That was fun.
NC State’s offense moved the ball at will on Saturday, and it was so effortless it looked like the sort of performance you expect from the first-team offense going up against the second-team defense in the spring game.
Chunk plays abounded and CJ Bailey was masterful, completing 90% of his throws while averaging nearly 12 yards per attempt. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.
The game continues to slow down for him, and he’s playing with loads of confidence. The touchdown pass to Justin Joly was an excellent example of his progress: he calmly scrambled away from pressure, then patiently waited for Joly to flash open in the middle of the end zone.
State was outstanding running ball all afternoon as well, setting season-highs in attempts (40), rushing yards (281), yards per carry (7.0), and rushing touchdowns (five). State’s previous high in rushing yards was 204 against Western Carolina.
Jordan Waters reeled off the second-longest touchdown run in school history, scampering 94 yards to put a very definitive final nail in Stanford’s coffin.
Watching Stanford linebacker Gaethan Bernadel (number zero) on this play is confusing, to say the least, as he looks lost the whole time and skillfully takes himself completely out of the play by guessing at the wrong gap. There was no one on the second level of the defense for Jordan Waters to deal with, so once he got past the line of scrimmage, he just had to shake a half-hearted arm-tackle attempt by a cornerback to hit daylight. A nice job by Wesley Grimes as well to come across the field and seal off the safety who initially went the wrong way.
As far as 94-yard runs go, that one was easy. That kind of day for the Pack.