NC State squeaked out a close win in its trip to Syracuse, beating the Orange 36-29 Saturday afternoon. The game came down to the last play, clearly a mental error, where quarterback Rex Culpeper spiked the ball on fourth down in an attempt to stop the clock before it expired, instead it resulted in a turnover on downs for the Orange. It was an end that fully embodied a pretty messy game of football.
“Winning ugly’s OK,” said head coach Dave Doeren after the game. “It’s a lot better than losing, I can tell you that.”
Quarterback
Redshirt junior Bailey Hockman was one of the few bright spots in the game. NC State would not have won the game without the impressive performance of Hockman. He threw for 313 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. The one interception was hardly his fault as it popped out of graduate student receiver C.J. Riley’s hands after he took a shot in the back from a Syracuse defender.
Hockman’s great day came in spite of the rest of the offense struggling around him. There was no place to hide since the Wolfpack struggled to establish the run game and the offensive line couldn’t block a thing. While I’ll get to the details later, Hockman had every reason to throw in the towel, but instead, he carried the Wolfpack to a come-from-behind victory.
Grade: A+
Running Backs
It’s hard to tell where the poor offensive line play ended and the poor running game began. In defense of the running backs, they had some good runs when they got into space. Unfortunately, they didn’t have many opportunities to get into space as they were often stuffed at the line of scrimmage.
Sophomore Zonovan Knight was the only ball carrier to have success, running for 57 yards on 11 carries and a touchdown. The rest of the team struggled to get anything going on the ground, combining for only 38 additional yards, with no other rusher earning even 4 yards per carry.
Grade: C
Wide Receivers
Hockman did a great job putting the football where only his guys could catch it, but the wide receiving core still had to make some great plays. The receivers hauled in all four of Hockman’s touchdowns, and they certainly weren’t all easy catches.
After failing to catch a single pass in NC State’s game against Liberty, redshirt junior Thayer Thomas led all receivers in yards and touchdowns. He brought in nine receptions for 102 yards and three touchdowns. This was his second 100-yard game in NC State’s past three games. The only other receiving touchdown was caught by senior Emeka Emezie, as he was falling out of the side of the end zone and reaching over a defender. In addition to the touchdown, he had four receptions for 33 yards on the day.
Grade: A
Offensive Line
There wasn’t much that went well for this group. The Wolfpack had only allowed 21 sacks through its first nine games of the season. Against Syracuse, it allowed six sacks, 10 tackles for loss and one quarterback hurry. The offense line certainly has a lot of things to work on before NC State takes on Georgia Tech in its regular season finale. If it doesn’t improve, NC State runs the risk of another tight game against an inferior team.
Grade: D-
