Game Analysis: NC State Picks Off UVA

For the first time in what feels like years, NC State delivered a good vibes game early in the season. The Pack has offered some extremely frustrating early season results over the past few years (often righting the ship later on). I left this game with much better vibes, if for no other reason than it was just a pretty fun time.

Saturday’s win over Virginia was just a lot of fun, good ol’ fashioned heavily flawed college football fun. State averaged almost nine yards per pass attempt and over six yards per carry, gave up a ton of explosive plays, and won a shootout in thrilling fashion with its back against the wall. It was a good time. 

This result also resembles more of what we were expecting from this team. Sports are so weird, and it’s hard to believe the run defense from last week was the same team as this week (maybe ECU sucks?). But this is a little more of what we expected: explosive offense, defense that bends a lot, and a team that will win if it can generate an extra stop at the end of the game. That’s exactly what this game was. 

Offensive Trajectory

Except for two poorly-timed designed carries for Bailey, Roper was really strong in this game. Bailey was good. Smothers was normal Smothers, which is crazy good. The offensive line took a nice step forward from a week ago, which helped State pile up 216 rushing yards. It is the fourth time in the last seven games that State has ran for more than 200 yards, with one of other games being a 198-yard effort. 

The Pack played at least seven offensive linemen in this game, clearly displeased with some of the performances from a week ago. Yousef Mugharbil played a lot at right guard. Isaac Sowells and Kamen Smith both played several series as well. Jalen Grant was better in this game than a week ago, and everything really just looked cleaner. Far from great, but much better than the stink bomb in week one. 

Double teams in inside zone were manufacturing more movement, as were the playside double teams in counter. Jacarrius Peak and Anthony Carter played below their respective abilities against ECU, but made up for that today. Peak was strong and more closely resembled the player we’ve come to know, and that left side was able to do some work. Overall, the run game was up and down but Smothers was able to take the ups and turn them into highlights. 

Look at Grant (center) and Carter (left guard) here. That double team is going to generate a lot of a movement. It allows Smothers to get more vertical and makes the safety's job a lot harder, and tackling Smothers in space is already basically impossible. One broken tackle takes a four-yard run and makes it a 57-yard run.

This one is blocked up really well too. Carter, Grant, and Mugharbil are moving some guys here, and Grant gets off the double team with good timing.

Here's GH counter for a touchdown. Just like inside zone, this run looked better this week versus last.

Peak and Carter are supposed to be the strength of the line. I actually really like GH counter to their side because it gives you a Peak/Carter double team a lot, and that should be advantage State. It is here. Watch the left tackle and left guard push the defensive tackle toward the sideline. Peak is able to knock him off the line and allow Carter to control him, which allows Peak to come off and block the backer. That double team usually determines the result of the play in counter, and Peak prevents the mike backer from being able to get to his fit.

The offensive line shuffling was interesting, especially Mugharbil getting the start. He made plenty of mistakes, but he showed some power when he got his hands on guys. You can see him creating some movement two GIFs above in inside zone. As a puller, I thought Kamen Smith was better.

Just like the GIF above this one, UVA is trying to spill the first puller. You can compare Kamen Smith's ability to turn and seal that inside versus this from Mugharbil. This is a whiff and a free shot on the back.

Roper ran more GH counter in this game, and it was much better than the GT counter it tried to force last week. Cody Hardy was good in his role. Smothers cooked pretty good in these plays, and then Kurt Roper did a good job using the eye candy of the pulling guard to affect the linebackers in play action and even running a toss opposite the flow. 

I like that State is continuing these competitions on the interior of the line. It has probably five guys that could fill the center and right guard spots, each with their own set of questions. It's prove-it hours out here.

Through the air, State was extremely efficient. Pass protection was again good. I feel like I do a disservice to the line by brushing over pass protection like this, but at this point, a Tujague offensive line being good at pass pro feels like a given. CJ Bailey made excellent decisions from the pocket. This may have been his best game from a decision making standpoint. He didn’t push the ball down the field as much, but he looked as comfortable and competent reading out passing concepts as he has in his career. These were a couple that I really liked (the concept is drawn out under each GIF).

This play is nice. I love the design. Many passing concepts feature free access components out to the sidelines. This can be thought of as a route that is not part of any progression, but the quarterback can throw if he likes the cushion being given pre-snap. This play has one at the bottom of the screen, and it's getting cushion pre-snap. You can see Bailey look at it immediately and then come off it when the corner comes down. He comes off that to the primary read, which is Joly to Smothers. Bailey is reading the depth of the linebacker, and when the backer doesn't sink with Joly, he fires the ball behind him. It probably could be more in front of Joly, but good job working through the play.

This is smash drive. Bailey is reading flat route to corner route to drag route to dig route. He gets man coverage here and doesn't like the flat. The corner route has bad leverage and safety help. The switch release on the drag creates a pick that frees it. Bailey hits the third read.

These are not highlight reel plays from Bailey, but I like them because he's processing them cleanly. Last season, there was a bunch of wishy washy stuff where he would stare at reads and not progress, almost like he was unsure of himself. You're not seeing that as much now. He's moving through these concepts cleaner and the timing is better on hi-lo reads.

Hey You, Get Off The Field!

