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I expect us to come out flat this week on offense. It will be the first game played in a hostile crowd and we rely on motion, shifts, etc. which I think is a bit tougher when you can’t hear. I also suspect the offense feels pretty good about itself after the showing against Clemson and may not be quite so sharp.
I think Clemson wins by about 7-14 pts (say 49-38). If NC State is to have any shot, the defense will need to hold up early until the offense kicks in gear.
Mike: That’s kind of how I see it as well. The way we run this formation effectively concedes the pass. You can telegraph what you are doing if you have a superior offensive line and superior talent. I don’t think we have either, particularly not against teams like FSU.
I’d personally like to see much less of this against Clemson and Louisville. We need balance and a run game, but we need a run game that comes out of passing formations. Even if the Wildwolf formation works to run, it also telegraphs the pass.
I thought NC State played quite well. The spread had tightened up over the week, so evidently there was a lot of late money to the Pack, so maybe it wasn’t as big of a surprise as some might have thought.
The first quarter was a thing of beauty. That’s probably the best NC State has played in several years. Everything was clicking and we had FSU on the ropes. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t quite put them away. I knew when it was only 24-21 at the half that we were in trouble.
Highlights:
– First quarter offensive plan. All the formations, changes, etc. seemed scripted and really caught FSU off guard.
– Brisset made some great plays. He’s a game changer and reminded me of a mix of a bigger, stronger Jamie Barnette. We don’t have to have PR or RW back there, but if we’d have just had a Barnette over the years, we’d have done very well. He went toe to toe with Winston, and I’m not sure that JW was clearly better.
– Forcing 3 turnovers and winning the turnover battle
– Lots of individual efforts to be proud of
– DD going after the officials after the game. I believe we need to do that some to get some respect, particularly as a young coach who is technically now on a 9 game ACC skid. He’s on the bottom of the pile with the ACC refs in “respect.”Things I didn’t quite understand:
– The Wildcat. I’ve debated with some on this one. It worked in the first quarter, but FSU was eventually going to adjust………..
– Abandoning the run outside of the wild cat. We were best when balanced. As good as JB was, he can’t beat FSU when they know we are conceding the run.
– No onsides kick at the 6 minute mark. I didn’t think we could stop FSU.
– Some of the calls were….. interesting. We didn’t lose because of them, but the officiating just wasn’t good.What I’m really hoping is that we can regroup, focus and carry some momentum into Death Valley. It’s really a shame that we didn’t get FSU in Tallahasee LAST week and Clemson in Raleigh this week. There’s hope against Clemson, but we need the same level of effort.
As always, thanks for the stats. I appreciate the effort.
While some might argue that our level of competition tells us nothing, I wouldn’t agree. While the season starts on Saturday, and the numbers will start to skew greatly as competition picks up, I do spot some trends:
– Offense is about as good as it gets at NC State without an obvious NFL starting QB running the show.
– We’re not beating ourselves. We’ve got the penalties and turnovers down. We’re protecting the QB. We’re balanced on offense between running and passing, but also using all of our weapons.
– We have some depth that can play, at least on offense, given how the ball gets spread around. We have no depth at QB and need to protect Brissett.
– We’re spotty on defense. We don’t get off the field, don’t pressure the QB or make plays in the backfield and don’t force turnovers.I think we can get to 7-5, which was my goal for this team. The defense will prevent us from doing much more.
highstick: I’m with you. I was pretty surprised to see that here. It must be that this thing has legs.
I’d be surprised if it happens and if so, I don’t know that it’s a good thing for the program unless we win. We’ll see.
I’m w/ BJD95. They’ll go with a SEC game.
I guess I’m in the minority, but I don’t see how getting pantsed on national television and exposed as a team that was only 4-0 due to a diet of cupcakes helps the program. Of course I’m also one that does not agree with the statement that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
I see people pointing to recruiting. “Come on down! Experience NC State! It’s going to be crazy!” It will be crazy right up until the first time FSU has the ball. It probably won’t be over quite as fast as the Miami game, but it won’t be pretty.
If the pitch is “watch us on national television” and we get destroyed, it is effectively that we were destroyed on national television. There are a lot of teams that do that weekly.
