NC State’s happy to be 1-0 but has plenty of room to improve
The result is ultimately what matters.
And N.C. State won its season-opener 24-13 over a game yet outmanned James Madison team on Saturday.
Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren told his players after the game half of the teams in the country are 1-0 and the other half are 0-1.
“We’re on the right side of that,” senior center Garrett Bradbury said.
But how the Wolfpack got there wasn’t exactly picturesque. It only averaged 2.9 yards per rush (83 yards on 29 carries), against a lower-level Division I defense missing two of its best players, and scored only one touchdown in the second half.
“That definitely wasn’t our best performance,” said junior receiver Jakobi Meyers, who was the Wolfpack’s best player.
Meyers caught a career-high 14 passes for 161 yards, including two clutch third-down conversions on the game-clinching drive. Senior quarterback Ryan Finley was efficient with 309 passing yards and a pair of touchdowns.
It’s better to learn from a win than a loss but N.C. Sate has some learning to do.
“Tonight I’m going to be happy because I’m 1-0 and tomorrow I’m not,” Doeren said.
Tomorrow in this case means on Sunday when the coaches and players gather to watch the film of the game.
“We’re going to come back in here and see what went wrong and why we couldn’t move the way we wanted to move or score the way we wanted to score but it will definitely get fixed,” Meyers said.
The Wolfpack, coming off of a 9-4 season, wasn’t exactly crisp on offense. The defense, rebuilt after losing its entire line in the NFL draft, was pretty good. The Dukes reached the red zone five times but only found the end zone once.
Much more was expected from the offense, with the return of Finley and his top three receivers. There were some important missing parts. Senior receiver Steph Louis sat out with a minor hamstring injury as a precaution. Blocking tight end Dylan Autenrieth, a key cog in the run game, was sidelined with a knee injury.
But JMU, ranked No. 2 in the FCS preseason poll, was without cornerback Rashad Robinson, the preseason defensive player of the year in Colonial Athletic Association, and defensive end Darrious Carter.
Robinson will miss the entire season after foot surgery and Carter was suspended for an undisclosed reason.
If N.C. State can’t run on a short-handed James Madison team, it stands to reason the sledding in ACC play will not be easier.
“I didn’t think our run game was as good as it will be in time,” Doeren said.
Senior Reggie Gallaspy ran for 68 yards, on 17 carries, but he little help. Freshman Ricky Person had five yards on six carries, freshman Trent Pennix one yard on two carries and freshman Tyler Baker-Williams caught one pass on the opening drive and fumbled. Baker-Williams didn’t play again.
Fortunately for N.C. State, it did have Finley. The sixth-year senior will be better with Louis, and tight end Cary Angeline who has to sit out the first three games, but he came through when he needed to.
JMU cut N.C. State’s lead to 17-13, after an odd decision by coach Mike Houston to kick a 19-yard field goal (the second one of the game) instead of going for the game-tying touchdown.
Finley got the ball back with 6:55 left on N.C. State’s 16-yard line. Finley converted on third down three times on the 15-play, 74-yard touchdown drive.
He hit Meyers twice on critical throws, including a 39-yard gainer on a busted coverage by the JMU secondary, which was no doubt missing Robinson.
“Jakobi really played his heart out,” Finley said.
On third-and-9 from the JMU 28, Finley found Meyers again for 10 yards. Meyers made a tough catch in traffic and then found the sticks.
Finally, on the last two plays of the drive, N.C. State was able to turn it over to Gallaspy. The senior popped off a 12-yard run to get the ball down to the 6 and then he cashed it in with 65 seconds left to put the Wolfpack’s 31st straight win over an FCS team on ice.
“The last two plays on offense were runs and pretty good runs, too,” Bradbury said. “That was good.”
The whole drive was something for N.C. State to build on for next week’s home game with Sun Belt foe Georgia State.
When asked what they needed to work, Finley responded: “So many areas, too many to speak on. We’ve got to get going and get better.”
The win counts the same but the film won’t be graded on a curve. N.C. State has to hope it can live and learn.
This story was originally published September 1, 2018 at 5:54 PM.