State’s all-around play at South Florida was as sharp as their all-white road uniforms on Saturday, and we had some instant reaction posted here that includes some great commentary and discussion that I hope you appreciate as the differentiating factor for SFN out on the internet.
This comment taken from that entry provides some quick commentary on Saturday’s game as well as other tangential topics from Saturday:
We were ~ 3 pt favorites. I thought we’d win by about 4 if both teams played well. The only scenario that I envisioned more than a 14 point win was exactly what happened (got out ahead early and forced a bad passing USF team to throw). That was the best case scenario though, and we just hit my best case scenario. Therefor I was quite pleased.
My take aways:
– Taggart is a coach that we could have targeted, and I think that our hire was better.
– Skip left that program in shambles. I have thought and continue to think he jumped the shark at ECU.
– What Ruffin has done at ECU (big win @ VT) shows me that’s a school with some inherent advantages. A good coach can do very well there.
– That’s as complete a game as I’ve seen out of NC State since the RW years. That’s nothing against Glennon, but our defense tailed off hard and we had no running game with him at QB. It’s hard to be complete without a running game.
– USF has some speed here and there. They are a lot like us last year though in that they have no QB.
– We need to hold onto the ball on punts. I’d try Underwood there because he’s obviously fast and we need to get the ball in his hands.
– We played our third straight clean game from a penalty perspective. This is much improved.
– Yes, we beat a weaker team soundly, but I do think you can take something away from it. For a “major conference” team like that to be beaten so badly at home, they typically have turned it over. That really didn’t happen. This was just a methodical thrashing by moving the ball up and down the field and getting stops. That’s impressive.
– BC looked good against USC. Syracuse is quietly building too. Presbyterian and Wake are the only two games left where we’ll be heavily favored. We’re going to have to win some swing games (GT, UNC, BC, Syracuse) to hit 7-5 (where I thought we’d finish).
In Tampa, State’s balanced offense — 315 yards rushing and 274 yards passing — dictated the pace of the game. The Wolfpack had the ball a total of 38:49, ran a total of 86 plays and had 30 first downs.
Meanwhile, the defense was stifling. With three sacks and two interceptions, State held USF to only 10 points, eight first downs and 159 total yards, 75 of which came on a single busted play. USF also scored on a pick six against backup QB Garrett Leatham.
The final score was 49-17 but it wasn’t even that close.
USF is not a good team. But the most positive takeaway for State is that we jumped all over them early and then beat a bad team the way we should have.
Next up is Presbyterian at Carter-Finley, Saturday 6pm.
The following comment from the previously linked entry takes a more tepid view of Saturday but is hard to argue:
I know a lot aren’t going to like this but I think we learned less from this game than we did from GSU/ODU. (I’ll admit I didn’t see more than the first quarter due to the weather/satellite) I’m going back to the you can only take away negative when you play bad competition and USF may be one of the worst FBS teams there is this year. Remember they were beyond awful last year, they struggled to beat Western Carolina giving up tons of yards and points, they lost to Maryland at home after MD had 6 TO’s. My point is the close game against MD is the anomaly for an awful team, not an indicator of a potential decent team.
I wish I could have seen most of the game to see what mistakes State made that were carrying over from the other games this year. The few things I saw was mainly Burris stumbling to give up the first TD, Cherry not lining up on the line that negated a 40 yard run by Brissett before the end of the half, Cherry dropping the punt catch twice which led to a FG on the second one. MVS should be nicknamed Stonehands, he’s repeatedly dropped numerous easy passes that have hit his hands all year. (If I got some names wrong sorry).The only positives you can really take away from this, in my opinion, are the intangibles: confidence (though it may be false confidence if the staff and players feel too good about what they did).
I’m happy for an easy win and having a quality QB again but I think USF showed it’s still as bad as they were last year and State showed just how bad you can be when you don’t have a QB, instead of thinking State showing they are better than we thought.
Consequently the game against Presbyterian will be more of the same.
