NC State, The Good,The Bad, The UGLY

Da’rick who?

CP’s debut for this team was absolutely phenomenal! I’m really starting to believe that he will be an upgrade over Rogers rather than a replacement. He is an outstanding talent and will only get better as he becomes more confident in this scheme. Despite Justin Hunter’s statistics, I can’t shake the feeling that he had an off night. He made a few pretty big mistakes, especially when he made that catch and summarily ran in the wrong direction when the first down was only a few feet away. Hopefully Justin will be able to regain his confidence as the season progresses.

Tyler Bray took the first step this year in cementing his legacy. He had an impeccable performance tonight against a quality defensive backfield. If he can continue to play like this, we will be just fine this season.

Now, no offense to Rajion Neal, but I’m going to go ahead and say that I think Marlin Lane should start for this team. Neal simply did not show the consistency or the ability to hit and commit to a running lane to be a starting runningback in the SEC. He certainly had his moments tonight, particularly on the touchdown run, but Marlin was far more willing to find a hole in the defense and commit to it whether the offensive line is blocking or not.

Which leads me to my next point. The offensive line is vastly improved this year. Tyler Bray was not touched by the defense all night and the run blocking was much better. I still want to see more consistent run blocking as it appears we relapsed into old habits every now and then, but it seems as though the line has really turned the corner. Also there are never any excuses for false starts. Hopefully the coaches will work out that problem with Tiny Richardson.

Now, moving to the defensive side of things. My general evaluation of the unit is that this is the most fundamentally sound football game I’ve seen from this defense since Derek Dooley arrived on campus. There were some exceptions, but for the most part the tackers were surer and the hits were harder. I found it frustrating that NCST consistently gained two or three extra yards after initial contact when running the ball which could prove problematic when we come against some better runingbacks like Latimore. But for the most part, the front seven were very sound in run defense and in the pass rush. We do need to make sure those QB hurries translate into QB sacks more often than not though and we need to contain scrambling QB’s better.

The secondary is probably the weakest area of this team. That should inspire a lot of confidence considering the number of interceptions we got tonight. But early on in the game, our secondary and, in particular, our safeties were severely out of position. A lot of this has to do with scheme changes, but I also saw a lot of guys back there not watching for the ball after it had been thrown and was heading their way. Hopefully as the season progresses the secondary will become more knowledgeable and more confident.

In short, I feel like we learned a lot about our team. Many of our concerns heading into the season turned out to be a mute point. But we also identified some problems that need fixing before we enter the meat of our SEC schedule. To be honest, I really like opening with big games. It lets us know more about the identity of our football team.