ECU Review: The Good, The Bad, The Variance

Leaving Carter-Finley Thursday night, I was borderline distraught.

It certainly felt like State was the better team throughout. Getting up 24-7 in the late third quarter, to needing a fourth down stop late to win 24-17 was beyond frustrating.

When I stepped back this weekend, though, this game looked quite different.

I'm not saying that you should feel better overall about this team leaving this performance. I think it's probably correct to feel better in some areas, worse in others, and all of that coming out to a wash.

We'll break it all down here, but it'd be difficult for me to start talking about this game without starting with luck:

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Some Thoughts on Variance

In any given game, there are random elements that contribute to the swinging of a game in a given direction. This is typically how better teams lose to poorer teams.

I'm surely missing some elements, but it felt like almost all of the major variance points went against N.C. State:

• HORRIFIC penalties. Especially on the first drive of the game - Noah Rogers called for one of the worst holding calls I've ever seen, and then Rogers getting interfered with clearly in the end zone, both go against State - worth roughly 4 points combined

• Credit ECU for executing, but their long touchdown play was bizarre. Three big things here: 1) Caden Fordham is held on the way to a sack, but that goes uncalled - which would have paused the play. 2) Fordham and Co celebrate entirely too long in the backfield and lead to a super disorganized batch of substitutions, and then 3) State sees ECU go up tempo with like 15 guys on the field, and they don't call timeout. If any one of these outcomes happen,

• Two missed field goals (more on that situation later) of 40 and 46 yards.

• The overturned targeting on Terrell Anderson should have been originally called Targeting with unnecessary roughness for a late hit. When the targeting was overturned, the 15 yard penalty and first down would have still been upheld - that was clearly a late hit in my eyes, and would have given State the ball at the 2 with a fresh set of downs

• I'll throw in C.J.'s interception here as well, with less conviction. Watching live, I thought he made a bad read, and that's still true, but ECU's Safety effectively hides behind the referee here while CJ is attempting to look him off to the defender's right side. Did CJ ever see this guy?

That's tough.

Sure, ECU's kicker missed a 53 yard field goal on the other side. If you want to give State even half of these outcomes, this game looks a lot different.

Let me attempt to read your mind on your response here: No, I'm not making excuses for the score being as tight as it was, or for State being unable to execute in other areas of the game that mattered.

I'm simply here to point out that with 22 dudes on the field, a weird shaped ball, and referees that are still really bad at their jobs in the year of our Lord 2025, you're going to get a ton of luck in games. That luck will go towards or against you. In this game, I thought most of it went against State, and it certainly impacted the final score.

Having separated out all of the luck stuff: there was a lot of good and bad to piece apart from this one:

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The Good

Down-to-Down Defense

I'm not sure how you can come away from this game not feeling significantly better about this defensive unit.

ECU's longest rush was 10 yards. They averaged 1.9 yards per carry. After State gave up 300+ yards against them in the Bowl last year. That's much more like it.

Katin Hauser's average time to throw was 2.1 seconds. They primarily made their hay on quick completions or deep balls, and State was able to get to him in surprising consistency.

He was pressured on 35% of his dropbacks, which is insanely good from State's defense. The fact that it only resulted in one sack is a testament to Hauser's savvy play: he hung in there and took hits. He got absolutely demolished on the speed option give that went for ECU's second touchdown, and you have to tip your cap to a dude willing to compete like that.

Sean Brown and Caden Fordham looked really good in the middle of the defense. You could argue State was better up front in the first half without Brandon Cleveland, thanks to some guys we'll talk about shortly.

The unit only missed 5 tackles, which is quite impressive for a week one showing.

You're going to give up big plays - the aforementioned fluke accounted for 19% of ECU's yardage output. This stat speaks volumes:

It wasn't perfect by any means, but I was very impressed with what we saw from this unit. I've upgraded my expectation for this group this year - instead of a ~60 unit nationally, I definitely see room to get into that top 50-45 range.

Newcomers on Defense

My goodness, did State go out and get some dudes.

