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This NC State team makes everything look so hard. It lost yet another winnable football game on Saturday, this time putting on full display how much resistance it really can create for itself. Duke had 276 total yards and was 0-9 on third down, but it didn’t matter. State found a way to lose.
The Wolfpack actually put together one of its better defensive efforts of the season, save one specific highly-paid cornerback. The Blue Devils had 31 rushing yards in the game. If you had told me that would be the total, I would have picked State to win by 10 points. Alas, the offense descended into the void. Maybe the reason why Dave talks about complementary football so much is because he daydreams of a world where his offense and defense are both good, or at least not chronically self-destructive, at the same time. Saturday night did not occur in that world.
Quarterback play, running back play, and wide receiver play all receive failing grades for this game. The skill positions were totally MIA, Anae did them little favors, and the result was this noxious concoction of poor fundamentals and self-destruction. Plainly, the offense was horrible and deserved to lose. It gave up a safety and two short fields, directly contributing to 12 Duke points. It only really produced 16, giving it the rare distinction of almost actually mathematically beating itself.
State didn’t become something different from a week ago. The play calling was largely similar, save some QB draw and a Bubble RPO on its own two yard line, from which I can only assume it just hates itself. It ran a lot of inside zone and a lot of four verticals. Duke played a lot of man coverage so it ran more man beaters, but by and large, it did not get away from what worked last week. The level of execution was just terrible.
Running Back Struggles
I’m not sure what to make of Jordan Waters. Coming out of Duke, this was a physical running back with a really impressive tape behind the line of scrimmage. He read plays really well, had better lateral movement than you’d expect from a guy that size, and was really good at adjusting his track to changing blocking leverage. He was skilled and difficult to get on the ground with an arm tackle. For State, it just hasn't panned out.
This is fine at the beginning but the defensive tackle starts to fight over Anthony Carter at left guard. Waters should bend this one gap farther back. There is a lot of space over there, and he doesn't see it. This was his biggest miss of the game, and he was honestly fine after this. Smothers had rough day. He can get a little bit of a pass as a freshman, but not this much of one. This is the same stuff we watched last year with a completely different set of running backs.
This is inside zone, and it's really poor from the back. The aiming point for the back is the play-side A gap. When the center blocks to the back side, as he does here, this play should bang right through the A gap. This is a great play from the line on the front side. Smothers takes the ball to the complete wrong side of the formation. The running backs have put some pretty questionable runs on tape this year. It's not a stretch to say this is the worst one. Where are you going exactly?
State seems to struggle to run block to the same standard in short yardage, but they were pretty good in this game in everything other than one or two short yardage plays. The amount of missed opportunities is crazy. I bet the running game has left 500 yards on the field this season. It's enough to make a grown man cry.
State eventually abandoned the run game. It ended with almost 50 dropbacks and around 20 designed runs, a huge problem against a defense that is really into aggression and creative blitz packages. The line was better than any of the skill positions. Truthfully, it was fine, good enough to win, when it got its calls right, but it did not get its pass protection calls right every time. Here’s a nasty miss.
I think State is in a full slide protection here, which means each lineman is responsible for the gap to their left. That would make Peak at right tackle responsible for the guy who goes untouched. If it's a combo protection, that would make McKay the one who messed up. One of those two guys got the call wrong. This happened a couple different times, so that's cool I guess.
Pass Game Lacked Everything
CJ Bailey was bad and really struggled with accuracy at all levels. Duke played a lot of man coverage, and Anae came out in the second half with a high volume of crossing routes and slants. The receivers are there to win in these types of routes, but Bailey missed a lot of the throws and most of the balls that were able to reach the hands of the receivers just bounced off of them anyway.
Here are some of the passing concepts from this week that are referenced below.
It was a lot of cover 1 robber for Duke, which looks like this.
The idea is to play with one safety and play one zone defender shallow that can prevent crossing routes commonly run against man coverage. State had the answers to this, but couldn’t execute any of it. Bailey was consistently behind receivers and the Pack racked up at least five drops, three of which occurred on three consecutive plays. Nobody made anybody else's job easier. Here are some examples of all of this.
