The NC State football team suffered its first loss of the season in a 33-30 game against East Carolina Saturday — the Pack’s first nonconference loss since it played ECU back in 2013. Coincidence or not, here is a look at what went well and what went bad for the Pack in Greenville, North Carolina.
Good
Additional playmakers emerge
By now, everyone should know about the Wolfpack’s (1-1) top-two playmakers — senior running back Matt Dayes and junior tight end Jaylen Samuels. In the season opener against William & Mary, those two combined for all 70 yards on the first drive alone and finished the game combining for 246 yards. NC State needed other players to step up against ECU, and a handful of guys did that.
Perhaps the biggest playmaker for the Pack on Saturday was wide receiver Stephen Louis, a redshirt sophomore. With senior Jumichael Ramos redshirting this year due to injury, someone needed to step up to fill his void, and Louis may be that guy.
Louis finished the game with 142 receiving yards and a touchdown on just three catches, good for the second-most receiving yards in a game in the Dave Doeren era, according to NC State Athletics. The majority of his yardage came on an impressive 80-yard catch-and-run touchdown, in which he caught the ball over the defender, broke a tackle and outran all the other defenders to the end zone. He had no catches in the second half, which was concerning, but the first half was a promising step for Louis.
Sophomore Reggie Gallaspy II showed signs as a promising backup to Dayes Saturday, carrying the ball five times for 61 yards, including a tough 37-yard touchdown run, the longest of his career. Gallaspy has a good blend of speed and power and has played well in relief of Dayes in the first two games.
With the exception of a couple of errant throws, redshirt sophomore quarterback Ryan Finley played very well, finishing with 254 yards and a touchdown while completing 20 of 31 passes. He also added a crucial 15-yard rushing touchdown that gave the Pack the lead early in the fourth quarter. Finley did a good job of taking more shots down the field, evidenced by the big play to Louis, which was something he didn’t do much of against the Tribe in the season opener.
Bad
Special teams
With the exception of an impressive 61-yard punt by sophomore A.J. Cole III at the end of the fourth quarter, the special teams unit struggled for most of the game. On the ensuing kickoff, after what ended up being ECU’s game-winning touchdown, sophomore wide receiver Nyheim Hines muffed the kick, causing NC State to get stuck inside its own 5-yard line. Hines is a very talented and dynamic player with a ton of potential, but that was a costly mistake.
Another mistake came on a fake field goal attempt, which appeared to be an option play between Cole and sophomore kicker Kyle Bambard. It was a gutsy play call, and Bambard’s high school background suggested he had the athleticism to pull it off, but it was ultimately unnecessary to pass up a short field goal, even with the team’s field goal struggles.
Speaking of the field goal struggles, perhaps the biggest blunders were the two missed field goals by graduate kicker Connor Haskins. The 42- and 44-yard attempts were makeable for a kicker at any level, and if he had made just one of those, the dynamic of the game would’ve been changed.
Pass defense
The NC State defense struggled against the pass for most of the game, as quarterback Philip Nelson completed 33 of 43 passes for 297 yards and a touchdown. Additionally, junior wide receiver Quay Johnson caught all 13 of his targets for 75 yards. Granted, most of those were very short completions, but allowing that many completions without fail to one receiver is almost unheard of. Senior Zay Jones added seven catches for 73 yards.
Late-down conversions
The Wolfpack was 4 of 11 on third-down conversions while the Pirates were 7 of 17. Take those percentages alone and the gap doesn’t seem that big; however, add in that the Pack was 0 of 1 on fourth-down conversions and ECU was 3 of 3, that’s a fairly significant gap. The Pirates converted half of their late-down conversions compared to NC State converting just one-third.
Silver Lining
The Wolfpack has some things to work on, but it has plenty of time to fix it with what should be an easy matchup against Old Dominion next week followed by a bye week. State has talented players on both sides of the ball that could help the team get to .500 despite its tough schedule down the road.