I would argue that the Gameday against Miami did nothing to move the program forward. We’d already jumped the shark with Chuck.
It’s only great exposure if we play it close or come out with a win. I just can’t see either happening.
Grey: Are those the goals the team has for itself? If so, then I like them. That’s how you build a program.
Stats wise, I appreciate them as always. I also like the offensive ones and penalties. The D still is scary, though I thought they looked good against punchless USF.
greywolf: I don’t see it as pretentious at all. I think it is the exact opposite. It is the coach demanding excellence and professionalism from top to bottom. This is the Wooden way. It looks to me like we’re running a tight ship and paying attention to the little things.
That’s a far cry better than the days of SL when we had players standing on tip toes during the team picture. They weren’t taking that any more seriously than they were practice, games, etc..
I also think it is good that everyone involved in the team is included in the picture. If that is as many “suits” as players, then so be it. The reality is that it takes a lot more than the head coach, players and a couple of assistants to make these things go. Including everyone in the picture builds camaraderie and a culture where everyone’s contributions are appreciated.
I guess I watched a much different game than most people. We were ~ 3 pt favorites. I thought we’d win by about 4 if both teams played well. The only scenario that I envisioned more than a 14 point win was exactly what happened (got out ahead early and forced a bad passing USF team to throw). That was the best case scenario though, and we just hit my best case scenario. Therefor I was quite pleased.
My take aways:
– Taggart is a coach that we could have targeted, and I think that our hire was better.
– Skip left that program in shambles. I have thought and continue to think he jumped the shark at ECU.
– What Ruffin has done at ECU (big win @ VT) shows me that’s a school with some inherent advantages. A good coach can do very well there.
– That’s as complete a game as I’ve seen out of NC State since the RW years. That’s nothing against Glennon, but our defense tailed off hard and we had no running game with him at QB. It’s hard to be complete without a running game.
– USF has some speed here and there. They are a lot like us last year though in that they have no QB.
– We need to hold onto the ball on punts. I’d try Underwood there because he’s obviously fast and we need to get the ball in his hands.
– We played our third straight clean game from a penalty perspective. This is much improved.
– Yes, we beat a weaker team soundly, but I do think you can take something away from it. For a “major conference” team like that to be beaten so badly at home, they typically have turned it over. That really didn’t happen. This was just a methodical thrashing by moving the ball up and down the field and getting stops. That’s impressive.
– BC looked good against USC. Syracuse is quietly building too. Presbyterian and Wake are the only two games left where we’ll be heavily favored. We’re going to have to win some swing games (GT, UNC, BC, Syracuse) to hit 7-5 (where I thought we’d finish).Grey & Foose: I appreciate the healthy Wildcat discussion. We’re actually having a discussion as opposed to some sites where people just shout into the wind.
Let me preface by saying that I was a big fan of the DD hire. He’s the type of coach a program like ours needs to have a chance at long term success. We need to either hire that young up and comer, hope he is the real deal and then pony up to retain him (e.g. Beamer or Bobby Bowden approach) or we have to hire the complete contrarian who is probably rough around the edges and hope his edge doesn’t get figured out (e.g. Paul Johnson, Mike Leach). For a middling power conference program like ours without a ton of inherent advantages and no real track record for sustained success, hiring a middling coach from another similar program doesn’t really do anything (the TOB hire).
When we announced DD, I was fully supportive. I have been since. I think he’ll get it done and he’ll do it with substance, much like Sheridan did.
I will say that I questioned the Canada hire. I work with a huge Wisconsin fan who went there, went to every football and basketball game while there, and follows them very closely. Because of this guy (and RW to Wisconsin), I tend to follow Wisconsin more closely than any other team outside the ACC. There was a lot of glaring red flags from his time at Wisconsin. The biggest concern is that Wisconsin lost its identity with him at the helm.
While I’ve never coached football, I’m probably a lot more analytic than the average fan. I don’t watch the ball, but instead watch all the things in motion. That’s part of why I prefer to be at the game than watch on TV because the TV just fixates on the ball, and the real action and moves happen away from it. I watch basketball the same way, but the TV camera can capture a much higher percentage of the game with the standard camera views.
