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Supermassive NCSU Football Preview: Secondary

NC State needs to post better passing defense numbers in 2026. The sky is blue, water is wet, and BBQ is a food, not an activity. Obvious statements are obvious. For most of last season (but not the entire season), State's defense was unregulated air space.


It’s not all on the secondary. We covered the pass rush in the previous article, but the secondary is very much included in the gaudy passing numbers NC State allowed a year ago. The Wolfpack allowed 7.6 yards per dropback, which was good for 113th nationally, and opponents had a 43.6% success rate throwing the ball, which placed State outside the top 80. 


Explosive plays through the air were a huge storyline for last year’s group, and no doubt solving that was an offseason priority. The bad news is that the Wolfpack said goodbye to Devon Marshall, who was easily the best defensive back on the team. The good news is that this group definitely got better in the final quarter of the season, and several of the pieces that played in those games are back. State allowed 7.8 yards per attempt for the entire season (105th), but that number was just 5.4 over the last three games (8th!!). 


Some of that is a product of a better pass rush, some of it is a product of less than stellar quarterback play, but some of it was also a product of improved secondary play. State cycled through a fair amount of bodies last year, but four of the five starters from the last three games are back. Despite a rough 2025 overall, there is some reason for optimism in the secondary. 


Safety is where the Pack could make significant strides. It was probably the worst position on the field last year. JJ Johnson was supposed to be a life raft for a group that was gutted by the transfer portal, but he was awful, and Ronnie Royal did not look ready to be out there. Down the stretch, State got some nice flashes from Asaad Brown and Tristan Teasdell, and it also added King Mack from Penn State, who figures to start and is one of the better players it pulled. 


Mack covers ground well on the back end and he should be a good anchor in coverage for the defense. In addition general coverage stuff, Mack has some worthwhile tape fitting the run from depth, which NC state will ask for sometimes when it plays from a two-high shell. This was not always a great process last year, but I think Mack should improve it.


Asaad Brown finished the year at safety alongside Tristan Teasdell. Both are back. Brody Barnhardt also returns, who understandably wasn't great in his first career games. All three of these guys got some valuable burn last year in addition to Ronnie Royal. King Mack figures to start at one of the safety spots. There are enough bodies to compete for the other spot that it would be a rather impressive toe stubbing to find nothing serviceable there.


Teasdell played hard and clearly wanted it, which is nice. He is tiny, but willing to tackle, play in the box, and fit the run correctly. That last part I think was the most impressive part of his brief stint. Brown was also a good tackler at the end of the season. Everyone that played safety for State last year has improving to do, but Brown and Teasdell showed a good framework for the position with their ability to at least execute the rules correctly and understand route distribution.


Here is Teasdell adding to the run fit off the motion and making a physical tackle.
Here is Teasdell adding to the run fit off the motion and making a physical tackle.

State has growing positivity at nickel too with Jackson Vick returning. Vick is another guy who looked like he was having a real rough time out there halfway through the season but finished up strong. I particularly remember the Notre Dame game being a very bad day for him, but the trajectory was altered after that mid-season stretch. His general field awareness in zone and pattern matching coverage structures was notably better later in the year, and that's something that State as a whole was lacking (read: garbage at) early in the season.


Brian Nelson and Ondre Evans are your likely starters at corner. Nelson played in every game and started the last three games of the year], while Evans transferred in from Georgia. I don't really buy Brian Nelson as a high-end corner, despite some All-ACC mentions preseason, but he's not bad. In most of the all-22 I have has him aligned to the field side, which is generally the corner that's tested less in one-on-ones. Not sure how that will play out this year, but I'm interested in seeing him with a larger workload. I have absolutely no idea what Ondre Evans will give NC State. He was a big-time recruit who did not play at Georgia in either of his first two years. It's definitely a question mark as to how well these guys are ready to hold up.


The biggest difference between the beginning of the year and the end of the year was just the mechanics of the coverage schemes starting to function better. State had more guys on the same page, so it was busting less, it was guarding grass less, and it was able to realize the strengths of its coverage schemes more. It still lost some. I think the safeties could be better at the break of the route when they're picking up verticals in quarters, for example. But you have a base here to build from.


My big question here is what State’s coverage distribution will look like. This was a quarters heavy team for the early parts of the season, and that is what it wants to be. It tried to play more cover 1 where it could through the second half, as it was clearly struggling to get the nuances down. Just like the defensive front, it went through a lot of changes last year. 


The team is generally a quarters base and it likes to use cover 3 rotations and tampa 2 as change ups for the coverage. From a pure coverage perspective, so excluding the impact on run fits, I think corner play probably determines the path this defense takes. If it's good, it helps minimize the explosive threats a quarters defense faces and it also gives you more confidence to even the box and play man. If it doesn't, it's going to have fewer answers. When you look at the explosive passes State allowed last year, a lot of it boils down to three concepts.


Post rout hi-lo reads (Mills, Yankee)


The dig route from the inside receiver on the bottom of the screen causes the safety to bite down, leaving Marshall covering a post route with not help over the middle of the field. Marshall loses. The drop is lucky. State will see this from almost every team it plays. The best solution is a good pass rush, but it will definitely stress the corners.
The dig route from the inside receiver on the bottom of the screen causes the safety to bite down, leaving Marshall covering a post route with not help over the middle of the field. Marshall loses. The drop is lucky. State will see this from almost every team it plays. The best solution is a good pass rush, but it will definitely stress the corners.

Sting Routes


An out-and-up, an elongated double move, however you want to describe this, it's a shallow breaking route that then breaks vertical. State needs to handle these better for sure if it's going to play out of quarters. Again, pass rush eliminates this because it's so long developing, but your flat defenders have to be more aware. The example above is safety JJ Johnson being late to turn and run with the sting route.
An out-and-up, an elongated double move, however you want to describe this, it's a shallow breaking route that then breaks vertical. State needs to handle these better for sure if it's going to play out of quarters. Again, pass rush eliminates this because it's so long developing, but your flat defenders have to be more aware. The example above is safety JJ Johnson being late to turn and run with the sting route.

Mesh Plays


These things created issues all year, but it's one of several examples of things that got cleaned up a little later in the year. State had issues dealing with the crossing routes in mesh and exchanging responsibilities as intended. Watching State defend this play against Virginia, who ran it incessantly, was a bad time.
These things created issues all year, but it's one of several examples of things that got cleaned up a little later in the year. State had issues dealing with the crossing routes in mesh and exchanging responsibilities as intended. Watching State defend this play against Virginia, who ran it incessantly, was a bad time.

The fact that some of this stuff improved as the year went, despite the youth on the field, and you now return a lot of pieces from that improvement is reason for some optimism. The secondary is the most interesting unit on the field to me. Solid corner play and a more cohesive all around unit would give you some real juice here I believe. The hope is State can benefit from the extended reps for the youngins from last year.


This concludes our Supermassive Football Previews for 2026. Check all our previous previews below.






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