NC State Post Game Thread

[The Jacket]

Amazing that pretty much the only cognitive comment in 8 pages is made by a dawg fan.

Why would this thread surprise you? It's Sunday morning and hasn't been 12 hours since I made my post summarizing my thoughts, and already it is obvious that it is not as good or as bad as it seemed. We did some really, really stupid things in the game last night, and some inexcusable and worrisome things, and also some pretty damn good things. We are going to be fine, and hopefully if we get to play our final games we'll see some improvement from what happened yesterday.

Most everyone here is still emotionally invested to to one extent or another, in a team which they have known is bad for months now. Last night that team had an opportunity to get a win that could have indicated a nice step towards where we hope to be in a few years, and it blew that opportunity.

On top of that, it was an excruciating game from any perspective, and the beatable team we were playing was dirty at times. Throw into the mix that NCSU was clearly being allowed to play under a different set of rules in parts of the game, namely on the offensive line, which is the last place in the world we need another disadvantage.

And then drown everything I just said in a barrel of rum.

..all things considered, last night was among the better handled losses I've seen StingTalk take.

With all that said, #10 for NCSU is a vile piece of human filth who has no place on a football field, except maybe as a tackling dummy so someone can force his own medicine into whatever he has for a brain. That kid is going to hurt someone bad, and of course that happens in football. But when that is your goal, you shouldn't be playing. This seems to be a sort of running trend at NCSU, like with UNC and cheating. Or Wake and academic fraud. Or Duke and being a bunch of whiny bitches.

 

[Techbert]

The freshman talent ont the field, the marketing, attitude and recruiting around the program is fantastic.

Nothing these coaches have put on the field, however, is noteworthy, and downright bad at times.

Edit. Strength and Conditioning does seem to be making our athletes bigger and stronger.

Time will cause freshmen to become seniors, and that is a huge difference, both physically, mentally, and in execution.

Next year, the time in program will start to be there.

 

[vapspwi]

I thought the game looked particularly cheap on TV - it seemed dark, and the camera work was mediocre. (How about showing some of these jogging, quitting routes that the commentators mentioned?) The sideline reporter’s mic didn’t work half the time, and the ref’s mic was hard to understand.

I got tired of Herzlich yammering, but I don’t mind Cotter (partially because at least he’s a Tech alum). I assumed those dudes were calling the game remotely, which would excuse some of the mistakes, but then I wonder how Herzlich was seeing the lazy WR play he commented on, which I didn’t notice in the TV feed.

The game felt kind of hopeless and pitiful at the outset because we were down so many players, but then became frustrating because we played hard and kept ourselves in the game, but couldn’t close the deal because of everything from playcalling to execution to penalties to officiating.

In the midst of all of that CGC’s comment about the team needing to celebrate more was incredibly galling. I’m fine with the rah-rah, go have some fun stuff, but only after the fundamentals (that are somewhat within our control) are taken care of. However meaningless it may be, as a fan I’d rather hear the coach say that we need to cut out the stupid penalties, make some adjustments to our gameplan, and play with more effort, not that we need to celebrate more.

On to Pitt. Normally, the short week isn’t that big of a deal, but with the injuries, opt-outs, and COVID protocol stuff, it’s really hitting at a bad time for us, and I kind of expect to see more of the same Thursday night.

Overall, I’m glad we got to have some football this year, but I’m kind of ready for the season to be over. I wonder if the players are starting to feel the same.

JRjr

 

[JJacket]

I thought the game looked particularly cheap on TV - it seemed dark, and the camera work was mediocre. (How about showing some of these jogging, quitting routes that the commentators mentioned?) The sideline reporter’s mic didn’t work half the time, and the ref’s mic was hard to understand.

I got tired of Herzlich yammering, but I don’t mind Cotter (partially because at least he’s a Tech alum). I assumed those dudes were calling the game remotely, which would excuse some of the mistakes, but then I wonder how Herzlich was seeing the lazy WR play he commented on, which I didn’t notice in the TV feed.

