The Bull Case for C.J. Bailey in 2025

Ever tried making lemonade with lemons that weren’t ripe?

Oop, my bad. Probably better for me to direct that question to C.J. Bailey.

It’d be difficult to imagine a more adverse set of conditions for a freshman quarterback to step into:

• Senior quarterback knocked out of games - multiple times

• An offensive coordinator who turned out to be a complete silly goose

• ACC contending expectations

• Your #1, All-ACC wide receiver regressing into the fifth best on the team (per PFF)

  
  

Not surprisingly, ups and downs were had. C.J. engineered a game winning drive in California, looked like he was playing blindfolded against Duke, threw three picks against Georgia Tech, and then found Noah Rogers for “The Catch” against UNC - all in a span of six weeks.

A full offseason later, C.J. has the reins. There’s no surprises, no uncertainty around whose team this is. The Pack’s ceiling - and floor - rely on the quarterback’s ability to take a step forward. There’s plenty of film and numbers that support both breakout and breakdown. Because I think we could all use a little football juice right now, we’re diving into Bailey’s bull case.

There are many reasons to feel good about CJB taking a big step in year 2.

C.J. By The Numbers

Many things can be true at the same time.

C.J. was far from perfect and had some major struggles in key spots. His numbers also wound up...pretty good for a true freshman thrust into battle.

Stripping away the fact that he was an 18-year old freshman for a minute, his offensive PFF grade was 3rd highest on the team, ahead of NFLer and forever underrated Anthony Belton. On a national scale, he finished as the 42nd highest graded QB to play at least 50% of snaps in a season.

Adding his rookie-ness back in: C.J. was essentially tied for second in the country in PFF’s Wins Above Average for freshman quarterbacks. We're looking at how much better C.J. fared than an average, replacement level freshman QB:

That's above guys like Dylan Raiola and DJ Lagway, the latter of which is already being discussed as a top round draft pick in 2027.

We always have to take PFF stats with a grain of salt, but looking beyond box scores, it's obvious C.J. was solidly above average as a true freshman.

Sophomore slump...or jump?

As a longtime follower of college football, I’ve sort of blindly believed that, most of the time, true freshman quarterbacks get better as true ​sophomores.​ We’ve seen this in Raleigh: Devin Leary improved significantly from 2019 to 2020 pre-injury. Russ had his biggest improvement in passer rating from true freshman to true sophomore season.

I was surprised to find that reality for true sophomore quarterback jumps is much murkier than I thought. Some research I found pointed to quarterbacks making ​modest gains ​from true freshman to true sophomore years, ​others​ pointed to no strong correlation in improvement from year 1 to year 2.

Perhaps the most interesting came from ​this 2013 article​ from Matt Hinton and Football Study Hall found that most freshman quarterbacks regressed to the mean - so overachievers in year 1 took steps back in year 2, and strugglers in their first year improved. The exception was, of course, the uber talented blue chip quarterbacks.

This list in Matt’s article did catch my eye though. These are the true quarterbacks from 2008-2013 that started the majority of the season and averaged over a 130 passer rating:

Bailey checks both of these boxes (who finished 2024 with a 144 passer rating.) While he wasn't a blue chip recruit, he did finish inside the top 400 and landed as a 4 star recruit in 247's composite rating.

It was freaky how closely Teddy Bridgewater's statistical profile matched up with C.J.'s: Four star recruit, 14:12 TD ratio, ~65% completion rate, and 2,200 yards are all super similar to CJ’s first year. Pocket passer, from the Miami area. Sign me up for Teddy's Sophomore season right now:

It would be lunacy for me to sit here and tell you C.J. will be the next RG3, or even NFL starter Teddy Bridgewater. More on this in a second, but how many of these dudes had a worse set of circumstances than C.J.’s?

I would bet that improved coaching, high returning production, and a year to polish some freshman mistakes would put CJ’s year 2 improvement in the “significant’ camp versus the slackers.

Get Outta Here Bob

Things I would rather do than have Robert Anae back as State’s offensive coordinator:

• Stub my toe against a doorframe daily for the entire 25-26 season

• Complete my daily walk in hurricane conditions (s/o Hurricane Matthew and Notre Dame)

• Rewatch the Military Bowl before every Saturday tailgate

He was that bad.

