After last year’s Kay Yow Spring Game ended in a lopsided fashion with the red team winning the game, 47-0, the NC State football team decided to change the layout completely in this year’s game. The new format made the game closer, with the red team earning a narrow 32-26 victory over the white team Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium.
The red team was strictly composed of offensive and special-teams players while defensive players represented the white team. The red team scored points the normal way, by getting touchdowns and field goals, but the white team, since it didn’t get any chances on offense, was awarded points by getting sacks, getting takeaways and forcing three-and-outs.
The Wolfpack went through a lot more situational drills this time around, including the two-minute drill, red-zone drills, sudden change drills and more, all of which were light contact rather than full. Additionally, the competition was more evenly matched, as the first, second and third teams all competed against each other rather than matching up first team players against second team players like what happened in previous years.
Each quarter began with special teams drills with the coverage units working against each other on a smaller 30-yard field to simulate punt returns. The first half featured four-on-three drills set in different corners of the field while the team did five-on-four drills in the middle of the field in the second half.
“It was great,” redshirt senior Jerod Fernandez said. “We take a lot of pride in our special teams, because we need special teams to win games. We broke it up into four different teams between our team and we all just competed every day. I just think that made it better for us to play now.”
The first quarter was a normal scrimmage format with the first team offense matching up against the first team defense, and the second and third teams following the same format.
The second quarter featured the sudden change drills, where the team simulated a shift in momentum such as a turnover or big special teams play. The first score of the day came in this quarter on a trick play, as redshirt senior wideout Gavin Locklear took the reverse and heaved it up to sophomore Kelvin Harmon, who fought for it in tight coverage and came down with the 46-yard touchdown grab. Going into halftime, the red team led 13-3.
The most scoring came in the third quarter as the red-zone drills took place. After making his first two field goals, junior Kyle Bambard converted 4 of 5 field goals in this quarter to finish 6 of 7 on the day.
“That was great for Kyle,” head coach Dave Doeren said. “I’m excited that he was able to do that.”
Redshirt junior Maurice Trowell scored the second and final touchdown on the day on a 20-yard pass down the sideline from redshirt junior Woody Cornwell. The red team expanded its lead to 32-12 at the end of the third.
“Other than the one big play we gave up on the trick play, I thought they kept the ball in front of them,” Doeren said. “We weren’t tackling, so you can’t really talk about that, but the gap integrity looks pretty good. The big thing with coach Huxtable is he wants to leverage the ball and tackle well. He wants to win on the line of scrimmage and establish that. I think the guys understand the standard of what we’re looking for there.”
The starters sat out of the fourth quarter as the second and third team players got a chance to shine going back to a regular scrimmage format. The white team shined in this stage, racking up 14 points in the quarter and ending the game on a strip sack.
This was the first chance to see the Pack in action since the conclusion of the 2016 season. State starts its 2017 season at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte against South Carolina Sept. 2.
