Thursday night was somewhat of a mixed bag. On the one hand, no one likes losing, despite the fact that NC State simply had better athletes than us the game was there for the taking, and the fact that after our first drive you couldn’t differentiate last year’s passing offense from this years are all clear negatives. On the other hand, if we’re honest and realistic they are a better team than us, composed of better individual talent, and we weren’t going to win unless we got some breaks. And breaks were not there to be had. No officials call that helped us (as we will get into a moment, quite the opposite), no takeaways, nothing that would let a 15 point upset happen. So use opening night as a measuring stick. Last year they beat us 41-10, and let’s be honest — the game wasn’t nearly that close. They were up 31-3 at the half and if they wanted to beat us by much more they could have. This year, we lost by 10, and weren’t totally out of the game until the last 2 minutes. This team is far, far better than it was a year ago. As I’ve said since the schedule was set, we just have to be able to turn that into wins on the road against teams that are beatable.
Beautiful night for football. Took a full two hours to get there from Fairfield, pulled into the parking lot at 5:10 and the main blue lot, opposite the stadium, was already full. Had to park on the left as you looked at the stadium. I can not remember the prime part of the blue lot full over 2 hours before a game in forever. And the crowd showed from that. If you’re asking me how many fans were in the stadium (recognizing that our “40 k” capacity includes all players, stadium workers, etc. who aren’t in the stands, and I think the stadium seats around 38 to 38.5k), I’d say about 33k, clearly the best crowd since Michigan 11 years ago. And maybe more students since — well — ever. Eventually we have to get people to show up and actually pay for their tickets, but it was great to see an almost full house. Credits to thone who made it happen. And the game was competitive, and one which most people stayed with for a long time.
So we lost a game we stayed in. We lost for two reasons. One, as I said, they simply have more athletes on their squad then we do, and it would have taken something other than winning winnable individual battles to get the W. And in fact, the something else was the refs and it went the other way. Both of State’s scoring drives in the 2d half were helped on by penalties that weren’t “not” penalties but didn’t have to be called either. On the Rosa penalty, that set up the short kickoff and giving them under 30 yards to go for the clinching TD, I will be the first to admit that I don’t know the exact letter of the rule — maybe he did break one that had to be called. But he didn’t taunt anyone, and his individual flip celebration was no worse than we see after most TDS (or even sacks or takeaways) that are done without taunting. I am all for cracking down on taunting fouls, but I don’t know why that was worse than what we see all the time. On the drive that preceded Rosa’s run, the PI on bin Wahad was frustrating as heck, because he had position, he had all day just to turn once for the ball and he didn’t, which allowed the call. There really wasn’t much contact, and given the potential PI’s not called on the Wolfpack this didn’t have to be called, but I get it. On the one after we stopped them on 4th and goal, that was worse. Again, I get what the ref called, and there was contact and Brown never looked for the ball, but Brown had position and the WR tried to go through him. I just don’t see how Brown was penalized for having position but not turning his head when he initiated no contact and because of the scramble didn’t know where the ball was coming from. But adding to the fact that these calls, while not flat our wrong, where not necessary is the fact that the Wolfpack were flagged once, for a false start, the entire game. This is football. To never find a single hold or interference — please.
O.k., offense, defense and special teams. On offense, the running game was fine. Rosa was obviously outstanding. There were no mistakes, other than the pick when we had to force things at the end of the game and Brewton getting in the wrong spot and running into a WR trying to take a shovel pass. On the first drive, we saw Fagnano do exactly what he was asked to do, including a nice throw that he had to sidearm on the run, and we were all hopeful. And then, the passing game looked like it did last year. And other than not making bad mistakes we didn’t see improvement. Other than Buckman receivers didn’t make tough catches, and many of the failed attempts for tough catches where were Fagnano didn’t need to make the catches tough. I was not surprised by a lack of arm strength, but I was surprised by how rarely he looked to a secondary receiver and that he didn’t have more touch. Look, it was opening night and this may be as good a pass defense as we play against all year. Let’s see how we do in Atlanta next week against a defense that got torched in the air by Rhode Island. But there is not question that in terms of passing opening night was both disappointing and troubling.
On defense, I thought we held up well against a good P-5 team. It wasn’t a great, dominant performance but it wasn’t supposed to be. Given how much we were on the field, other than not generating takeaways I don’t think you could have asked for much more. Durante Jones and Mitchell were really good. So was Jelani Stafford. I think Cross held up well playing for Dixon Williams (do we know what his injury was?). Other than that, we played a lot of folks (after the opening drive for a TD when the D came back out I think Mora made 8 changes to get his point across) and with one or two exceptions everyone was o.k. Yes, the offense they had came disproportionately from QB scrambles but you can’t take away everything from a good offense and I don’t think he ever gained more than 8 yards. The one defender whom I really thought looked unable to make plays at this level was Noah Plack in his debut. I need to see a much better job from him the next two games against lesser athletes. And, while he won’t play against many OTs as good as tonight, we need more from Eric Watts. He can’t be that quiet if we’re going to pull a big upset this year.
On specials teams, not a lot to say. Caratan looked much better punting the ball, Bruckman was safe on punt returns but didn’t let the ball bounce, Brewton looked dangerous on his one KR. McFadden does not have the leg strength that Noe Rulas does and shouldn’t be kicking off. If he is taking placements, fine, but I don’t get why he kicked off as well. His lack of leg strength, combined with Rosa’s penalty, poor coverage for the only time that night and then the unnecessary roughness (which I didn’t see so I won’t comment on, other than hoping the player who took the hit is o.k.) all contributed to take us out of the game.
I thought coming in that there are 5 games we’ll be material dogs in (NC State and Duke at home and Tenn, BC and JMU on the road), SHU, FIU, USF and USU at home and at UMass, and winnable road games at Rice and Georgia State that last year we would have lost because Road. Now, opponents may be better or worse than everyone anticipated pre-season, and Georgia State was lucky to beat Rhodes on Thursday, and I’m not saying we won’t pull a big upset or two, but Saturday night’s game is a most win. Get to Duke at 2-1 and we’ll be where we should have reasonably hoped to be. And let’s see what a passing offense that looked anemic on Thursday can do against a passing defense that was torched by a FCS team.
I’ll try to be more concise for week 2, but like with our passing offense it was opening night — be patient.
