Game Analysis: NC State Survives ECU

Things started quite well on opening night for the Wolfpack. DJ Eliot's defense was a stone wall, and Kurt Roper's offense posted 17 points on its first four drives. For a minute, it seemed like we were going to enjoy a fun dismantling of East Carolina, but State became very grating to watch after that, kind of drunkenly stumbling to the finish line. It ultimately won the game by 8 yards. The vibes got very weird in this one. Let's break it down.

Offense a Bit Clunky

The offense had some nice moments in this game, but it was not entirely the unit we were hoping to see week one against a lesser opponent, particularly one that’s soft in the middle like the Pirates. The Pack as a team rushed for less than 4 YPC. State has some question marks on the offensive line, but the hope was that those question marks would be reserved for games against more formidable foes. It’s clear that there is some work to be done here. 

Smothers recorded seven missed tackles forced, roughly one every three carries. That's the same rate he posted last year. He was really good in this game, and he made some things happen on plays that looked totally DOA. The run game was a healthy mix of zone and counter, which is what I was hoping to see this year, but it didn't look that great. State allowed a lot of penetration. Nothing blows up a zone play faster than penetration. ECU was dynamic on the defensive front, consistently running games with the defensive line and bringing pressures from the second level, all of which was handled poorly by the Pack. Some of the run game problems stemmed from this. Some stemmed from simply being unable to create displacement.

Our scouting report on Jalen Grant this offseason, put simply, was an assignment-sound veteran who was decent in pass protection and lacked power in the run game. That's pretty much what was on tape game one. Kamen Smith struggled and was eventually replaced by Spike Sowells. The interior didn't have a great run blocking performance. State didn't generate a ton of displacement in the middle when it ran inside zone. Outside zone wasn't a super popular call in this game, but that didn't look that great either.

Here's inside zone.

Grant at center gets knocked back on the initial strike. State sees an interior stunt from ECU and the knockback that the slant creates opens the lane for the looper. Both end up a yard in the backfield.

Here's outside zone.

Not a lot of successful reach blocking occurred on these plays. I think Jalen Grant should be participating in the double team with Anthony Carter on the 1 technique. If that's not the case, this isn't very good from Carter.

Some of the counter stuff looked alright, particularly with Smothers making some guys miss. ECU tried to spill a lot of these plays and Smothers made some things happen making the guy they were spilling to miss the tackle. State ran GT counter from 11 or 12 personnel a couple times, and it allowed backside penetration on some of these plays.

Quarterback play was still a question for me coming into the season. I believed that CJ Bailey could take a big step but I just wanted to see it first, and I thought he was inconsistent and a little roller coastery, but not bad. There are definite improvements, the main one being his accuracy 20+ yards down the field. He’s showing more touch on these throws, and that was a big part of the multiple explosives he hit on Thursday night. A couple of these downfield strikes were really excellent throws. The one to Grimes on the double post was a beautiful throw.

One specific ask I had for him was to be better at identifying safety rotations. Teams that play with the post open in their presnap shells are going to show you what’s called cover 3 buzz.

ECU ran this approximately 347 times. It was obvious last season that Bailey didn’t really like these spot drop zones that played from some kind of rotation, whether that’s bailing mugged backers or safety rotations, so it made sense that you would see it. 

The good example

First, the wide split to the tight end side puts a lot of pressure on the middle safety here. State is going to run 4 verticals and ECU is going to play cover 3 buzz. The process for the quarterback here is commonly to read the field safety, carry the safety toward their rotation with his eyes, and then come back and hit the opposite seam. We see Bailey read the field safety here and come back the other way. The safety does not get over there. Not sure if ECU wanted him to rotate harder or wanted the corner to midpoint the two routes on the switch release. Either way, cover 3 buzz gets beat for 6.

The bad example

Here, State is going to run what I believe to be a shock concept with a backside cross. You can’t see the entire strong side, but it looks that way. The hitch is out because it’s too far of a throw and it can get undercut. The slot fade is out because it’s cover 3. So Bailey should read this stick to cross, reading the depth of the hole defender. In the clip, you’ll see that defender widen and immediately attach to the stick route, so Bailey comes back to the cross which should be entering the void left by that player. Unfortunately, this is buzz and the boundary safety rotated into an underneath zone responsibility. He didn’t see it and threw the ball right to him. 

Also didn't really understand this one.

All go special in the redzone, and it looks to be another cover 3 buzz from ECU. They had State well scouted. Assuming it's coaching this the same way it did last year, the first look is always the weak safety. You can see Bailey read him. At that point it's seam to seam and then number one on the strong side. The ball goes to the check down almost immediately though. You obviously can't see the whole thing. The weak safety doesn't rotate hard, so maybe he read quarters here.

