After losing in embarrassing fashion to North Carolina 48-21, NC State was blessed with a bye week and relatively easy back-half of the schedule. However, the schedule-makers did the Wolfpack no favors when they made the Miami Hurricanes, a team in all respects superior to North Carolina, its first opponent coming out of the break.
The offense, already hampered by the injury to redshirt sophomore quarterback Devin Leary, will have an especially tough time trying to get past this Miami defense, which has already smothered some offenses better than NC State’s this season.
Miami secondary
The takeaway bone has been a fun addition to the NC State sidelines, but now the Wolfpack is facing the team that made it cool to give its players props to use on the sidelines when they play well. And Miami’s turnover chain isn’t just icy, it gets pulled out often.
To start off, the Miami secondary alone has had three interceptions and four forced fumbles. Safety Bubba Bolden has been the do-it-all Swiss Army knife for the secondary, accounting for three of those forced fumbles and one of those interceptions. He’s also played in the box quite a bit this season, registering a sack and a team-leading 38 tackles, showing the fearlessness the Miami coaching staff has in showing opposing offenses some risky, yet exotic looks on defense.
Against Virginia, Alabama-Birmingham and Florida State, the Miami defense gave up a total of 565 passing yards, just over 188 passing yards per game. The only blips on the radar of this passing defense has been in games against some of the top quarterbacks in the conference: probable top NFL draft pick Trevor Lawrence from Clemson, underrated Malik Cunningham from Louisville and a surprising performance from Pittsburgh’s Joey Yellen.
Redshirt junior Bailey Hockman isn’t Lawrence or Cunningham, and he probably won’t surprise Miami like Yellen, so while senior Emeka Emezie and redshirt junior Thayer Thomas may, in fact, find some gaps in the secondary, it’s just not likely that they’ll do any damage when Hockman can’t get the ball in their hands.
Miami LBs
Bubba Bolden has already been talked about in the section about the secondary, but Miami has more than enough linebackers to talk about. To have a cache of linebackers like that makes the Miami defense one that other teams can’t just steamroll.
Gilbert Frierson – 26 tackles, fumble recovery
Bradley Jennings Jr. – 21 tackles, two sacks
Zach McCloud – 20 tackles, two sacks, forced fumble, fumble recovery
Sam Brooks Jr. – 16 tackles.
However, as deep as the linebacking corps has been for Miami, most teams have been able to run on them. Just Alabama-Birmingham and Pittsburgh have averaged less than 4 yards per carry against the Hurricanes.
That’s good news for Pack backs junior Ricky Person Jr. and sophomore Zonovan Knight, who not only need the extra confidence after combining for only 53 yards on 13 carries against UNC, but have generally played well against the rest of the ACC this season when given the opportunity.
It’s not even like the duo played poorly against UNC, as the game quickly got away from the Wolfpack and forced the offense to turn away from the run game early. The low workload for Knight and Person, along with the extra week to prepare, means they should be fresh against Miami.
Miami D-line
Miami has 15 sacks on the season, or about 2.5 sacks per game, but nine of those sacks have come from the defensive line, and a few in particular have snagged multiple sacks. Defensive lineman Jared Harrison-Hunte has three sacks on the year and may acquaint himself with Hockman often in this game.
Miami’s most versatile lineman, Quincy Roche, has collected 2.5 sacks of his own, but he’s also racked up 25 tackles, good for fourth on the team and six more than the next defensive lineman. He’s also worn the turnover chain a couple times for the Hurricanes this season, forcing a fumble and recovering two more.
The offensive line can perhaps hone in on Roche, but in doing that, they can create lanes for other pass rushers like Jaelan Phillips, who has 1.5 sacks to his name and an interception. Even if the Wolfpack offensive line stops Roche from getting to Hockman, his ability to tackle and get fumbles remains uninhibited.
That being said, Roche’s tackling hasn’t stopped teams from running on the Canes, as mentioned in the linebackers section. It’ll be interesting to see how Person and Knight fare against the first and second levels of the Miami defense, but as for the passing game, Hockman may as well kneel three times and punt to avoid getting hit in all directions.