Duke brings five and plays a standard cover 1 robber. State runs a levels concept on the field side. The safety will take away the inside fade on the boundary side and the rat or robber player will take away Joly running the innermost in-breaker. Bailey is right to get to KC, and KC wins by roughly two miles. This ball is fine, and Concepcion just drops it.
Here's levels and ohio against the same cover 1 robber look.
Bailey looked at the outside fade first and then came back to the levels concept on the field side. These in-breakers with KC are great against man coverage because he consistently wins. The freshman QB tries to layer this ball over the rat player and it's honestly tough to tell how catchable it was from the TV angle. It's definitely high. That's the problem with the robber. I would have rather seen State put a larger receiver like a Justin Joly in that spot and put KC on the outside since the interior dig route may need to catch a more elevated ball and the outside route is probably the one you should be looking toward against this coverage. Rogers is over there but he doesn't win like Concepcion does.
This was the interception.
This is actually against what looks like a cover 3 variation, although it's hard to tell. State runs a drive concept, which is stacked crossing routes. This can win against man with the receivers winning at the break or against zone by vertically conflicting the interior zone defenders. Bailey is to his right first, and we don't know to what because we can't see it. With the drive concept, Bailey's read becomes the hook defender when it's zone. He reads it out right when he gets back to it, throws it behind Joly, and then Joly can't complete a difficult catch.
This is your glance RPO
It's an easy read for Bailey to pull this ball and throw it. He sails it badly.
Beyond the accuracy, he's missed opportunities with his reads. State runs HOSS a lot. It's a versatile play that can create free access throws and downfield shots depending on the coverage. The problem for State is that Bailey doesn't like throwing the vertical seam routes that allow for explosive plays. He's thrown the seam vertical well out of four verts the last two weeks when he doesn't have a hitch route anywhere. When you give him the opportunity to be cautious, he takes it more than he should. That's the rub that we were seeing earlier in the year, and what we thought he had grown out of.
State missed a touchdown here in HOSS.
There is some ambiguity to the presnap look, as Duke could easily play cover 3 or cover 2/4 from this picture. It ends up being cover 3. That's clear immediately after the snap, and at that point, Bailey should look at Justin Joly. The safety is rolling to the boundary side away from Joly, and you know you'll have a 2-on-1 in the seam area. If you get a linebacker or nickel carrying Joly's vertical, you still have a major mismatch. You don't, and he's just totally wide open. Instead, he looks first at the boundary hitch, and then to KC's seam route when the flat defender cuts off the hitch. KC is capped by the safety, and Bailey can throw neither. It's like he saw a closed look in the middle of the field and didn't even consider throwing the seam route until the hitch was burned.
In HOSS, every route is on the table against cover 3, and there is no progression. You have your choices as a quarterback. He tried to take the free access throw. What's frustrating about is that, as mentioned, Bailey has thrown the seam vertical well this year when he's uncorked it.
This should have been an easy completion.
Bailey is expecting to be on a hot read here with the seven-man pressure showing. Duke only ends up bringing five, but they still manage to get some pressure. KC's sit route should be the hot read here, but Bailey ends up not being hot. Regardless, it's wide open. The quarterback never climbs the pocket, and even though he is looking at the sit route, he doesn't throw the ball.
Final Conclusions
State genuinely has some pieces, but it isn’t a good enough football team to futz around all game and win. The opponents don’t need help. If the Pack could execute consistently, it would be 7-3 at worst. This team plainly threw away this game just like it did against Syracuse. It had eight redzone possessions between the two games and scored two touchdowns. It ran a play in opposing territory on 12 drives between the two games, and scored two total touchdowns. It didn't score at all on five of those drives.
State can’t sustain drives because it implodes. Inevitably, it melts itself. That is one pretty concrete throughline with Doeren’s teams. It can’t escape this need to layer mistakes in between every positive thing, forever preventing it from seizing opportunities it creates for itself. KC winning on a slant route by three yards and then dropping a ball that was thrown behind him is the perfect metaphor. The Pack has the horses to win against every team on this schedule other than Clemson and Tennessee, but it can’t get out of its own way.
State was like this last year too. It could have beaten Notre Dame last season and definitely should have beaten Louisville. It can compete in the trenches. It can win in man coverage. It can do the things it needs to do to match up, but it can’t put all the pieces together. 2023 State rallied, leaving those instances largely forgotten. This season, it will be the defining characteristic.
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