When news broke two weeks ago that senior running back Shadrach Thornton would be dismissed from the NC State football team following his role in a moped accident that left a Raleigh man injured, Wolfpack fans were saddened but not completely overwhelmed.
With Thornton’s collegiate career ending in disciplinary issues, the Georgia native, who has been projected to go as high as the third round in the 2016 NFL Draft, unquestionably hurt his draft stock for the following season, and quite possibly damaged it beyond repair. The reality of such a talented Wolfpack running back depleting his chances of becoming a highly drafted professional athlete in the NFL gave State fans reason to feel sorrowful in regards to Thornton’s future; however, when looking at the Wolfpack team moving forward, optimism still remained.
Although Thornton was valued as the Pack’s top running back at the beginning of the season, junior Matthew Dayes stepped into the spotlight in the Pack’s first four games with 100-plus rushing yards in each contest to go along with nine touchdowns. With Thornton serving a two-game suspension at the beginning of the season for breaking an unspecified team rule, Dayes performed impressively in his featured role, compiling 126 rushing yards and two touchdowns against Troy and 116 rushing yards with three touchdowns against Eastern Kentucky.
Even after Thornton’s return against Old Dominion, Dayes still managed 108 yards and a touchdown against the Monarchs and 104 yards to along with three touchdowns against South Alabama. With these impactful performances at the start of the season, the Wolfpack rushing attack appeared to be in good hands even after the dismissal of Thornton. However, perspectives would soon change after Dayes mustered just 68 yards rushing and one fumble in State’s first conference game against the Louisville Cardinals.
Since the arrival of Dayes back in 2013, the Weston, Florida native has always been used as the secondary back to Thornton while also giving the team some solid receiving numbers each game. The duo of Thornton and Dayes combined for 3,730 all-purpose yards in 2013 and 2014 with a total of 32 touchdowns. Nevertheless, when playing against in-conference foes, Dayes averaged just 6.5 carries per game in 2013 and 2014. Also, consider this, of the 128 FBS level teams this year, the Pack faced the 86th, 113th and 114th best rushing defenses in Troy, South Alabama and Old Dominion respectively.
All that to say, Dayes is swimming in unchartered waters as the featured back for NC State in ACC matchups. Dayes carried the ball 19 times against Louisville on Oct. 3, which notched the most touches he has ever received in a conference game. The previous mark for Dayes was 11 carries against Wake Forest on Nov. 15 of last year.
Whether or not the performance of Dayes against Louisville was simply an off-game or indicative of the fact that Dayes is not equipped to be a running back that carries the ball upwards of twenty times per game in the ACC is yet to be seen. Dayes did appear better in Friday’s loss against Virginia Tech as the junior’s yards per carry improved to 4.7; still, this average came after just 14 carries on the game.
To me, part of what made Dayes so special in 2014 came from his contrasting running style to Shadrach Thornton. Although both Dayes and Thornton exhibited great explosion off the ball and tremendous speed in the open field, Thornton liked to hit the gaps with power in contrast to Dayes’ preference of bouncing it to the outside and making defenders miss. The speedy Dayes served as such a nice complement to the downhill running style of Thornton. With Thornton taking the brunt of the carries per game, this allowed Dayes to stay fresh and give the Pack a strike of lightning in a bottle when they needed it.
With all this in mind, the NC State offense must continue to make some difficult decisions in the wake of Thornton’s dismissal. In 2014, the Wolfpack depended on the reliability of its running game to bail the team out when they needed the tough yards at the end of games. On Friday night, with the Pack in need of points in the fourth quarter, the offense looked to its running game once again to provide the team with life; however, the State rushing corps failed to give the Pack that extra boost as the team dropped its second straight game.
If the Wolfpack wants to make any sort of noise in the ACC this season, Matthew Dayes and the rest of the NC State rushing attack must fill the vacancy left by preseason first team, All-ACC member Shadrach Thornton or the Wolfpack coaching staff must begin to reinvent the Wolfpack offense with more responsibility being placed on redshirt senior quarterback Jacoby Brissett and the passing game.
