No. 21 NC State football did a lot of things well in its 47-28 victory over Florida State on Saturday. Perhaps the most important, and one of the most underrated, was scoring a touchdown on its first drive.
What’s that, you say? How could seven points scored so early in a 19-point win be so important? It’s simple, really. Scoring first gives the Wolfpack the ability to do what it wants to do on offense.
What the team wants to do is find a good offensive balance between passing and running the ball. Getting behind early and getting away from that balance largely contributed to the team’s two-game losing streak against Clemson and Syracuse.
The Wolfpack trailed 14-0 in the first quarter against the Tigers and 24-7 against the Orange. In both games, NC State had to get away from the run, rushing just 31 times for 104 yards against the Tigers and 29 times for 68 yards against the Orange.
In all three of NC State’s ACC wins, the Wolfpack has rushed at least 39 times and picked up at least 176 yards on the ground. Against the Seminoles, the Pack went to its ground game early and often, running six times out of 11 plays for 43 yards, culminating the first rushing touchdown of freshman Ricky Person’s career.
“We got going early with the run game,” senior running back Reggie Gallaspy, Jr. said. “Sometimes we have a little slow start with the run game. But this time we got out there and got everything moving and started a rhythm. The rhythms just kept going the rest of the game.”
Gallaspy was on to something. In the Pack’s other two ACC wins, against Virginia and Boston College, the Wolfpack rushed 39 times for 176 yards and 53 for 225, respectively. The Pack scored first in both of those games as well.
Scoring first and being able to run the ball is even more important when the Wolfpack considers that, in graduate quarterback Ryan Finley’s NC State career, the team is 2-8 when he attempts 40 or more passes.
Finley had a career high in passing yards in the loss to Syracuse, but that was largely due to attempting 44 throws with the Wolfpack playing from behind all game. NC State is much better off getting out in front and running a balanced offense, as head coach Dave Doeren remarked on before the game against Florida State.
“It helps because you can be balanced,” Doeren said. “The last two games we were down by a bunch in the first quarter… To be a balanced team, to have play actions and boots that can come off your run game, it’s hard when you’re down 21 to be in that mood. Throwing the football 40 to 50 times isn’t ideal.”
With four games left, NC State has a chance to accomplish something special with its first 10-win regular season since 2002. While the rest of the teams on the schedule (Louisville, UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina, in particular), aren’t exactly world beaters, the Pack needs to stick to its formula of striking first and running a balanced formula. That will be especially important this week against a prolific Wake Forest offense.
