Well That Sucked

In the last two calendar years, NC State has played 17 power five teams. It has rushed for over 200 yards in six of those games. It is 5-1 in those six games. In the 11 where it has not, it is 1-10. In the games where it rushed for 200 yards, it has averaged 40 points. In the games where it has not, it has averaged 21. 

The point here is incredibly obvious and not exactly groundbreaking. State does not have the firepower elsewhere to win if it can’t run the ball. So you might find yourself asking how NC State pushed around a top 10 team two weeks ago and followed that up with this atrocity. Well, Georgia Tech is 105th in the country in rush defense and Miami is 8th (prior to Saturday).

Basically everything that happened on Saturday against the Canes at least resembled what we were expecting, although most of it was turbocharged. Miami’s offense had plenty of success while the Pack’s run game accounted for 23 total yards. Carson Beck was efficient as every quarterback has been against State. This defense was 115th in the country in opponent yards per attempt, allowing 8.3. It will fall into the bottom 15 in the country after Saturday. Meanwhile, Bailey averaged four yards per attempt, the worst of his entire career.

Bailey was only sacked once but the pressure was a constant problem. His process was sped up all game and State had to dig deep into its passing game bag trying to create some explosives. This led to a lot of full-field reads and potentially long-developing plays against a strong pass rush that was pinning its ears back, as they say. Roper could not afford to simplify and lean on the run game like he could against Georgia Tech. 

Being able to run the ball means more than just more rushing yards. It changes a lot for the defense and opens the playbook to some simple reads that can really stress the conflict of the defense if they’re concerned about the ground game. State sent an early message that it went ahead and pre-abandoned the run. Normally, I would whine about this, but let’s be honest. State was not about to run on this team, and that made life hard. In theory, you could still try to live in some quick game concepts in an attempt to manufacture a rhythm for the quarterback amidst the pressure. I doubt there are any answers that change much about Saturday, but it was mildly annoying how State didn’t try very hard to do that. 

Miami’s defense, in addition to just being large, fast, and skilled, did several things scheme wise that State did not handle well. The canes disguised a lot of coverages and Bailey was fortunate to only throw two picks. He got got by these several times. The first interception was a cover 3 sky coverage (cover 3 from a 2-high shell). The second looked to be what we call a non-traditional tampa. In both instances, Bailey made a bad play but had little chance anyway because of the pass rush. 

A lot is wrong here. Bailey locks on to Joly and does a poor job keying the width of the safety. Ideally, if you’re going to hit Joly, that safety is influenced by Grimes’ route. Bailey is also hot on this play. The pass protection is 3 on 4 on the right side because of the cat blitz. It’s relatively common practice to have sight adjustments for your wide receivers in order to create hot reads in plays where they aren’t built in. For example, if the defender lined up over you blitzes, you get your eyes back to the QB immediately. State does not have this in play for Wesley Grimes. The closest thing this play has to a hot read is on the other side, and if that’s how it’s ran, then the protection should be slid the other way. You end up with 4 possible rushers on the right side and 3 in protection, and all of them come. Everything about this went badly. 

Bailey comes off the post way too soon here. The key read is the middle safety. This is a dagger concept. Ideally, the post carries him and creates a void for the crosser. If he doesn’t carry the post, which he looks pretty flat-footed here, then you just throw the post. Bailey comes off the post immediately and the safety has an easy time reading his eyes and robbing the underneath route. The process is way too fast here, but that’s not all on the quarterback. Miami runs a nickel creeper and creates a ton of pressure right through the A gap.

The Canes would also stem their front and bring a fifth rusher off the edge on a ton of plays. State struggled to sort this out and it gave up penetration in the run game, particularly early on. Slanting defensive linemen has caused some issues for the Pack all year. Miami also hit State with several cat blitzes and nickel/safety pressures that every element of the passing game look unprepared for. As noted, Bailey got stuck as a hot quarterback with no hot read on the pick six. 

That’s all I have for you. I can’t imagine that many people really want to read about this game where almost exactly zero things went well. I don’t think this was that surprising of a result, though. This sport is about matchups, and this was a really bad one. The Pack has to get one of the last two to make a bowl, and at this point, it feels like both could either way.