The biggest two names that popped were Mountain West conference transfers. Sebastian Harsh was everywhere. Lining up at State's End position, he was dominant against run and pass, finishing with an outstanding 88.9 PFF grade, 6 pressures, 2.5 tackles for loss, and a sack. He has force and quickness that we've been sorely missing on the edge:

Cian Slone is the other name we've heard about all offseason. Operating from the Jack backer position, Slone lined up on the line of scrimmage, hand down and stand up, and off the ball in the second level. He made plays everywhere - Slone's not afraid of physicality, but his quickness, footwork, and hand placement really stood out to me.

He finished with an 86.7 PFF defensive grade, second highest on the team, and honestly reminded me of Payton Wilson out there with his motor and unwillingness to quit on a play.

Some honorable mentions on the defensive newcomer front:

• Chase Bond - in 14 snaps, Bond amassed two tackles for loss and looked incredibly powerful from the end spot. He finished as State's 3rd highest graded defender in a low number of snaps. Rated in the 1500s in his class, this kid has a bright future.

• Josiah Victor - I've been hyping this guy up all offseason. A true freshman from Georgia, Victor's 8 snaps in the first half gave State some much needed depth. I liked what I saw from him on his ability to take on blocks and hold his ground. Another future Dude on State's line.

  
  

I'm pleased with what State's done from a coaching and talent acquisition perspective here early.

Offensive Skill Talent

We knew this had the potential to be a special skill group, and they flashed when given the opportunity Thursday.

Wesley Grimes stole the show: much has been discussed on his 4.3 40 time this offseason, and if offseason work would finally translate to big time production. Well, so far so good.

4 receptions for 121 yards and a touchdown certainly backs that up. He looked fast, showed contested catch ability, and looked like an alpha.

But what about the young guy?

Teddy Hoffman was a last minute member of the 2024 class, picking State over FSU in a recruitment that heated up at the very last minute. He's not the fastest dude on the field, but his route running was crisp, and he just flat out got open. 93 yards on a team high 5 catches is a hell of way to announce your arrival.

Noah Rogers got knocked out of the game with what looked like a head injury - and he was cleared today for week 2 - but when you add Hoffman into this rotation alongside Anderson, Jackson, and a quiet-this-week Justin Joly, you've got one of the best group of pass catchers of Dave's tenure.

C.J. Bailey

In the midst of my "oh 💩, not again" spiral on Thursday, I wasn't feeling great about what I was seeing from C.J. Bailey.

We saw of the technical issues with Bailey's game that we saw last year:

• Happy feet in the pocket, affecting velocity and accuracy on some balls

• A tendency to pull the ball and run quicker than needed

• Reading some passing concepts out of order, or not really at all

But damn, then you see things like this:

C.J.'s numbers backed up a good performance in this one - his numbers, as of typing (9/1):

• 26th amongst QBs this week in ESPN's QBR and 20th in Expected Points Added

• Average depth of target: 10.3 yards (2024 average: 8.7)

• 3 Big Time Throws - vs. a 1.27 per game average last year (this is subjective PFF stat trying to quantify crazy throws - maybe not the most consistent, but still interesting)

  
  

After rewatching C.J. in this one, I thought the good outweighed the bad. There's going to be stuff to work on, it's start #9 in his career, and his first with a new coordinator and new OL pieces in front of him.

The reality is that he's going to be asked to do much, much more if State's run game can't get figured out. I think in a balanced offense he can be a really good to great quarterback; I feel confident from what we've seen so far that this won't be the case if he's asked to do it all himself.

Hollywood

Hollywood's stat line looked pretty pedestrian in this one - 22 carries for 76 yards, 4 catches on 5 targets for 30 yards, one rushing touchdown.

What if I told you that 88 of his 106 yards came after contact?!

Insanity.

We'll certainly address both sides of that number in this write-up, but the level of special that Hollywood is remains. He forced 7 missed tackles, looked both shifty and straight-line fast, and had a 20 yard run called back on Noah's bad holding call. No concerns here about Hollywood being Hollywood.

State needs him to stay healthy - he saw 27 total opportunities in this one, which is heavy usage - but he could be a national name if State can figure out what they've got up front.

The Bad

Rushing Output

...If State can figure out what they've got up front.

