North Carolina State University Athletics
Transfer Quarterbacks Highlight NC State-Boston College Match-up
10/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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RALEIGH, N.C. - Saturday’s conference game between NC State (4-2, 0-2 ACC) and Boston College (3-2, 0-1) at Carter-Finley Stadium will, among other things, produce an unlikely reunion. Little did starting quarterbacks Jacoby Brissett and Tyler Murphy know that it would come to this when they became close friends as teammates at the University of Florida just two short years ago. But on Saturday, they’ll be competing against each other.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m., and the game will be televised by RSN.
Murphy, now a fifth-year graduate student for the Eagles, happens to be an excellent runner who can also throw. Brissett, who’s in his first year as NC State’s starting quarterback, is a very good passer who can also run when called upon to do so.
How ironic: two close friends and former teammates with different styles facing off from opposite sidelines. Both have found their greener pastures and both, apparently, made the right choice after leaving the Sunshine State.
“The storyline is unique with [Murphy] and Jacoby transferring from Florida,” said NC State head coach Dave Doeren.
Despite losing arguably college football’s best running back off last year’s squad, Boston College is still the ACC’s top rushing team midway through the season. Andre Williams became only the 16th player in college football history to run for better than 2,000 yards in a season last year, and in doing so, won the Doak Walker Award. With Williams now carrying the football for the NFL’s New York Giants, his production has been replaced, in part, by the shifty Murphy.
“Last year they had the great tailback and they’ve replaced a lot of his yards with Murphy’s legs,” Doeren said. “He’s pretty special back there running around. Our guys will have to do a good job of hemming him in and getting him on the ground. He’s impressive.”
Doeren’s respect for Murphy is equaled by Steve Addazio’s admiration for Brissett. The second-year Boston College coach used his team’s bye week to view hours upon hours of clips that show Brissett making a bevvy special plays in the Wolfpack’s first five games. In conversations with his coach, Murphy confirmed to Addazio that what he watched on tape wasn’t a mirage.
“They’re buddies and they’re really good friends,” Addazio said. “[Brissett] is a really good player and I have a lot of respect for him. I’ve watched him a bunch. I mean I’ve watched every single snap and he’s pretty darned good. It’ll be exciting for these guys; they’re friends and it’ll be very competitive.”
Murphy and Brissett go about doing their damage in very different ways. No quarterback in college football this season has rushed for more yards than Murphy, who leads his team in rushing with an average of 116 yards per game. The Eagles are grinding out nearly 317 yards on the ground and in doing so, have done a good job of playing keep away from their opponents. In the category of ‘time of possession,’ Boston College ranks second only to Virginia Tech in the ACC.
“They’re a big time of possession team and they really eat clock,” said Doeren.
After watching Florida State and Clemson combine to convert 64% of their third down plays the last two weeks, Doeren will want to see improvement with third down defense on Saturday. If not, Boston College’s clock-eating strategy will limit the number of opportunities Brissett will have to take the field with the NC State offense.
For his part, Brissett will also be trying to get back on track following his first rough outing of the year in last Saturday’s loss to the Tigers. After ranking among the league’s top passers through the Wolfpack’s first five games, Brissett was harassed all afternoon by a Clemson defense that remained relentless for all four quarters.
Of course, with NC State falling behind 21-0 in the first quarter, Brissett became a sitting duck in the pocket once the Wolfpack was forced to abandon a running game that had been very productive until a week ago.
With left guard Joe Thuney (illness) expected to miss his fourth straight game this weekend, the Wolfpack has been trying to fill a noteworthy void in its offensive line.
“I think it comes back to doing the things we were doing on offense,” said Doeren. “We were balanced, we were protecting, we were physical in the run game and had a lot of yards after contact. We just need to get back to doing what we do and if something goes wrong, we just need to stick together and follow the plan. That’s all we need to do different.”
In fact, prior to the trip to Clemson, NC State was leading the ACC in total offense with an average of more than 500 yards per game.
Boston College may not be as talented as Clemson on defense, but the Eagles are always big and physical up front. ‘Bully ball’ is a Boston College staple, so anyone expecting a polite game of flag football on Saturday will be sadly disappointed.
“Since I’ve been here they’ve always had a stout defensive front and a stout offensive front,” said NC State senior running back Tony Creecy. “We definitely need to play more physical than we did last week. They have big, strong guys who want to hold the point. We’re going to have to get some movement on both sides of the line and play better football.”
The Wolfpack absorbed a haymaker to the chin last week, but Doeren’s major goals for his team are very much alive at the halfway point.
“Our goal is to get to a bowl game and win it,” he said. “Winning this game would move us closer to obtaining that goal.”
The Wolfpack Sports Network will begin its coverage from Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday with the Matthews Motors Countdown to Kickoff at 1:30 p.m. In hour two of the pregame show shortly after 2:30 p.m., former Wolfpack All-American Johnny Evans will field questions from fans on Farm Bureau’s ‘Ask the Analyst.’ Questions to Johnny can be sent on Twitter @packradio or by going here.
A full recap of the Boston College game will be available Sunday night on the Dave Doeren TV Show, which will air at 11:30 p.m. on WRAL TV-5 in Raleigh and WILM (CBS) in Wilmington. The show will also be posted Monday on Gopack.com. A full list of stations carrying the Dave Doeren TV Show is available here.
On each of his TV shows, coach Doeren takes questions on Twitter. To forward a question to the coach, use hashtag #CoachDTV.
