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[QUOTE="reedny, post: 3619219, member: 1423"]
As the OP hints, this game wasn't a disaster ... only the ending was. People are frustrated because NC-St is so easy to hate, and we had a chance to beat them. That's what made the last-minute confusion so disappointing ... that we were [I]this[/I] close to a win against a top-4 conference foe featuring big WR's and a mobile QB with a live arm - and just couldn't get it done.

Oddly, we defended the run better than the pass. They had one chunk play called back. Other than that, their longest gain was 14 yards. Although we struggled to tackle Knight, overall we "held" their RB's to (roughly) a 4 ypc average and 174 total (25 yards under our average). That's the good news. The bad news is that our secondary got lit up for 313 and 4 TD's ... most of them on 3d-down interior completions or pin-point end zone passes. One TD was a busted coverage (Cole). But the others we were in good position and they made the plays. We sacked Hockman 6 times but on plenty of occasions he had all day and made us pay.

On offense, I thought our OL protected pretty well and I liked the rollouts and empty sets. Those were effective as Rex hit Queeley, C-J, NJ and Taj for 254 on 50+% completion rate and 2 TD's (no INT's). However, we went nowhere on the ground and run-blocking was epicly bad. You have to feel for Tucker .. who's a really good back that deserves a chance. And he never got past State's DL. We're getting worse on the ground, not better. Hopefully it's due to injuries and not the chronic lack of size and talent we've faced on the DL.
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