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NC State did not get off to a great start in its 51-10 loss to Tennessee, but it was able to keep things together into the later stages of the second quarter. In fact, it looked like it had started to settle into the game and establish something useful during that second frame. Then Grayson McCall threw a nasty interception that went 80 yards to the house and Tennessee spent the rest of the game systematically disassembling the entire NC State football team and stomping each part into dust.
It had been a while since we’ve watched NC State just get nuked like this. The Pack hasn’t truly been blown out since 2020. Saturday night was an annoying and uncalled-for reminder of how nasty things can get when they begin to spiral and the team on the other side can clearly smell it. It was not a pleasant evening. Let's break it all down.
Offense
If you hoped for a bounce back from the offense, which seemed a step off against Western Carolina, you were not granted it. State averaged less than three yards per play and scored three total points on offense. McCall averaged less than fives yards per attempt and State averaged 1.4 yards per rush. It was gross, and it wasn’t as if a good game from the defense kept them around either.
Grayson McCall as a quarterback hangs his hat on two things. He is a great decision maker and he’s very accurate. He doesn’t have a cannon, he’s not an elite runner, and he’s not huge, but most coaches would concur that those physical traits don’t matter without the first two things. That’s what made McCall such a desirable quarterback. Through two games, I think he’s been fine, if a bit passive, as a decision maker. He’s mostly been good in the pocket. His accuracy, on the other hand, has fallen short of expectations.
I have no clue what to attribute this to, and anybody that isn’t in the Murphy Center that claims to know is guessing. He just hasn’t been quite the same guy. Some good stuff is on tape from the first two games, but the consistency of it is not there. He’s erratic suddenly, something he’s never been.
This was a nice play from early in the game. It’s not a supremely difficult throw but it's a nicely processed play from the experienced quarterback.
Tennessee is showing a 0 blitz pre snap and State’s in a 3x1 with a man-to-man concept to the weak side and zone concept on the strong side. With cover 0, McCall is going to get to Dacari Collins on the glance route first. This is why Collins is on the team. An in-breaking route like this with his size is a good match up, and he should be able to box out the smaller DB and make a contested catch. Tennessee bails out of the pressure though, instead getting to a cover 2 variation with man on the weak side. When McCall sees this, he’s quickly back to the zone concept, which is just kind of a spacing concept. The two deeper routes carry underneath coverage and he makes the shallow throw for a first down. Tennessee tried to fool him with a simulated pressure and could not. That’s what you expect from McCall.
The play calling certainly indicates that State expects more of its quarterback this year. It’s a lot of full field reads, a lot of man-side zone-side, and some boot stuff sprinkled in that’s a bit simpler and more of your rhythm-generating throws. The concepts are fine I think. McCall was off accuracy wise against Western, and he would have thrown several touchdowns and for more than 400 yards if he was on. A lot of people aren’t going to like this take, but I actually didn’t think McCall was as bad in this game as he appeared as a passer. He fumbled twice, and that’s obviously a big disaster, but the things you wanted to see from him are still popping up regularly on tape, it’s just not consistent enough. For example, the above is nice, but these two clips were not the quarterback we watched at Coastal.
This is a boot flood concept, a play that Anae has used a lot. It's a type of hi-lo concept that McCall was really good at reading at Coastal. He seemed to want Joly on the deepest route here, and the picture is pretty good. He can fit this ball in there but he doesn't. It's just a tentative play that you're not used to seeing.
This is the accuracy that has been more of an issue in my opinion. McCall gets through his reads here but this throw is just behind Collins.
It's a good catch by Collins but you can't put him in this position routinely. YAC aren't likely here but there is a possibility with a better throw, but mainly, this a difficult catch and McCall throws the DB back into the play after he was beaten.
As stated, I didn't think McCall was awful in this game. I thought he was just mid, which obviously isn't good enough and isn't close to his ceiling, but a lot of things that went sideways weren't his fault. The interception looked more like Joly’s fault on tape. That slide route is really a huge part of his game and he stopped running for some reason. I’m not aware of any circumstance where you would do that. This play also stood out as very bad but not McCall’s fault.