The game felt kind of hopeless and pitiful at the outset because we were down so many players, but then became frustrating because we played hard and kept ourselves in the game, but couldn’t close the deal because of everything from playcalling to execution to penalties to officiating.

In the midst of all of that CGC’s comment about the team needing to celebrate more was incredibly galling. I’m fine with the rah-rah, go have some fun stuff, but only after the fundamentals (that are somewhat within our control) are taken care of. However meaningless it may be, as a fan I’d rather hear the coach say that we need to cut out the stupid penalties, make some adjustments to our gameplan, and play with more effort, not that we need to celebrate more.

On to Pitt. Normally, the short week isn’t that big of a deal, but with the injuries, opt-outs, and COVID protocol stuff, it’s really hitting at a bad time for us, and I kind of expect to see more of the same Thursday night.

Overall, I’m glad we got to have some football this year, but I’m kind of ready for the season to be over. I wonder if the players are starting to feel the same.

JRjr

If we even play Thursday night. I feel like as beat up as we are, if we don't get the Covid protocol players back, we may cancel.

 

[coit]

I expect all of you who are claiming that Sims will be an accurate passer will have the balls to defend that statement here this time next year. In the meantime . . . I'm taking names.

He entered the game with a 55% completion percentage. That’s pretty impressive in my opinion, given the OL he’s playing behind. I’m willing to withhold judgement until we have an offensive line and he isn’t a true freshman.

 

[ramblinwise1]

Sims did have a bad night. I think their defense messed with his head. I think he throws a lot of good balls, he is just highly variable. Which passer over the past decade is more accurate?

The penalties are very concerning. We get 1st and goal from the one and then go hurry up when we should be asking for a review to see if the runner got in on the previous play and we obviously haven't practiced the hurry up much cause then we get the penalty. Mason runs back to the 1 and we try to hurry up AGAIN and get a penalty again. Jesus. I put this on the coaching. Eliminating penalties takes discipline.

Did we learn last night that a lot of the freshmen who had to play last night on D are better than the supposed more experienced starters? The D should have been a train wreck with all the missing starters but it was actually pretty decent. Avery Showell's timing is so damn bad, he missed the chance to show everyone something last night, but had taken his ball and gone home.

 

[79tech]

I thought it was one of our best games of the year for several reasons. 1) Simms decision making is improving and I thought he threw pretty accurately except when on the run. He will learn that even if on the run you have to set your feet. His receivers could have helped him out more and IMO the running backs didn't do a good job of breaking tackles. There were several times they could have made more yards. Mason made bad cuts and got tripped up several times. 2) Defense has some young guys who look talented 35, 39 and others upfront. Makes you wonder if they should have started earlier but no Spring training. NC State QB threw some very accurate passes. Still need more pass rush but secondary and tackling showed improvement. 3) We made two FGs - yeah.

Seriously though we played as well as an 8-3 team but just lost it because couldn't finish due to penalties. We are improving.

 

[knoxjacket]

I think it was quite telling when the announcer accused our WR of “jogging.” These guys by and large just do not get separation.

when WR aren’t getting open and OL are whiffing how the hell are you going to pass the ball?

 

[knoxjacket]

also if Gibbs plays we win that game by 14. Multiple giant holes that no one would’ve caught him running through.

 

[The Jacket]

As ridiculous as the "celebrate more" thing was, we need to remember that it's that same ESPN crew whose sideline reporter condensed whatever was said in the locker room, and chose which parts to mention in 10 seconds on television. I don't think we need to be acting as though that was a staple of Collins halftime message when none of us were in there.

 

[bonham]

This was about as good of an effort as can reasonably be expected. We're still a young team trying to transition from a completely different offense, playing on the road against a good team, in the middle of a pandemic missing a lot of key players.

I really don't understand of the unrealistic expectations some of you have. Yes, we could have have committed less penalties. But look on the bright side. Other than that Mason fumble where we recovered but lost the first down, we did a dang good job protecting the ball and had no turnovers.

Another thought. There were far too many Sims running plays for my comfort. A lot of them were designed runs. I understand the necessity since the OL still can't pass block worth a crap and our receivers still don't know how to run routes. But next year I would like to see less Simms rushing or we will lose him to injury.

