and we had some sort of personality issue with GM (which I’d heard from some who have been consistently right was over his asking salary).
As to the GM question, I’d rather have him. He’s done more with less at WS. Put him with a great recruiting assistant to get the talent in and we could have been regularly ranked in the top 15 or so the last few years. To me, that’s the next step for this program.
CowDog: Nice brevity. Spurrier is no surprise. Sark wasn’t either — UW traded up big time there. The Playboy thing is the biggest surprise of them all, but I guess they want to do cross over marketing aimed at Victoria Secrets.
To answer Tau’s opinion at face value, I would play the player that gives us the best chance to win the next game. From what I have personally seen, that is JB.
Not doing that suggests that the coaches have given up on the season. If they’ve quit, why should the players not?
There’s still a lot of ball to be played.
Tau: I don’t think we’re all in. I think we’re in at a level around 20th – 25th:
Witchita State just paid $3.3M for Marshall which is 50% more than we pay Gott. It represents 15% of their athletics budget. That’s all in.
Smart just agreed to $3.1M average over 7 years at UT plus bonuses. He made $1.8M at VCU.
Now, that’s not to say that we should go and pay Gott 15% of our budget and expect we’d see better results. You can look at that list and see a Crean or a JT3 who make more but haven’t delivered more. Money doesn’t guarantee success.
It’s just to say that I don’t think we’re really all in for basketball. We’ve upped our game, but if we want to get to the promised land, there are seemingly a lot of programs ahead of us in this list, and those are the programs we’re competing with in the ACC, NCAAs, etc..
Mista: I agree with you that Wake is must win. I had us at 8-4 (4-4) with a loss to Louisville and a swing game against VT (along with BC and UNC). I can understand 0-2 based on my prediction, but we’re going to need to win all the games we should win (Wake and Syracuse) and now have to win the rest of the swing games (UNC and BC).
Alpha: I’ve said that for years. I’ve watched NC State football since about 1982. During that time we’ve been right around .500 other than a good run under Sheridan. That’s just what this program is.
I know everyone wants the Michigan State/Michigan/Ohio State level of success where you are good at both football and basketball. That’s realistically probably not going to happen here. All our budgets are near the bottom for Power 5 conferences. It’s been past time to pick one, go all in, and hope that the windfall generates success in the other.
I’ve never understood all those that wanted to abandon basketball and go all in on football. It’s like they don’t understand how the deck is stacked and the resource delta between Alabama, Ohio State, Texas, FSU, Clemson, Michigan, etc. and NC State.
For this reason, I’ve been advocating going all in on basketball for some time. We’re a basketball team in a basketball league. We’re already in the top 20 in attendance year in and year out. We recruit at a top 15 level historically over the past 30 years despite some pretty bad coaches.
All of this rambling is not to say give up on football. It’s more like we should just take it in stride. This might well be another 6-6 kind of year. If so, then so be it.