McCall gets through every read here. Joly falls down on the stick route. McCall comes off of that and tries to get to KC on the bender over the middle. The window between the hole player and the field-side hook/curl is big, so he has a chance to fit this in with the hole player working toward Joly. KC also falls down though. Tim McKay loses on the pass rush and McCall is getting sacked before he can get to Waters on the check and release. He did fine here, and it was a disaster.
McCall was not great by any measure, but State’s biggest offensive issue in this game still wasn’t him. It was an inability to establish any kind of run game. State has issues here it needs to resolve more than anywhere else on the offense, but they’re a little bit more specific than just “offensive line bad.”
State leaned heavily on zone concepts in this game. I think it only ran counter twice. It was a lot of inside zone and some outside zone, and there was some good stuff in here that will get forgotten. A common theme with State’s run blocking is positive development that goes to waste because of penetration. A lot people might be quick to say “not getting push,” but that’s not really accurate. State had some really good development on its inside zone in this game, but one big loss would crumble the play. Penetration will kill zone plays, and it has consistently through two games.
The distinction is not important in the stat line, but it’s important when we get into how to fix it. State has four guys playing pretty well on the offensive line. Belton is excellent. He is who we wanted him to be. Anthony Carter has really been better than people thought he would be. He was questioned a lot in the offseason, but he has played well. He and Belton play well together. Zeke Correll had an iffy game against Western Carolina, but he was better in Charlotte on Saturday. State doesn’t run toward Peak quite as often but he played just fine.
Now, I hate calling out specific players, but Tim McKay and Matt McCabe have had a rough two games. That's where the weak links have been, and that's unfortunately just what it is. McKay got off to a really bad start in this one.
This is inside zone and it develops really well frontside. The double team of Carter and Correll really puts in some work on 21. Not a lot is asked of Belton here and he does fine. Because of Correll's leverage on 21, the read for the back starts in the back side A gap, and this play should hit somewhere backside. If McKay and Peak successfully double 20, they'll have a chance to release to the backer, number 22. Instead, McKay gets exploded off the line and knocked out of the play, which ends up hanging Peak out to dry as the penetration forces the play frontside where it goes to hell. Joly also whiffed here, but Smothers can probably outrun that if the play hits the A gap. If it has to hit C gap, it might be a stuff. McKay and Joly were at fault here. Everybody else was good.
During the offensive renaissance at the end of last year, I thought McKay was solid. He isn’t an all-leaguer, but he wasn’t bad. When State runs counter away from him and he becomes the kick out, he’s done fine. It’s these zone plays where he’s struggled this year and he hasn’t shown enough of an anchor in pass protection.
I suppose this is still better than a blow-by, but you have to have a better anchor than this as a guard where you're matched up against more power-based interior linemen. Fortunately, it was a snag lion call which is a quick hitter.
In the interest of total fairness, I did want to share this insanely good reach block from McKay. This is bullying.
This is about as good as you can do in outside zone. More of this from Tim would go a long way for State.
Here's G/H counter, which gets stuffed.
McKay is not the culprit here. He's fine. McCabe is the wrapper and he just can't get there in time. The down blocks on this play are great too. Look where Belton at left tackle ends up. He destroyed that guy.
The H-back is kind of just a disaster through two games. State has played Joly here some, but he’s not much of a run blocker. We knew that going in. McCabe has struggled and did again on Saturday. Demarcus Jones and Isaiah Shirley have both not played a ton, but neither were good in the snaps they played. It’s really looking like State needs a new plan here. It’s just plainly not good enough.
I want to hammer home the point that Belton, Carter, Correll, and Peak have played pretty well. State is not as far off here as you might think, but it has improving to do. You can judge each individual player to mine for some important context, and you should do that, but they win and lose as a unit, and they're losing right now.
One part of the run game that has also crippled it is Jordan Waters' sudden lack of ability to break tackles. Waters is not a lightning bolt. That is not his style of play. Guys are going to get hands on him. He's big and needs to be able to run through arm tackles.
This is a well blocked wide zone play. Belton can't quite throw this end all the way outside, but the perfect picture rarely exists. This is very good. Waters just has to be able to run through that. He cannot get brought down by that.