Bailey has legit talent. A couple of the throws he hit in this game were absolute bangers. It’s less about unleashing his talent and more about unlocking it. State is opening the offense plenty with these vertical concepts. Bailey just needs to keep growing and developing comfort in the pocket. He has some unnecessary drift sometimes and just physically looked uncomfortable when the pocket was strong but he had to get deeper into the reads. The clock in his head is still a little fast and you can tell. This is not a criticism, just a statement of developmental status. This is his 9th game as a starter.

What's funny about some of these plays that he looked super uncomfortable in is that he would do something weird like drift for no reason or triple clutch the ball, but then he would make an awesome play. The ball to Hoffman in the scramble drill at the end of the first quarter was crazy. This one won't make the highlight reel, but I loved it.

This is the fourth read. This is a smash concept with two backside crosses (or an access hitch that comes back to the ball after breaking off), a very common play that State ran a decent amount last year. Bailey gets to read four here. This is not a visually appealing play from the quarterback, but I want to give him credit for keeping his eyes up here. He looked uncomfortable with the idea but he was definitely more willing to keep reading a play in this game. Last year he took off for no reason too often.

Defense Was Solid

The defense was pretty excellent, particularly the front. State left some explosives out there in the secondary, but it gobbled up the ECU run game. There are some players in this group. Slone and Harsh were unblockable. Fordham and Brown were solid. Josiah Victor really stood out too. Very impressed with this whole group. If you wanted to see a picture to sum up Sabastian Harsh's night, it is below.

Schematically, State was largely what we thought they would be. Eliot’s group played from a healthy mix of over fronts and tite fronts and shifted between them a lot. We also got to see the versatility of Harsh, Slone, Thomas, and other hybridized players. This was a basic creeper from the first half that did not fool the quarterback, but is a good example of how it could. 

State slants the front, rushes Brown, and drops Harsh. This is called a creeper. A worse quarterback seeing the space for the inside slant could be fooled by this and throw a nasty interception. That's the theory behind a lot of this scheme at work. It's always creating ambiguous pictures because of its ability to do this.

This inside move from Slone is crazy.

Good stuff here from Josiah Victor and Isaiah Shirley to create penetration and knockback against ECU's outside zone. Victor is going to be a star for this program.

The best thing about the defensive front in this game was that everything looked less blockable. State was very poor creating penetration and getting off blocks last season. It really struggled to fit the run, but it also added a lot of pressure for itself to be perfect there because it wasn’t disrupting plays at all. Harsh and the interior of the line were problematic, even catastrophic, for ECU’s run game, and the linebackers got off blocks better than they ever did last year. Everything about the run defense looked solid, which is how ECU ended up with like 12 rush yards or whatever horrible number it posted. 

State's is down a man in the box here. I think you're going to get a two-gap technique from Cleveland, and Harsh is going to scrape with the changing gaps. ECU is running dart and Fordham is able to get off the block from the wrapper.

The back end of the defense left a little more to be desired. The corners were burned a couple of times on double moves in just pure man coverage. You should never be biting on a double move by Anthony Smith. He can do exactly one thing. The zone coverages were also up and down. You want to see the zone do a better job of playing high to low. There were a couple instances of this.

This is a schemed shot play for ECU. A deep comeback with a post over the top, hoping to hold the top of the zone to the boundary. State is playing what looks like its own version of cover 3 buzz, and I think you want the boundary corner to gain a little more depth here and squeeze that post from underneath.

ECU deserves some credit. I know nobody gives a crap about a statement like that, but Houser was impressive to me. His comfort level was high and he showed some higher level processing. They got a good one there. I'm sure now that I've said this, he'll throw 11 interceptions next week.

State also tackled really well in space. That was a saving grace for some of these perimeter screens and things you got from ECU. A tackle in space can be the difference between 4 yards and 50, and three of those in a game can change the outcome. Loved seeing that. As a whole, this defensive performances exceeded my expectations pretty significantly.

Final Conclusions

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I found this game encouraging. I didn't. There are parts of the team that are much better than I thought they'd look in week one, but State needs a lot more consistency in the run game. Maybe that comes from Spike Sowells, who entered the game in the second half at right guard. Maybe it comes from some tinkering with how they run counter. Overall, we got more than expected from the defense and less than expected from the offense.

2025 marks the sixth consecutive season that NC State recorded a one-possession win over a group of five team. State has an incredible ability to deliver wins like this where everybody, regardless of affiliation, is upset leaving the stadium. On the other hand, State won 8 games in two of those seasons and 9 in the other two, so these games haven't really been an indictment of the team. Virginia next week will be pretty revealing I think. As the data points begin to pile up, we'll start to see what from this game is an indictment and what isn't.