I think it is great to be multiple. I like giving the defense a lot of things to think about. I am fine with probing plays that set up something for later.
In fact, what I really like to do while watching a game is to try and figure out what is being set up with that probing play. I don’t view them as a waste unless they cause a turnover, kill a drive or are obviously poor with respect to down and distance (that 4th down Wildcat call you speak of is an example).Back to my concern about Canada though, I think he tries to be too many things, and thus we don’t really end up with a clear identity. What does NC State do well? Well, pretty much throw a bunch of stuff on the wall and see what sticks. The best thing that I can say for us is that we have balance between run and pass, and that’s the first time I can say that since (shudder) MOC.
You site defenses having to spend prep time, but the offense does too. We have a limited amount of practice time, and we’re spending at least some of it on the Wildcat stuff. Yes, I understand that the offense only practices what is in its package for that set, and the defense has to prepare for other options, but I think I could prep for that Wildcat pretty quickly. NC State is going for the direct run 80% of the time, will fake the hand off but make it 10% of the time and will try to pull back to throw something across the middle about 10% of the time. Now, whether the average college athlete will actually internalize that is a valid point, but I’d argue that the better the team is on the other side of the ball, the less time is needed to be spent on issues like core fundamentals, so they’re more likely to get it. I could be completely wrong though.
My favorite offenses are ones that have 2/3 base formations, but can run and pass and stretch the field laterally and vertically equally well. They’re multiple in how they attack, while not tipping intent with how they line up. I think the spread/run and shoot can do that, and I like it. The Wildcat? Ehh….
The most maddening thing to me about Bible’s offense is that we effectively conceded the run, outside of QB scrambles when Wilson was here. With Wilson, he could run enough to keep the defense honest and do something when the passing play broke down. Every other QB we had was effectively put in a more difficult position than he needed to be because we weren’t balanced. That’s why I never understood what TOB/DB thought they were going to do with Pete Thomas as their starter in that offense, but that’s another topic for another time.
On defense, we’ve played the last couple of games fairly vanilla. I’m fine with that given our youth and having two opponents that were really good at their systems. My concern is that we should have been able to physically line up and control them, and we just were not. I’m afraid we don’t have the Jimmies and Joes on that side of the ball. If we can’t get pressure with the front four, then we’re going to have to try some different things, or live with teams just cruising down the field. We really need to get stops.
foose and cowdog: You may be right, but I’ve only seen the Wildcat really consistently work one time against top level competition at the BCS level and that was when Arkansas ran the “Wild Hog.” That worked because they had a dominant line, two fantastic RBs and a RB that could stop in the backfield and throw a 30 yard floater pass to a WR that had leaked down field (from the back side if my memory serves). I contend that that particular Arkansas team had some very unique personnel.
As a recovering Dolphins fan, I also remember the disastrous attempts to run the Wildcat at the pro level. I thought pro defenses would snuff it out and they did.
As for 4.1 YPC, we averaged 4.9 and 6.2 YPC against Ga. Southern and ODU respectively. We averaged 7.3 and 8.7 yards per pass respectively. I’d argue anything and everything worked due to the quality of the opponents. Heck, if the Wildcat only got us 4.1, then it was actually dragging the numbers down. 😉
I’ll admit I could be wrong. It won’t be the first nor last time. I actually hope that I am.
I just don’t see how a team without a dominating OL benefits from a formation that doesn’t even include its best player (which to me is JB) and tips that the play is always going to be a run. I think defenses like FSU, Louisville and Clemson are going to have a field day with it.
greywolf: I respect your opinion but respectfully do not agree about the Wildcat. I agree with your assessment that anything that puts Thornton and Hayes on the field together in positions to be utilized is a good thing.
I don’t like the Wildcat though. It’s not like I saw it for the first time when we ran it with Sherrifs last year. I actually thought it wasn’t a horrible move with Sherrifs, until I realized that we weren’t going to let Sherrifs actually throw. He threw, what, two passes out of that last year? At that point, he just became a slow RB, which was tactically even more puzzling.
