The Richmond Spiders were 2-0 entering Friday night, carrying wins over Bucknell and Howard. After seeing NC State choose to not score 80, I have some questions for Bucknell and Howard.
Watching the game, it wasn’t clear to me if this Richmond team had indeed played football before. Whether it was the quarterback throwing a screen into the stands, in-phase defensive backs just kind of flailing around like a child’s sprinkler toy, or linebackers getting clean shots on Duke Scott and seemingly losing arm functionality before our eyes, this gang of nearly football players is exactly what NC State needed to see.
We knew State would win this game. It was more about process than result. If you listened to The Lotcast this week, you heard discussion about the pistol formation as a way to run zone plays, the boot flood play as a rhythm-generating play for CJ Bailey, and the use of jet motion. State did all three of these things. In fact, the very first play was a boot flood play and the second play was wide zone out of pistol. State’s speedsters got a handful of opportunities on the jet sweep as well.
State also integrated some 2-back sets into the offense this week. Both of these alignments make it harder for the defense to set the strength of the front. The majority of runs from single-back shotgun sidecar alignment will go opposite the back, but with the back in-line with the QB, or with two backs that can carry the ball, you lose that tendency to play off of as a defense.
Kurt Roper also did away with a lot of read-run stuff that was a big part of the Virginia gameplan. Read-based plays, whether they’re RPOs, zone reads, power reads, or what have you, have been iffy for NC State, so it was a sensible adjustment that paid dividends. For the Wolfpack, it was outside zone at volume with a dash of counter and duo as a garnish, and Scott and Gause ran through the Spiders like shit through a tin horn, as Nick Saban would say.
This is outside zone from a two tight-end set out of the pistol formation. Kamen Smith (79) does a fantastic job here of capturing the outside shoulder of 8. He is quite good here. 9 is unassigned, and the movement from the line gets Scott to him with barely any contact. Scott then breaks his tackle and the horse is out the gate. I’m not sure this is that impressive of a broken tackle, but it’s a broken tackle nonetheless. This is how you get an explosive.
It was fun to watch and cathartic, and the Wolfpack offense is now averaging an impressive 40.5 points per game! I’m not sure there is too much to take away from this. We also talked about it on last week’s Lotcast episode that State could pretty easily run for 200 yards if it wanted to. It did that, twice. The offensive line looked good, the backs were efficient all game, Richmond’s run fits and tackling were consistently terrible, and State just dominated in every aspect on the ground.
I was hoping for CJ Bailey to throw 30+ times. He ended up 13/17, and I’m not sure he even got that much out of this. He looked solid working through some split-field quick game concepts, and he was very comfortable in the boot concepts discussed above. Accounting for screens, pop passes, and boots, Bailey barely had 10 true dropbacks, which is where he really struggled at UVA.
He was aggressive, which was nice to see. Bailey took a shot on almost every play that had a legitimate vertical component. There was virtually zero checking down of the football and a lot more belief in guys like Keenan Jackson to make plays in man coverage. Some plays were made, too.
The aggression was the growth from game one for Bailey. He had six attempts on vertical routes in the one half he played. When you break it down by concept, there’s no question he wanted the big throws, something that hasn’t always been the case with this quarterback. This is the best example.
This is sail, which we covered last week as well. Bear with me on the long-winded explanation. There are 3 routes to this play that you will see at the bottom of the screen. A clearout vertical, an out-breaker at around 15 yards, and a flat route. The clearout is designed to carry the roof of the defense so that the other two routes can create vertical conflict for the underneath zone. The clearout rarely ever gets thrown. The scenarios where you might see it are in press cover 1 or cover 2. If you identify cover 2 here, there will be a window between the corner in the flat and the safety over the top that you can fit this in. It requires being decisive in coverage ID and in the throw. CJ does a good job with that part of the process, and he fires the cover 2 hole shot. This is an aggressive throw and it’s not one he has made often in his career.
