The NC State football team suffered a 45-24 loss Saturday on the road against Boston College. A defense that came into the game leading the ACC in rush defense gave up 429 yards rushing against the Eagles, who lead the ACC in rushing yards. The way the defense played gave NC State no chance of winning its first road game of the season.
Defensive Line
After two games in a row of dominating the trenches, the defensive line was not able to impose its will against the Boston College offensive line. The Wolfpack did not record one sack in the game, as the Eagles rarely called a passing play since the running game was so effective. The Eagles averaged 7.2 yards a carry on the day.
Twice, on long touchdown runs for the Eagles, the NC State defensive line had the opportunity to tackle the running back by the line of scrimmage, and simply did not finish the tackle.
Allowing 429 yards rushing is terrible, and it’s not just the defensive lines fault, but their inability to tackle and make a push on the Boston College offensive line made a huge difference in the game Saturday.
Grade: F
Linebackers
Similar to the defensive line, the Linebackers had been collectively playing well as a whole lately, but that was not the case Saturday. Junior Louis Acceus was the leading tackler for NC State with five solo tackles, but that is the only positive for this group.
The Eagles consistently ran the ball up the gut-giving linebackers one-on-one opportunities to make tackles and they just failed to do so. The linebackers knew what was coming every time, but could not do anything to stop Boston College running backs AJ Dillon and David Bailey.
Part of this has to be poor coaching. When you know what someone is going to do every play, as a coach, you have to do something to make them try something else, and whatever kind of defensive look they put out there with the linebackers did not work.
Grade: F
Secondary
Considering the circumstances of the way Boston College played, the NC State secondary had little to do coverage wise, as Eagles quarterback Dennis Grosel only threw the ball 15 times, completing six of those passes for 103 yards.
Sophomore Tanner Ingle was second on the team in tackles with four solo, and 10 total tackles. Freshman Jakeen Harris also had four solo tackles for the NC State secondary.
Just like the defensive line and linebackers, there were times when the secondary had its chances to make open-field tackles and just couldn’t make the tackle.
It was a tough evening for this group as they could not make an impact on the game as much as they would have liked to, but holding a quarterback to a 40% completion rate is a good number for a secondary.
Grade: C
Next up
NC State head coach Dave Doeren, along with co-defensive coordinators Dave Huxtable and Tony Gibson, will have a needed bye week to figure out all that went wrong against the Eagles Saturday. However, the Wolfpack will have to prepare for a completely opposite type of offense for its next game on Nov. 2 on the road against a pass-heavy Wake Forest offense.
