NC State football knew it had good receivers coming into the 2018 season. Junior Kelvin Harmon, redshirt junior Jakobi Meyers and graduate Stephen Louis figured to be one of the best starting trios in the country. However, they’ve rarely been on the field in full health at the same time.
What’s perhaps a bit more surprising is how good the team’s backup receivers have been, with redshirt freshman Thayer Thomas, sophomore Emeka Emezie and redshirt sophomore C.J. Riley also having strong starts to the season.
“I think it’s definitely challenging [for defenses],” head coach Dave Doeren said. “You can’t look at one guy and say, ‘We’re going to take [Harmon] out of the game.’ You can do that, but you’re going to suffer on the other side.”
That “suffering on the other side” is exactly what’s happened to opposing secondaries this year. Week one, with Louis injured and Harmon covered effectively by James Madison, Meyers had a monster game with a career-high 14 catches for 161 yards, and Riley chipped in with four catches for 45 yards and a score.
Week two, with Meyers out due to injury, Thomas had a huge game out of the slot with nine catches for 114 yards and a touchdown. In the past two weeks, Emezie has combined for 11 catches for 159 yards and two scores.
Not to be forgotten, after week one Harmon has again been a matchup headache for defensive coordinators, and leads the team on the season with 24 catches for 406 yards and a touchdown.
And the result of those four games? Four wins for the Wolfpack.
“It definitely feels good that any given game anybody can go off,” Harmon said. “[Emezie] one week, [Meyers] one week, [Thomas], me, [Riley], [Louis]. Just having a lot of options out here for [graduate quarterback Ryan Finley]. Even [redshirt sophomore Cary Angeline] at tight end had a big day.”
Indeed, in his second game with the Pack after sitting out the first three weeks (one game against West Virginia was postponed) under the NCAA’s transfer rules, Angeline scored his first touchdown Sunday. The six-foot-seven tight end’s emergence gives Finley a possible seven weapons in the passing game that can be rotated in and out.
“That’s just part of our offense,” Finley said after Saturday’s 35-21 win over Virginia. “We are balanced and I think we attacked pretty balanced today, which was good to see. Some great catches by some of our guys in the end zone.”
Even if an opposing defense manages to take all the pass catchers on the field out of play, a new threat emerged during the Pack’s ACC opener. The run game had struggled through three games, but got going Saturday.
Freshman Ricky Person, making his return after two weeks out due to a hamstring injury, carried the rock 14 times for 108 yards, and showed off the speed and elusiveness that made him a coveted recruit.
“Now that we’re running the ball more effectively, it makes it even more challenging, I would say, for a defense,” Doeren said. “We had to prove that we could do that and we did today. That obviously helps, when you can rush the football like that, 176 yards and they had less than 100 yards rushing. That’s a pretty good day.”
With Person’s breakout, NC State’s offense is, simply put, firing on all cylinders. If the defense can continue to back that up the way it has so far this season, with a good chunk of the rest of the ACC faltering, the Pack could be just getting started on its path to a banner year.
