‘Fun,’ ‘happy’ QB race makes NC State better

Competition is good. Dave Doeren and N.C. State’s quarterbacks agree on this.

The addition of graduate transfer Ryan Finley makes the Wolfpack deeper and better at the quarterback position and that outweighs any of the potential hard feelings.

“Fun” and “happy” are the words Jalan McClendon and Finley, who graduated from Boise State and joined the program this summer, used to describe their training camp competition. Redshirt freshman Jakobi Meyers will be in the mix, too, when his balky right ankle allows him to get up to speed.

“It’s fun,” McClendon said. “It’s fun because you have somebody pushing you every day and going at it every day.”

McClendon worked with the first-team offense on Monday in the portion of practice open to the media. The third-year sophomore from Charlotte was the presumed starter in the spring after spending the past two years as Jacoby Brissett’s backup. McClendon is big (6-5, 220 pounds) and strong but had some trouble in the spring picking up new coordinator Eli Drinkwitz’s up-tempo offense.

“He can throw the football as well as anybody I’ve seen,” Doeren said. “It’s just getting him in the situations enough and seeing how he’s going to handle adversity.”

[NC State starts football practice with a little bit of normalcy]

[NC State’s Dave Doeren discusses first practice of fall camp]

Finley already knows the offense, he spent the past two years with Drinkwitz at Boise State. He also knows all about quarterback competitions. Last year, the lanky 6-4, 200-pound junior beat out three other candidates to win the Broncos’ starting job in training camp.

Finley got off to a slow start against the two toughest teams on Boise’s schedule. He was 16 of 26 for 129 yards, with an interception, in a 16-13 win over Washington and 25 of 38 for 297 yards, with one touchdown and three interceptions, in a 35-24 road loss at Brigham Young.

Then, after completing 5 of 6 passes for 59 yards, Finley broke his right ankle in the first quarter of the Broncos’ 52-0 blowout win over Idaho State.

“Obviously, it was hard for me because I had won the job and I was really starting to get comfortable, but it’s football and that happens,” Finley said.

Brett Rypien, a freshman, stepped in for Finley and the offense took off, albeit against the more manageable portion of the schedule. Rypien threw for 3,350 yards with 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 11 games. The Broncos’ won seven of his 10 starts and finished No. 15 in the country in both scoring (39.1 points per game) and total yards per game (501.3).

“Any time you get hurt, it’s tough, but still I was happy for (Rypien),” Finley said. “He played at a really high level.”

Finley said the success of the quarterback position is about the unit and not just one player.

“We’re all in this together and we’re trying to be the best unit that we can be,” Finley said.

[Key questions for NC State football at the start of practice]

[Watch timelapse from the Wolfpack’s opening day]

Rypien was an all-conference pick and had cemented his spot as the starter. Finley was able to graduate, after three years, and decided to follow Drinkwitz to Raleigh. He has two years of eligibility and the potential to petition the NCAA for a third.

“‘Drink’ was here and that was a big part of my decision,” Finley said.

But there were no promises about playing time or his role, Finley said.

“He told me I had to come in here and compete,” Finley said. “Anywhere you go you have to compete. I’m just happy to compete.”

In informal summer workouts, Finley impressed his new teammates with his grasp of the offense.

“He’s real comfortable with this offense already,” junior tight end Jaylen Samuels said.

And while Meyers is “electric,” as Doeren described him, Finley’s skill set isn’t all that different from McClendon’s.

“They both do the same thing so it’s kind of hard to tell which is which,” Samuels said.

McClendon, who completed 8 of 14 passes for 69 yards in mostly mop-up duty last season, said the players will compete and the coaches will make the final decision.

“We are all treating it like it’s an open competition,” McClendon said. “We’ll just see what the coaches tell the media who wins the battle.”

Doeren was happy to have more options and isn’t in a hurry to make a decision about the starter.

“I’m going to give it time,” Doeren said. “We’ve got a lot of situations in 29 practices they are going to go through so we’ll see how they handle it.”

This story was originally published August 2, 2016 at 9:35 AM with the headline "‘Fun,’ ‘happy’ QB race makes NC State better."