Well, all the usual suspects were there again — penalties, failing to score touchdowns in the red zone and a final score with the smaller number beside N.C. State on the scoreboard.

But on a night when the offense changed its approach and threw the ball 53 times — 16 more than in any other game so far this year — the most disturbing aspect of the game which didn’t change was the play of the defense.

For the fifth time this year the defense allowed more than 140 yards rushing and more than 400 yards of total offense for the second time. It looked as if Georgia Tech could do whatever it wanted for most of the game.

Senior linebacker Pat Lowery said the team would load up against the run or lay back against the pass and the other would beat them.

“We were in a situation where we knew they were going to run the ball, but you have [No.] 21 [junior wide receiver Calvin Johnson] sitting out there too,” Lowery said. “It’s just pick your poison.”

Apparently the defense couldn’t pick, allowing both the run and the pass to hurt.

So why not just focus on trying to take away Johnson and make the running game beat you instead of trying to stop both?

“We had every conceivable thing that you would want to try against him,” coach Chuck Amato said about the defensive game plan against the 6-foot-5, 235-pound receiver.

But he wasn’t double-covered every play.

He’s the all-world receiver with the play-making ability to score every time he touches the ball.

But for some reason — mostly in the first half — Johnson found himself in one-on-one match-ups with Wolfpack cornerbacks. Senior cornerback A.J. Davis is good, but no one could be expected to cover him man-to-man. I don’t care if Deion Sanders is out there — I’ll take Johnson to win the majority of those battles.

Davis marveled at Johnson’s talent after the game.

“He’s definitely a threat,” he said. “And that was one of the things, going into the game that we knew we were going to have to switch a lot of the things we did against him. He played a very good game. That was probably one of the better games he’s had in his career.”

Amato credited Johnson with making plays instead blaming the lack of coverage for his 168 yards and two touchdowns. But that doesn’t explain the third quarter, in which Johnson was double-covered the majority of the time and didn’t have a single reception and the offense struggled to just 11 yards.

I thought it was ‘pick your poison.’

The entire quarter the Yellow Jackets’ offense sputtered and tried to force the ball to the covered Johnson — once even leading to a Garland Heath interception.

But in the fourth quarter it was business as usual for the defense.

With State up by two after the third quarter, the defense allowed Georgia Tech to put together its two longest drives of the game — both consuming more than four minutes and ending in points for the Yellow Jackets.

Just like against Akron and Virginia, when the defense had to step up and win the game, it couldn’t.

Amato said after the game the defense wore down late.

“In the fourth quarter they had the ball too long,” he said “They had the ball about 10 and a half or 11 minutes — [the defense] got a little tired. We got some people banged up on our defensive line and we can’t sub as much as we’d like to. But they got a little bit tired — there’s no question about that. But that’s when you have to dig down real, real deep and make a big play and make a stop.”

Maybe it’s the scheme. Once the score gets close it looks like the defense is content to give up the run and the short passes to protect against the big play, which lets the other team just methodically move the ball down the field.

If this is true though, the team’s not admitting it.

“No, we don’t change anything,” Davis said of the defense on the final drive.

Well, maybe it should.

But whatever it is, the defense has to figure it out or the Pack is not going to win close games. And unfortunately for State, it looks like every game is going to be that way.