Good evening all you ACC football fans. As a NC State fan, I came into this season with aspirations of 9 or if the cards fell right, a 10 win season. After the first 3 weeks NC State is 2-1, not a bad record, but not ideal. NC State lost to South Carolina because, South Carolina went to a quick drop offense and NC State failed to adjust to that offense. I chalked that up to, having an inexperienced secondary who weren’t comfortable in press man-to-man coverage.
Then, in week 2 NC State gives up a Carter-Finley Stadium record of 248 receiving yards to Tyre Brady of Marshall. Yes, you read that right, not Torry Holt, not Peter Warrick, not Herman Moore, not Mike Williams, Tyre Brady has the record for most receiving yards at Carter-Finley. Most of the yards came at the expense of Jonathan Alston, the receiver who was moved to corner and has not fared well. Alston is getting beat and he is getting beat badly.
I am not blaming him, he played the first 3 season at NC State as a Wide Receiver and has been thrust into the starting line up due to the injury to Mike Stevens. However, with Clemson, Louisville, Florida State, and Syracuse still on the schedule it is hard to see the Wolfpack hitting that 9 win mark. Then the questions will begin to swirl around Raleigh if Dave Doeren is the guy to lead this program forward. Now, for the record, I believe that he is. Doeren has upgraded the talent on the roster.
He has 5 guys on the defensive line who will be drafted into the NFL, and the offense looks very good! But with all of the talent that he has assembled, the questions this season are justified. He has got to do something with the defensive backs for this team to meet those lofty expectations.
Dave Huxtable seems incapable of making the necessary adjustments to what the other offense is doing. Or, he does not believe that the players he does have in the defensive backfield have the talent to play man-to-man. Either way, the defensive backs might be the reason that Dave Doeren loses his job at the end of the season, and that would be a damn shame……