 

[05GTCorndog]

The most disappointing thing to me was the lack of a pass rush. I know we were down like 20 DEs and playing some very inexperienced, young guys, but that was the difference in the game. Their QB got a ton of time in the pocket. It is unreasonable to ask a secondary to cover as long as ours was asked to do yesterday. Even when we blitzed, the blitzes were predictable and easily picked up. If we can't generate a pass rush with our front 3/4, we need to be able to create some mayhem with blitzes. We didn't do that yesterday.

Also, those false start penalties at the 1 were huge. We get the ball down inside the 1 and we decide to go superfast on the next snap. That leads to a false start. That was dumb af and is inviting pre-snap penalties when you do something like that.

 

[bonham]

My opinion is we win the game if we were at full strength.

I've watched every NC State game this season and I've watched every GT game this season. NC State is the better team and I predicted they would win even if we were at full strength. State's defense (especially their pass defense) is bad but we just don't have the passing game to take advantage. On the other side of the ball, I thought our defense stepped up

 

[BigDanT]

This was about as good of an effort as can reasonably be expected. We're still a young team trying to transition from a completely different offense, playing on the road against a good team, in the middle of a pandemic missing a lot of key players.

I really don't understand of the unrealistic expectations some of you have. Yes, we could have have committed less penalties. But look on the bright side. Other than that Mason fumble where we recovered but lost the first down, we did a dang good job protecting the ball and had no turnovers.

Another thought. There were far too many Sims running plays for my comfort. A lot of them were designed runs. I understand the necessity since the OL still can't pass block worth a crap and our receivers still don't know how to run routes. But next year I would like to see less Simms rushing or we will lose him to injury.

If we had played every game this cleanly we would be 5-4 right now.

 

[WracerX]

The most disappointing thing to me was the lack of a pass rush. I know we were down like 20 DEs and playing some very inexperienced, young guys, but that was the difference in the game. Their QB got a ton of time in the pocket. It is unreasonable to ask a secondary to cover as long as ours was asked to do yesterday. Even when we blitzed, the blitzes were predictable and easily picked up. If we can't generate a pass rush with our front 3/4, we need to be able to create some mayhem with blitzes. We didn't do that yesterday.

Also, those false start penalties at the 1 were huge. We get the ball down inside the 1 and we decide to go superfast on the next snap. That leads to a false start. That was dumb af and is inviting pre-snap penalties when you do something like that.

Our OL was blowing huge holes in the DL on that line and for most of the game. There was no need to get cute. We were winning helmet on helmet. Mason is a beast when running downhill. Run that straight ahead!

 

[05GTCorndog]

Our OL was blowing huge holes in the DL on that line and for most of the game. There was no need to get cute. We were winning helmet on helmet. Mason is a beast when running downhill. Run that straight ahead!

Agreed. There was no need to try to catch them off guard. We had the ball at the 1 and 4 fresh downs to punch it in. The way we were running we didn't need that and we outsmarted ourselves. Dumb.

 

[aeromech]

Do you remember Hamilton's freshman year?

Yep, I remember Dewberry's first season too.

 

[aeromech]

Our OL was blowing huge holes in the DL on that line and for most of the game. There was no need to get cute. We were winning helmet on helmet. Mason is a beast when running downhill. Run that straight ahead!

Our OL was bigger and stronger than their DL. Our OL looked 3-4 inches taller particularly along the left side of the line. Amazing how much taller guys get when you 'coach them up'.

 

[knoxjacket]

Our OL was bigger and stronger than their DL. Our OL looked 3-4 inches taller particularly along the left side of the line. Amazing how much taller guys get when you 'coach them up'.

Yet they still couldn’t protect the QB for crap.

 

[Allen Koholic]

Agreed. There was no need to try to catch them off guard. We had the ball at the 1 and 4 fresh downs to punch it in. The way we were running we didn't need that and we outsmarted ourselves. Dumb.

worse, is that I’m not convinced it wasn’t a touchdown on the original play. Instead of getting some time to look at it, we did that dumb dumb öööö.