It’s tough to know which offensive blunders to credit to whom. For example, criminally poor wide receiver rotations - do you pin that on Robert Anae, or Joker Phillips?

At some point it doesn't matter how you parse the blame, because there was the bucket of incompetence was overflowing. Not getting the ball to your best skill position players, keeping Hollywood off of the field for key spurts, turning your freshman QB who has never been a dual-threat quarterback into your leading rusher for long stretches, running counter with Jordan Waters when it was by far the least effective run option to start the year.

Pretty much everything that rolled up into Robert Anae's purview was poor.

I can remember watching the Pack run into 7 and 8 man boxes all night against Duke - but with Hollywood only rushing five times. Anae followed that up by passing 66% of the time against Georgia Tech, who gave them looks like this all night long:

Success in life is oftentimes about eliminating the “bad” in a given situation instead of adding more good. Eliminating catastrophic mistakes is the impactful thing here.

C.J. doesn’t need Kurt Roper to be a Broyles winning OC to take drastic steps forward. He just needs competence.

“I was hired to score points” is a quip Roper shared at an event earlier this year. In his introductor press conference, he talked about getting his most explosive guys on the field, and keeping things simple with plays that require fewer reads and are called with a single world.

Keep it simple, and get the ball to your best dudes. That philosophical adjustment - should it come to fruition - will be a big deal for Bailey.

Returning Production

Every great quarterback needs talent around him. C.J.’s got it.

In Bill Connelly’s February release of returning production, State ranked 18th in returning offensive production with 71%. I would argue that most of State’s valuable production is returning - guys like Jordan Waters, KC, and Dacari Collins are all gone, and that opens more room for true studs to (in theory) soak up more opportunities.

Justin Joly is a first team All-ACC caliber tight end. It would not surprise me to see him eclipse 1,000 yards this year.

Hollywood Smothers is an All-ACC running back. On average, he gained 7.72 yards every time he touched the ball last year. It would not surprise me to see him eclipse 1,000 total yards this year.

Noah Rogers and Wesley Grimes both have flashed and will have opportunity to do so without subpar play in front of them.

Folks continue to talk about redshirt freshman RB Duke Scott like State stole him from the State of Georgia. We haven’t seen what Jonathan Paylor can do - a full year in Raleigh should see him ready to contribute. Terrell Anderson and Keenan Jackson had their struggles but grew up quickly in sub-optimal spots.

If there are questions about this side of the ball, they are certainly lined up in front of Bailey.

Center Zeke Correll and now Packers tackle Anthony Belton are two huge losses for the group protecting Bailey. Tim McKay has also moved on. Replacing them will be difficult. Fortunately, State returns elite tackle Jacarrius Peak and All-ACC guard Anthony Carter.

That leaves you 3 spots to fill with a litany of guys. All-Mountain West Transfer Teague Andersen figures to start at right tackle, and has been strong from a pass protection perspective to date. Val Erickson and Kamen Smith are two right guard options whose film ranges from nasty to "not ready." Then there's the center battle of opposites: Purdue transfer Jalen Grant, with 40 starts to his name, and Spike Sowells, an uber-talented freshman with zero.

This is a pro Garrett Tujague newsletter and website - I think there are some good options here. Will State finish as a top 20 unit per PFF like they did last year? Maybe not, but I believe they'll be a respectable group that should give Bailey opportunities to make plays.

Basically what I’m saying is everything this chart already says. State has a lot returning on offense, and it’s pairing that production with a QB who fared well on an EPA/play basis as a true freshman:

I didn’t spend a ton of time on the negatives with C.J. because I like feeling good, and hope makes me feel good. Don’t get me wrong: he was far from a perfect quarterback in 2024. Some of the sacks he took and run-read decisions he made were horrific. Even worse in my opinion were the missed reads left on the field that should’ve led to six points. You can read more on Bailey's 2024 evaluation ​here​.

It’s possible these things continue in 2025 and State finds itself in a similar position to last season.

But there are many factors working in favor of the opposite outcome. Another year older, C.J. steps into a more stable, simple coaching situation. Plenty of talent for fireworks. It should all work.

In theory, of course.