According to Merriam-Webster, there could be as many as 1 million words in the English language. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has over 470,000 entries. Every day, people combine these words to form sentences that have never been said or written before. Despite all of this, and unfortunately for me, the English language still does not support an accurate description of what happened here. There are no words that carry the gravity required to meet the absurdity of this moment. There is no escalation of “ridiculous” that doesn’t fail to do it justice. This was something, but I don’t know what.
It’s all so very dumb, just the entire situation that you ended up in here. NC State has been getting in its own way for longer than I’ve been alive, and it just keeps doing it. Now it is doomed to appear on every YouTube highlight reel of insane sports endings from now until the end of time. This self-destruction is really nothing new, it’s just a roided up version of the same thing it’s always been. This particular instance of stepping on a rake reminds me of an internet troll whose bit has run dry, and he must escalate to continue getting a reaction from the people he’s trying to piss off. I would say it worked, NC State Football.
The debate will be over who is responsible. Was this CJ Bailey’s fault? Was it Dave Doeren’s fault? Was it Abraham Lincoln’s fault for signing into law the Morrill Act of 1862 that would eventually lead to the creation of NC State Football? Probably not Lincoln’s, but he wasn’t available for comment.
At a high level, the players and the coaches are responsible for the exact same thing, and without knowledge of what conversations were actually had and when on the sideline, it’s a pretty fruitless path to walk down. State’s fate on Saturday, if you pass on attributing it to a feud with some all-powerful deity, can be best attributed to the entire assembly. Everyone involved in creating the product on the field is ultimately responsible for it. Execution is the part of the player, but it ladders up to preparation on behalf of the coaches. A lack of composure could easily be assigned to either party. It’s no different than a procedure penalty. It’s not the coach’s fault that the guard jumped offsides, but have you noticed that well-coached football teams don’t do that?
The actual play call seems fine to me. The other option would have been to punt, which could put State in a couple of different potentially precarious situations. Maybe punting works, but it’s not an obvious decrease in risk. Directionally, the decision was fine. But everything that happened after that direction was decided was the equivalent of doing a gymnastics routine on top of a landmine.
CJ Bailey swinging the football around in his own end zone like he was a giant sign spinner on the side of the road advertising a 2-for-1 Cricket Wireless deal is just unthinkable to me. I don’t understand how you don’t carry the ball with two hands there. There are lesser and greater outcomes State could have earned through that play, but you’re in a fantastic spot if you avoid just one specific one. I’m sure State has practiced this scenario before, but it sure didn’t look like it. Based on Doeren’s postgame comments, Bailey was supposed to roll toward the corner of the end zone. The boundary edge of Vanderbilt’s pressure got way up the field, and the quarterback seemed to panic at that point while trying to avoid getting chased out of bounds quickly by that guy.
If the idea is that a safety is okay, even if a second remains, I’m not sure how you end up in this spot. That’s the conclusion for me, because six seconds is a lot of time. Just run out of the back of the end zone. Not getting hit was a key part of this, per Doeren. Vandy has overloaded the field side on the play. You’re rolling away from the overload. If the priority is to avoid contact, you can’t stop. It just doesn’t seem that difficult. Understand what the goal is and be able to adjust if the picture changes. How is this something that could go wrong?
A lot of obvious progress now goes straight down the disposal with this stupid ending. Kurt Roper really called an excellent game. Nobody cares, and I don’t know how you can blame them, but he clearly took the UVA tape and went to work with it. State’s play sequencing, its use of motions, its management of the quarterback, and its scheming against the Vanderbilt pressure packages were all excellent. It built its 17-point lead on the back of a game script that it executed nearly to perfection. When Vandy started sending early down pressures, mugging the linebackers, and putting 5+ defenders on the ball, CJ Bailey delivered on several big time throws.
There should be no argument that the staff was prepared for this game. What a great moment that would have been, to be able to break down all the ways they went about adjusting the offense to the personnel as it is. To be able to do that after scoring a road win over an ostensibly quality SEC team, well that just would have been so much fun. After all the discussion about preparation that the UVA loss ignited, State could have had sweet revenge over those demons. And while those adjustments still happened, I’m guessing this paragraph is the closest anyone will ever come to talking about them.
Such is the story of NC State Football. A directionally correct approach earned it an opportunity, and it declined. It did so much right to get to the doorstep, but it tripped walking in.
There are nine games left. This team genuinely does not suck. It is not likely to win a lot of games that go off script. It just doesn’t have the quarterback or playmakers to do that kind of thing. But it does not suck. Unfortunately, it now must contend with the massive mental hurdle that this creates.
The last thing I want to say is that sending any hate mail to CJ Bailey on the internet is incredibly lame. Criticism of his play on the field is fine and has largely been warranted this year. He makes millions playing football. He can handle someone saying he shouldn’t come off the corner route, but it should stop at analytical criticism. Fair or not, the man is hurting, and it’s just generally true that you shouldn’t be sending awful stuff to people online. Don’t be this person.
2hands on the ball!!
I, as a lifelong fan, have come to expect nothing more (but a lot less!) from NC State athletics. Is it a curse? Not enough “investment”? Some other third thing? I don’t know. I’m not smart enough to opine. But it definitely sucks all the joy out of being a fan for a program. Excuse me while I go outside, touch grass, try to put this all in perspective, and come to terms with the fact that we will never be great in any sport that “pays the bills.”