The Wildcat totally concedes the pass, which allows the defenders to know exactly what is going to happen, and ultimately where the ball will start, and most likely stay. The advantages of the spread are effectively conceded by using the Wildcat because the edges are no longer threats. The defenders can all focus on the center of the formation.
I have a similar but lesser concern about the jet sweeps in general. That motion develops very slowly, and while I’ve not analyzed the tape, it seems we have very little variation in purpose for the sweeper.
I am not in favor of any formation that takes the only passing threat (QB) away. We don’t have a dominant enough offensive line, or good enough athletes to completely remove the element of surprise.
I’d like to use Thornton and Hayes together in a 1980s styled pro-set backfield. I’ve often thought that’s the best formation if one really does have multiple offensive weapons out of the backfield.
The offense, lack of penalties and lack of turnovers have been better than I could have expected and drastically improved. The defense and FG kicking has been worse.
I expect that both will normalize. Our defense will improve, but so will opposing defenses. Some of the stuff that has worked on offense (e.g. The Wildcat) isn’t going to work against good defenses. At the same time, outside of FSU, Louisville and UNC, I expect the other offenses to really be no better than what we have faced. Yes those were lower tier teams, but they were both lower tier teams that were really good at what they did.
I think there is enough in the tank to get to 6-6 or 7-5 with the schedule. We were a competent QB away from that last year.
Of course, the D (and DL play) may not improve. If so, my defense of Hux and his defenses may look questionable.
What amazes me more than anything is that HWSNBN is currently only 51. His 8 years @ ASU + 10 in Raleigh means we were dumb enough to hire him at 33. There are very few people prepared to handle that type of environment at that age, and HWSNBN wasn’t one of them.
I almost feel sorry for him, but then I remember the daytight compartments, wood chopping, seeds of greatness, running down of former coaches, transfers, injuries, Princeton offense, deflections, beat downs by Duke and UNC (other than when Doh was at the helm), heart breaking ACC tournament finals, blown leads in big games, the Elite 8 choke, running off Wilkins, no point guards, lunatic fringe, yearly letters of support, contract extensions ad nauseum, votes of support by rival coaches and fans, awful end of game management, horrible slow down ball, inflexibility and overall divisiveness. I don’t miss him at all.
WVWolf: As always, I appreciate the numbers, and the time that you put into them. The ACC and national ranks help us comparatively understand how we’re doing.
What would be very interesting would be to have last year’s “end of year” numbers at least with respect to ACC and national rank. While the absolute number may be different, the relevant number is important to track our improvement.
It’s admittedly a bit early to draw much conclusion. We played a weak opponent and a team like Clemson played a strong one that skewed some of their numbers. In a few more weeks, we’ll know quite a bit more.
Regardless, I saw some clear positives:
– QB pass efficiency
– Lack of sacks and TFL allowed by the OL
– Lack of penalties: particularly impressive given our motion on offense
– General lack of turnovers by our offense: last year we turned it over like it was our mission
– Scoring defense relative to total defense: I’d argue all that matters is the points on the scoreboard. If you’re giving up fewer points relative to yardage, then that’s a very good thing.We’ve had some great kickers and I actually think Sade is the best on kickoffs of any of them. That’s a fantastic weapon to control field position and prevent the KO return for TD that just kills momentum and hurts a team that struggles to score. Big time programs like FSU always have a guy that can put it out of the back of the end zone, and it’s been really nice to see that out of Sade.
Having said that, Sade’s 88 points last year were in part due to an offense that couldn’t punch one in. I’d prefer him having a Primati like senior season (perfect on a ton of PATs and a high percentage on a few kicked FGs), even if that doesn’t mean he breaks our scoring record.
Also, when the kicker is the guy getting press in the local rags, it kind of tells you about recruiting and expectations. I mean, I’m fully behind Sade, our team, etc., but if the kicker is your best hope for All Conference (and All American), then is there any real doubt about the talent level?
Tough for MJ. I hate to see any player get hurt.
There were always rumblings of Tenuta and lack of recruiting. I wonder if our amazingly thin depth at LB the last two years isn’t linked.
As discussed in the past, while the D wasn’t great last year (it can’t be great if you lose 9 games), it wasn’t the main problem. The main problem was the offense. I thought the D looked better, especially with respect to positioning.