Defensively, State was bad. It didn’t suffer from a ton of run busts, but it didn’t tackle super well, got moved around a little bit, and was not great in coverage. Eliot played a decent amount of man in this game. Virginia just hammered them with mesh rail and State had all sorts of issues with it. In fact, this was the playcall on the interception that sealed the game. It’s a bit remarkable how Chandler Morris, who was very good all day, absolutely gift wrapped this game and put it under the tree for NC State. It was another sequence of poor coverage that the quarterback simply missed before throwing a truly horrible pass. 

This is mesh rail. It's a pure progression read for the quarterback. The running back is read one. The second read is always the underneath mesh, which is number nine here for UVA (the guy who's wide-ass open). Slone does a good job of the seeing the back release and peeling off with him. State's attempt to cover the actual mesh is terrible, as it was all day. AJ Richardson is the rat player here, and he's far too aggressive pursuing the quarterback once he leaves the pocket. Jackson Vick (22) is manned up on Twitty (9) and gets caught in the traffic. As a result, Twitty is wide open and would walk into the end zone, and the progression dictates that's where the ball should go. Instead, Morris throws the rail route off-balance. You cannot throw this ball worse than he threw it. If this had any chance (it didn't), it had to be away and to the back pylon. This singular play set quarterbacking back a decade. Thanks Chandler, we'll take it.

State is missing the boat with its zone coverages too, it is having communication issues, and some of the young guys are struggling. The lack of pressure that it was generating on the quarterback amped up the difficulty for the coverage. If you play zone and let a good quarterback just stand back there, he’ll eat you alive. That’s about what happened. I was impressed with both Morris and the UVA offensive line, but State did not make it hard on them.

This is a mess. Looks like cover 3. Ronnie Royal and Caden Fordham end up in the same area, and Royal looks like he may have been trying to to play man on the #2 receiver before feeling a push call and checking out to the back. My best guess is that Royal was supposed to blitz here and State was trying to play a 3-over-3 fire zone. I honestly don't know. State had a horrible time covering these mesh concepts in this game. There were guys running into each other, missed assignments, general struggles navigating traffic, etc.

Here's another example.

You can actually see Royal and Fordham communicating something before the snap. State goes on to play what looks like a standard cover 1 rat coverage. The only problem is nobody covers the low crosser. Fordham jams him at the line but then gets his eyes to the quarterback like he's the rat player. That would make this route Royal's responsibility, but he looks like he's playing quarters.

This has also been a tripping hazard for State early on this season.

State is going to play tampa 2 here, and Jamel Johnson is going to be responsible for the flat at the bottom of the screen. If you're the flat defender and you get a flat route or a hitch to a multi-receiver side, you need to gain depth. There is a route behind you and you are being read by the quarterback. State's underneath zone needs to get deeper in general. Johnson should be squeezing that corner route. Instead. the ball goes over his head. This isn't like a horrendous play from Johnson. It's a nice ball and a good call against tampa 2. He's just a little late to recognize it. In general though, this has been a consistent issue through two games with the whole zone structure.

The Hoos also had two explosive touchdown runs in this game. The first was fit really well from State, but every player on the team forgot how to tackle. Virginia running back J'Mari Taylor broke three tackles within a yard of the line of scrimmage. 

The second was this one. 

It's pretty simple here, just bad from Brian Nelson. He just gets too far up the field. It looks like a pony stunt from State (we'll talk about this in a minute). The result of this is Slone stunting inside with the intent to force the ball out to Marshall. It's all there, and you get really good penetration from the backside. Nelson just gets too far up the field.

The scheme from Eliot is still exciting to me, but guys just have to execute and generally be better than they were on Saturday. This is a cool feature of this scheme that I've started noticing through two games. 

This is called a jimmy stunt (or a pony stunt if you do it with the DT too, which is mentioned farther up). Cian Slone (defensive end to the bottom of the screen) is the guy to watch here. He is going to read the departure angle of the offensive tackle. If he gets a zone block toward him, his job is to put his body inside in the B gap and play the ball from inside out, which is intended to push the ball to the edge. It's a two-gap technique that allows a defense to play with a lighter box, and if you can force the ball out the front door like that, you can come cut it off with a safety rolling down. You'll note that State only really has five in the box here. It's down a man. Slone is able to force the ball out the front door to Royal, Royal just takes a poor angle and lets the ball get outside of him.

Some credit is due to this defense, even though they were not good and the game-deciding play was an absolute gift. This unit produced two key stops prior to the final drive. They allowed a lot of yards, but still just seven points in the second half. It still showed some ability to be disruptive against the run, and if nothing else, it was a gutsy effort, which was missing at times last season.

Final Conclusions

We talked a lot in the offseason about one-possession games. It’s likely State will play in many of these, and it’s likely that it will give up points. If it’s going to have a great season, it needs to be explosive as an offense and create a handful of impactful defensive plays that lead to an extra stop or two. This is what a lot of lesser talented teams that have won 10+ games have looked like. 

That’s largely what has happened so far, sans the dominating run defense against ECU. Both ECU and UVA found easy success through the air. State’s defense bent a lot in both games, but it came up with some critical late plays in both games also. Now, the Pack is 2-0 in one-possession games. I’m going to sound a bit like a homer here, but I do think it has beaten two teams that are better than we thought they’d be. Can State keep this up?

Finally, shoutout to the coaching staff for going for it on 4th and 1 deep in their own territory. At that point in the game, trusting your offense to gain a yard was an obviously correct decision when the opportunity cost was playing for a defensive stop. It's good calculated decision making to try and close out a well-called game.

Beat Wake.