To make sure I'm super clear on this: last year, N.C. State's offensive line was really good. There were components of the run blocking crew - tight end, wide receiver, even RB at times - that made the OL group look worse than it actually was.

That's not what happened on Thursday.

N.C. State's 57.1 run blocking grade (which, again, includes everyone blocking) was the lowest grade on the team by 8 points. Per Game on Paper, the O-Line was credited with just 20.3 line yards (a measurement that attempts to quantify the impact of the line's role in rush yards gained.)

Perhaps the most concerning set of numbers: 53% (18) of State's runs went for 2 yards or less. ELEVEN of them went for 0 yards or less!

I mainly saw assignment issues on tape - meaning guys were peeling off double teams too quickly, flat out blocking the gap, or not being on the same page. State's wide receivers absolutely contributed to this, too. I noted their perimeter blocking on runs and screens in particular were bad.

There's also the run schematic used in this one. Kurt Roper has majored in gap scheme running at past stops, which is fine, but we saw State try this at the beginning of last year, and it didn't work. Inside zone, and especially outside zone, were much better choices last year.

Well, of Hollywood's 22 carries, only 9 of them were zone runs. I counted three outside zone attempts. (They weren't particularly great, to be fair.)

It's early in the season, but all of these things are concerning. I wrote about how poor ECU's interior appeared to be on paper - if State's run game issues don't get solved, that's going to overload C.J. and allow defenses to allocate more resources to shutting him down.

This is my area of biggest concern leaving the ECU contest.

Secondary Depth

This was a major risk coming into the year, particularly at Safety.

The two deep ahead of kickoff didn't show Rente Hinton on the depth chart, which means to me that he probably won't be available in the near future.

With that in mind, State's secondary turned in a mixed bag. I liked what I saw from Devon Marshall, Brian Nelson, and Jackson Vick.

Jeremiah Johnson had a few missed tackles at Safety. R-Fr Brody Barnhardt looked like he wasn't quite ready to go extensive snaps, and Ronnie Royal rode the roller coaster of being a green player as well.

State absolutely cannot afford attrition here.

Penalties

You expect to see this early on, but some of State's legitimate penalties were back breaking.

I was hoping to watch back Teague Andersen's personal foul and see something that shouldn't have been called - nope. You can't push a dude over after the ball carrier is down.

State coming out of the half and going back to back false starts? 1st and 20 on your "possession and 10" (first possession) of the half? That's so strongly correlated with bad outcomes it hurts.

Holding happens, but doing it in the redzone - and it leading to a missed FG as a result - is a big bad.

Have to quit self-inflicting damage in high leverage spots.

Kicking Game

I saw Nick Konieczynski at the closed scrimmage and was impressed with his leg strength. I thought Vinesett was fine last year, but if he was getting beat out in camp, that may be a good thing for the kicking game as a whole.

Well, I don't want to overindex on a sample size of 3 kicks, but that was no good.

On the second miss, it looked like a bad hold impacted Konieczynski's ability to get it off cleanly.

This week we've got an "Or" on the depth chart with Konieczynski and Vinesett. I'm definitely starting with Vinesett, seeing if he's got the juice and confidence before doing anything else.

With a coin flippy schedule and a ~45-55th rated team (right now) field goal kicking could be the thing that breaks you from 5-7 to 7-5.

Moving Forward

I wanted to burn it all down (again) Thursday night. It didn't feel good watching that 24-7 lead - which arguably should've been 31-0 - evaporate.

A reminder that it's never as good or as bad as it seems.

It's week one, and there's a lot to be worked on and figured out. Think about the evolutions the Pack went through last year: trying to figure out gap scheme stuff and pivoting to zone, the ping pong between Grayson and CJB, and the finish to the year as State started to put together consistent performances.

I leave this one feeling perhaps a little bit worse in totality than I did before this one was kicked, but State putting together a complete (not perfect, complete) performance against Virginia would perhaps point to some of these one off mistakes as the exception, not the rule.

The back half of this schedule looks even more brutal than it did before. I thought Miami, Florida State, and even VT looked better than expected.

It's one week, but it's one week of twelve. The improvements have to come quickly, and frequently for State to hit its ceiling.