I did think it was interesting that the one staff move made was in the DBs. That coach came with DD from NIU. DD mentioned that we needed to play tighter in the secondary this year. It will be interesting to see how that goes with the 4-2-5.
I view the 4-3-4 and the 4-2-5 as basically the same defense, particularly in college. College Will LBs and strong safeties physically look about the same. In theory you just get a kid who might be a step faster, be more comfortable playing in space and who can cover a bit tighter.
1.21: I agree with you. The challenge to win at NC State is much bigger than many of our fans want to believe, particularly with generating the depth needed across the field. In my lifetime as a NC State fan (can first remember games from about 1981), we’ve had some great players. We’ve rarely had good teams.
Mike: I’m probably in the minority, but I didn’t think the defense was as bad as most did.
Was it great? Nope. You don’t lose 9 games if you have great defense. It was a heck of a lot better than the offense though.
The author of this particular article kind of ignored the TOP, turnovers and the red zone scoring. Those three things were just crippling to the defense and really had little to do with the defense as a whole.
Long story short, it won’t take that much improvement out of the offense to make the defense look better. That’s regardless of whether the defense actually does improve, which I think it will due to depth.
One of the biggest improvements with this staff is in scheduling. They schedule to position us for the tournament. Now, you still have to win the games, but they’re not banking everything on a winning record in the ACC.
These types of schedules help the ACC as a whole. We need the other teams in the league to schedule well and then go take care of business.
D Wolf: Thanks for the information. That makes a lot of sense. We’re going to need Turner and Lacey to score.
Maybe he realizes that up tempo only works when you have more talent (and really talented depth) than the other team? When you have less depth, all those extra plays and possessions that come with a quicker tempo cause you to run out of gas in the 4th quarter. I said this before the season last year, and in the preseason prediction threads suggested we’d see some blow outs or 5th quarter issues.
I noticed as the season went on, we lined up quickly to try to lock the defense into a positional group, but then took our time to actually snap the ball. The fans complained about “looking over to the sideline forever to get the read” but I think it was a conscious effort by the coaching staff to limit personnel swaps by the opposing defense, yet also give us a breather.
As “boring” as it is, the team with less talented depth needs to figure out how to run more clock in between every snap. The team with less talented depth, needs to figure out how to get plays off quicker, to let their superior athletes take over. Oregon (Nike + $$$$ both legitimately and not) recruits big, so they should go up tempo. We do not, so we should slow it down.
Teams like Alabama that recruit big and still slow it down don’t make sense to me. They’re the football equivalent to a top 10 recruiting basketball program playing the Princeton offense.
As much as I disliked TOB, he had it right when was at BC. He played the perfect tempo and style to match up with the level that he could recruit at. The most disappointing part of his tenure here is that he never developed the running game (and really the OL) needed to do the same thing.
I’ll add in a counter point that is a bit more positive. I like everything but the lanes. 😀
I like the wolf face in the center. I’d have preferred the Strutting Wolf like the women’s court has, but that can almost look cluttered. This is a nice mixture.
When we went with the filled in 3 point area and the additional block S’s, the middle block S just looked too cluttered. It felt like a little kid designed it and got crazy with a block S stamp. I suspect the block S logos inside the arc are used for positioning in the UCLA offense, because I seem to remember Alabama having them as well. I could be wrong though. The point is that with all the S logos in there, we needed something else in the middle.
I also like that this differentiates us a bit. We have an identity problem, at least outside of the state. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked about Stanford. The Syracuse S, while orange, only makes it worse. This is good use of the secondary logo.
I do miss the red lane. The cleared out lane reminds me of the HWSNBN era, where we all but abandoned the lane. It was like we were afraid to be there, so we wanted to pretend it didn’t exist. I suspect HWSNBN just wanted an “old school” look, but I never liked it, nor the basketball played on it.
I’m glad we didn’t add Jimmy V, Case, Sloan, etc. on the court. I really dislike the named court trend and feel like the program is bigger than any one coach. We also need to stop living in the past and move forwards.
And the ACC logo? Well, it is what it is. That one is dictated to us.
