North Carolina State University Athletics
HAYNES: View from the Booth
10/30/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
As part of their annual bye-week self-evaluations, head coach Tom O'Brien and his coordinators scoured over hours and hours of game tapes, hoping to unlock combinations, schemes and strategies that can help NC State become a better football team over the last five games.
To be sure, O'Brien, offensive coordinator Dana Bible and defensive coordinator Mike Archer know what the problems are; the trick is finding a way to fix the problems with the current personnel available to them.
Regardless of the outcome of Saturday's noon game at Florida State (3-4, 1-3), there's reason to believe that the Wolfpack will perform better than it has over its first seven games, a stretch that produced a 3-4 record, including an 0-3 mark in the ACC.
In O'Brien's first two years at NC State, the Wolfpack has played its best football after bye weeks, posting a combined mark of 8-4.
While there's plenty of room for improvement on the offensive side of the ball, it's clear that most of the Pack's issues remain on defense. Pass defense, tackling and an inability to get off the field on third down have been major issues during the current three-game losing streak.
As fate would have it, NC State must now face the ACC's top-rated offense and the league's hottest quarterback Saturday at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee. For all the bellyaching and speculation about veteran coach Bobby Bowden's future at FSU, redshirt junior Christian Ponder is trying to restore order to a once proud program that has become a victim of its own success in recent years.
Bowden built Florida State into a national powerhouse, and in doing so, spoiled a lot of people along the way.
Answering the lofty expectations, Ponder leads the ACC in both passing and total offense. He's also thrown 12 touchdown passes compared to only one interception. And his 33-of-40, 395-yard explosion in last Thursday's comeback win over North Carolina's top-rated pass defense may have been the league's best performance to date in 2009.
"I know he's playing as good or better as any quarterback I've seen this year," Bowden said this week. "It would be hard for someone to play better."
Ponder may be well on his way to becoming the All-ACC first-team quarterback, an honor that was bestowed upon NC State's Russell Wilson last season.
Now here are a few things we'll be watching from the booth during Saturday's radio broadcast on the Wolfpack Sports Network....
Willie Young Can't Do it Alone: For all the discussions about NC State's struggling secondary in recent weeks, there's been very little talk about the Wolfpack's suddenly anemic pass rush. In the last two games, the Wolfpack has tallied just three sacks, and all have come from blitzing linebackers Audie Cole and Dwayne Maddox. After picking up seven sacks through the first five games, Pack defensive end Willie Young was shutout by Duke and Boston College.
It's clear that opposing teams have started to slide their protection Young's way and are giving him a little extra attention. Of course, the plan going into the season was to build in some rush packages that featured linebacker Nate Irving on the other side. That plan was scrapped before training camp even began when Irving suffered season-ending injuries in a car accident.
"Teams are either doubling [Young] or chipping on him, which is to be expected," O'Brien said. "That means others guys are singled up and they have to get in there and make a play. We can move him around a little and try to create some one on ones for him, but someone else has to step-up and rush the passer."
And if NC State can't get at least a little heat on the sizzling Ponder, it could be yet another long afternoon for a beleaguered secondary that will be opening with the seventh different starting combination in eight games.
With freshman Rashard Smith now out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, redshirt freshman C.J. Wilson will get the start at the boundary corner spot.
Of course, the NC State secondary can help itself and the rest of the defense simply by tackling better. Did I use the word 'simply?' Well, tackling Florida State's fast, athletic receivers in the open field after catches has never been a simple chore.
"That's the biggest thing [defensive backs] coach [Mike] Reed has been talking about, yards after the catch," said cornerback DeAndre Morgan. "If a guy catches the ball, which you know is going to happen, he wants the receiver to be down right after he catches the ball."
Ponder will test that tackling ability with some short, quick rhythm passes that will get the ball into the hands of some receivers who have the ability to take something small and turn it into something big.
Will FSU Man Up? Under longtime coordinator Mickey Andrews, Florida State has long been known primarily as an in your face, man-to-man coverage team. Well, Miami was also a man coverage team until it encountered Russell Wilson in last year's regular season finale. With defensive backs and linebackers running with receivers down field in that game, Wilson drove the Canes batty by getting out of the pocket on designed pass plays and running for huge chunks of yardage.
Many times, Wilson had picked up 10 to 15 yards before second and third level defenders even knew he was running up their backs. Alas, Miami was forced to play more zone coverage in the second half.
The trend has continued in recent weeks, with many teams either playing a lot of zone on Wilson or designating a linebacker to spy on him just in case he looks to get out of the pocket and run. While Wilson is certainly an accomplished passer, opposing coordinators still fear his ability to freelance and make plays with his legs more than anything else.
"He reminds us of Charlie Ward, but much faster," Bowden said, mentioning one of his star quarterbacks from the 1990s. "He scares you to death. Last year as a freshman, he was the number one quarterback in our conference and he deserved it. He'll keep us on pins and needles all day long."
A lot of teams have been keeping Bowden's defense on pins in needles this season. In what can only be described as a seasonal aberration, Florida State ranks last in the ACC in total defense (413 yards per game), last in rushing defense (182), and 11th in pass defense (231).
Still, when O'Brien and his players watch the Seminoles on tape, they still see a lot of blinding fast athletes who fly around in an attacking, aggressive style.
"I'm excited to play them," said Wolfpack center and Palm Harbor, Florida native Ted Larsen. "They're fairly aggressive bunch and pretty active. They have a style that we used to play, getting up-field and playing aggressive."
That was the style former Pack head coach Chuck Amato brought to Raleigh from Florida State when he took over the NC State program in 2000. Ironically, Larsen was one of the defensive linemen he recruited to play that style. Much has changed since then: Amato is back at FSU as executive head coach and linebackers coach, while Larsen is in his second season on the offensive side of the ball.