Defense
Defensively, State was the opposite of what I expected to see. I thought the defensive front could hold up against the run in this game and limiting explosives through the air would be the question that would determine whether or not State could stay in it. The opposite happened. Wonder Boy at quarterback wasn’t really impressive. I’m actually pretty sure he’s completed one pass of more than 20 air yards against FBS defenses. He was just fine, frankly, but he didn’t need to be more than that. Tennessee ran 400 different variations of counter and just pulverized NC State’s front. It wasn’t even competitive. If it wasn’t so painful to watch, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the variety of ways Tennessee got to the same exact play and how well it all worked. It was a clinic.
The Pack got countered to death in this game, giving up 249 yards on the ground. Sometimes you get games where you match up and defend the run well, but the stat lines get inflated by a bust or two that results in a few explosive plays. This was not that. Tennessee marched up and down the field on the ground.
A lot of these runs hit in the D gap for the Vols, which is outside the tight end. The backers for State really struggled to defeat down blocks. Tennessee would run this toward the tight end side and that tight end had a field day picking off the flowing backers and DBs in State’s defense. The Pack got little penetration, it never slowed the development of these plays, and it didn’t win enough flowing to the ball. The tite front is supposed to be vulnerable to counter, and it certainly was on Saturday.
This was the story of the game on defense, and some variation of counter made up an obscene amount of Tennessee’s play calls. The Vols played with some pin-and-pull concepts too, but it was all gap scheme and it was all success. They knew what they wanted to do and they did it. State had no answer.
The defensive ends need to be better going forward. State is going to see a lot more of this. Most teams will not be near as good at it as Tennessee was, but State has to be better. The ends play a critical role in stopping these gap scheme plays, especially in the 3-3 front. They need to disrupt the flow of it by either getting penetration and actually disrupting the pullers, winning outside the tackle, or anchoring and squeezing the play down. They can’t get pushed down the line like Price does here.
The Pack also played in the dime package for a lot of this game. That put a cornerback in the run fit more, and that was a problem. That attempt at setting an edge and squeezing the play from Brandon Cisse is not going to work
State’s front six was just not a match up for this team. We can talk about the offense until we’re blue in the face, but with respect to this game specifically, its issues were more fixable than what was happening on the other side of the ball, at least in the opinion of the author. It was more mistakey on offense and less getting-the-crap-kicked-out-of-you.
This is a serious issue. Every team has counter in the playbook, and its popularity is growing in response to more teams playing three down linemen and trying to cancel B-gaps with defensive ends. This creates advantageous blocking angles for teams running these gap scheme plays where you get down blocks. I didn’t think State was bad at defending this stuff last season when it was run out of 10 personnel or away from the tight end. Tennessee ran a lot of G/H Counter out of 12 personnel (2 tight ends) and this alignment was an issue that is ominous.
Watch 87 here and Sean Brown for NC State.
I think State may have tried to deal with this with some non-traditional run fits. Normally in State's scheme, Brown would be the D-gap or E-gap player, flowing to the innermost gap outside of the down blocks or one over depending on the personnel. It looks like he's the C-gap player and State is tracking D from the opposite side with Kaufman. It's easy to see why, though. Brown has little chance here if he was the D-gap player. He'd have to fight over the arc block from 87, who gets a free release. State has generally handled counter well when the play side doesn't have a D gap pre snap, but it struggles with this 12 personnel stuff because of that tight end, and it has not come up with an answer. Schematically and from an execution standpoint, it really struggled to deal with counter.
Final Thoughts
I did not think State was going to win this football game at any point since it was put on the schedule, but the level of domination raises some red flags. I am not lying to you nor am I just blowing smoke when I say that I still think this team could be in play for the ACC. The ACC is not very good, and there was a reason I picked State to win the league but get bounced from the playoff in game one. It’s still out there as a possibility, but the metaphorical distance State must travel in two weeks to have a chance to beat Clemson is much larger than expected.
Louisiana Tech is up next, and Louisiana Tech stinks. This is an opportunity to figure some things out, and it is the last opportunity to do so if you’re serious about chasing a league title. This won’t cut it.
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