It does not connect, either because of accuracy or because he was expecting Chance Robinson to throttle down in the hole. I do not know which. Execution is lacking, but the want-to was at least there.
The execution needs to come around, though. As mentioned, Bailey threw six vertical routes in the first half. He was 2/6 and both completions would be low-graded throws. The junior QB was inaccurate down the field. It just didn’t matter in some instances because Richmond was government-certified garbage.
Here’s your 1v1 shot for Keenan Jackson.
Jackson makes a good adjustment here, but this is definitely underthrown. The DB is in phase, meaning he’s within a yard of Jackson. He should be able to turn and look for this ball, but if he’s going to play it like he’s out of phase, he needs to play through the hands of the receiver. Neither happens. He gets lost and just kind of throws his arm in the air and prays to as many gods as he can. You’re probably not getting away with this against Louisville.
This is 4 verticals against quarters from Richmond.
This isn’t man coverage, but it essentially plays out that way when you run 4 verticals against quarters. Jackson’s vertical will convert to a bender through the post area against this two-high defensive look, and he wins big. You can see it right as he leaves the frame. The ball gets thrown pretty far behind him, and you could even argue it’s a little late, although Bailey does have to climb a bit because Rico Jackson loses bad in protection. These are details that don’t matter against Richmond, but you notice them when the windows get tighter.
One place I think Bailey has been strong so far this year is in the quick game concepts. These are generally split-field reads, meaning he picks a side pre-snap. He’s been efficient in these in both games. I think he likes this stuff because it’s less susceptible to pressure.
Bailey can take the screen at the bottom or read out the double slant at the top. He just reads the slants inside out and gets to the outside route after the underneath zone defender works inside of the inside slant.
My hope coming out of this is that the traditional run game will create a strong base the offense can be built around. Explosiveness in the passing game is still a big concern. That’s not just a criticism of CJ Bailey specifically. Keenan Jackson flashed a few different times on Friday, but that is the only inkling of a playmaker at receiver that State has found so far.
I recommend not overreacting to this game much the same as the Virginia loss. I picked State to go 7-5. After Virginia, that was not adjusted. It is still not adjusted. Both of those games probably represent the far ends of what this team actually is.
The storyline for me is that an identity started to take shape on Friday with State being an outside zone team that used counter and duo as a changeup. This offensive line looks to be pretty solid, and Scott was back to executing well against the Spiders. He looked a little sped up on some of his reads at UVA. Both backs were crisp for State as they ran up the score in the first half.
This feels like a cornerstone of who State should be. Kamen Smith has come on strong, Andersen has looked good, Spike is obviously good (and we’ll keep our fingers crossed for good news on his early exit) and the backs should be the high-floor executors we expected to see. If State can run the football, it will make the quarterback’s life a million times easier too.
I’ll be interested to see how State attacks Vanderbilt. I think you can establish some base offensive principles as a pistol zone team. You can challenge the eyes of the second level with jet motion, and use that to also run split zone, counter, and even duo as State did a couple times against Richmond. The tight ends, particularly Preston Douglas, have to block better. But I liked the approach from the offense more than the UVA game, where State ran a lot more read option stuff and its standard issue pure progression Y cross plays that we’ve bored you with talking about for the last year.
Two things can be true. This game does not reveal a lot about NC State because of the quality of the opponent, but this game also was very enjoyable and record-breaking, and that has value. Hopefully, the value comes from the mental reset it enables after everything went sideways instantly in week zero. State gets Vanderbilt next, which felt like the most surefire loss on the schedule prior to the season. The Commodores suddenly look pedestrian, and I am dangerously close to picking NC State to win.
Tell us your thoughts on the Richmond win and the Vanderbilt game in the comments!
We have a way of crapping the bed, but this is certainly definitely not last year‘s Vanderbilt team. A bunch of if’s will be played out but I’d be very disappointed if all of a sudden things click for Vandy against us