The N.C. State football team came out on Saturday against visiting Central Michigan and walloped the Chippewas 48-14. The Wolfpack scored touchdowns on offense, defense and special teams in the win.
What a difference a week makes.
But perhaps just more impressive than the lopsided score and the variety of ways that the Pack reached the end zone was the fact that they were able to improve on many aspects of its game that they didn’t do so well against Clemson. State committed only six penalties against Central Michigan for 45 yards, down from nine for 57 yards against the Tigers. Against Clemson, the Pack was plagued by pre-snap penalties which killed drives before they even gained steam. They committed five false starts against Clemson, but cut that number to just one against the Chippewas.
Another facet of the offense that showed improvement was the Wolfpack’s third down efficiency. The Pack offense converted seven of 17 third downs on Saturday, a much better showing than the 3-for-16 figure posted against Clemson. Granted, the Chippewa defense didn’t match the talent that Clemson had; but frankly, the offense had nowhere to go but up after Clemson.
Even redshirt junior quarterback Pete Thomas got a monkey off his back on Saturday, throwing his first touchdown pass of the season in the fourth quarter. Thomas hit junior receiver Bryan Underwood on an 80-yard bomb for the Pack’s final touchdown.
The one red flag of the Central Michigan game was the defensive performance at the beginning of the fourth quarter. With the game safely in hand at 38-0, the Pack seemingly got complacent and allowed the Chippewas to score consecutive touchdown. Central Michigan had the ball in State territory with a chance to cut into the lead even further, but an interception by backup safety Josh Stanley stalled the Chippewas’ mini-rally.
Even if a team is ahead by a hundred points, it’s never a good thing to let up on defense. Both head coach Dave Doeren and members of the defense, though thrilled with the win, expressed concern over the lapse in the fourth quarter. But other than that, the Wolfpack defense played perhaps its best game of the season.
It sounds cliché, but it only gets more difficult from this point forward. All but one of State’s remaining games are ACC contests, beginning with Saturday’s game at in-state foe Wake Forest. And the only remaining non-conference opponent, East Carolina, blew out UNC-Chapel Hill on Saturday 55-31.
The Demon Deacons might be coming off a 56-7 loss to Clemson on Saturday and they may have suffered a home loss to Louisiana-Monroe earlier this season, but there’s no looking past anyone in the ACC, especially on the road. Moreover, BB&T Field has been a house of horrors for State in recent years, with the Pack’s last win at Wake coming all the way back in 2001. So if you’re already penciling Saturday’s game into the win column, think again.
All things considered, I think that the Wolfpack is right where everyone expected them to be going into the month of October. They’ve beaten who they were supposed to beat and lost to one of the best teams in the country. The next order of business is to keep the momentum from the Central Michigan game going into Winston-Salem on Saturday—easier said than done.
