As someone who spends a great deal of his day musing on NC State football and wondering what to expect next from the Pack, this weekend’s ECU game has been giving me nightmares for months. Really, ever since ECU hired Ruffin McNeil (and every other position and coordinator) from Texas Tech, I’ve been bracing for a terrible defeat in Greenville, and the unending torrent of abuse that comes from losing to those scallywag ne’er-do-wells. I have seen the game in my head many times, and it almost always involves ECU passing for 600 yards and 8 touchdowns as everyone wearing red at Dowdy-Ficklen looked on with horror.
You can’t discuss this game without having a bit of background on just what State’s defense is up against.
You see, I have a high level of respect for the offense ECU has installed, known affectionately as the Air Raid. Its roots go all the way back to the record book re-writing offenses developed by Norm Chow and Lavell Edwards at BYU in the 70’s and 80’s, and every team that has ever invested in the offense (I’m looking at you Tommy Tuberville) has seen their offensive production sky rocket. Running the air raid requires a fundamental shift in the traditional football mind set, away from the idea that you HAVE to run the ball to be successful, a mindset that is not quite so revolutionary today as it was in say, 1979 when Jim McMahon rewrote the record books.
It’s based on the repetition of about 9-12 passing plays until the quarterback is so familiar with this very small collection of plays that a team could, as Texas Tech would do, run the exact same play 2 – 5 times in a row with the quarterback throwing to a different receiver each time. It’s all about making the passing game as efficient as possible to maximize positive results.
Hal Mumme took the offense, and added his own quirks and wrinkles on the way to making Kentucky relevant in football for the first time since Bear Bryant. Former offensive assistants, such as Chris Hatcher and Tony Franklin, have spread the virtues of Mumme-ball throughout the country, at the lower levels of college football and in Franklin’s case, to high schools across the nation.
But it’s one of Mumme’s assistants in particular that everyone knows: Mike Leach. The man who helped Stoops rebuild the broken Sooners program, and then left to turn a program that was the very definition of utter and complete irrelevancy and turn them into a team that could finish in the top 5. Leach was always a bit more of the mad scientist, experimenting with his huge offensive line splits and other weird looking but ultimately wildly successful wrinkles that defied typical coaching logic.
We all know what happened at Texas Tech, and since this thing is already 500 words in without a peep about NCSU, we’ll keep the history lessons to a minimum here out. Suffice to say, the removal of Mike Leach and the jettison of his entire coaching staff creating a huge opportunity for ECU, a program that has had a great deal of success in recent years but had just lost a ton of players to graduation and a very solid coaching staff under Skip Holtz to USF. Hiring Ruffin McNeil, an ECU grad who is clearly going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of Greenville, and bringing in all that Air raid brain trust, was an opportunity ECU had to take.
So what can we expect on Saturday? Well, as stated above, expect ECU to run those lovely old Norm Chow stand bys like the mesh and the shallow concepts; a lot of underneath routes trying get guys in space and pick up some big YAC gains. In addition, ECU’s quarterback Dominique Davis is a duel threat, something Leach never had at Texas Tech. ECU has made frequent use of the zone read, which has become rather ubiquitous in college football at this point, giving them a new wrinkle.
The bottom line is that the matchup is not a good one for the Pack on defense. The Pack secondary is still shaky, and has not proven that they are fundamentally much better than the unit that got destroyed so many times last year. The flaws present have been covered up by the excellent pass rush State’s been getting, and the nature of the Air Raid, with its quick releases, nullifies most blitzes. To stop the Air Raid, you’ve got to play back, let them get their 6-7 yards per completion, and be there to tackle immediately to prevent any big gains, and just keep forcing them to execute perfectly.
But the bright side for the Wolfpack is, despite all the time I’ve devoted to ECU’s offense, is that they still should be favored, and it is for one reason: ECU’s defense is putrid on so many levels that they almost defy description. This is a unit that is giving up almost 200 yards rushing , and 460 yards of total offense a game. This is a team that gave up 283 yards passing to TJ Yates.
NC State’s offense is coming off a stellar performance against a very good BC defense, and they are likely licking their chops over a chance to play this team. I’m expecting over 500 yards from the Pack, with Russell throwing 380 yards and for Mustafa to go over 100 yards for the first time this season. I also expect either him or Dean Haynes to add at least one run for over 40 yards.
Basically, get ready for fireworks.
The Prediction: State 59 ECU 41
