Not everyone is willing to appreciate it, but I for one like that college football sometimes is like the electric football game our ancestors played, with guys just sort of vibrating at each other with no particular aim or goals. Even with human beings in play, that’s just sometimes how it works.
NC State’s first defensive possession against Western Carolina on Thursday night was quite something—Caden Fordham dropped what would have been a pick-six on the first play of the season, Aydan White had a bobble chance the next play go for naught, and not long after, Fordham got himself thrown out for targeting.
These were just some of the things that happened on Thursday night. There was an early theme sustained over a longer run than any of us would have preferred—just a little better decision-making, or a little better execution, and NC State was going to be off and running.
Instead, NC State found a lot of ways to keep Western Carolina in the game, and it was very much a game into the fourth quarter as a result of this. State was better down-to-down, plainly, but it was not disruptive defensively, and Grayson McCall missed on several throws that could have started a snowball in the first half.
Throughout all of that there was KC Concepcion, who left no doubt about just how good he is, or how he’s going to play in this new, deeper NC State offense. Concepcion went for nine grabs, 121 yards, and 3 scores. The last of those, which was an incredible individual effort, gave State the lead for good to start the fourth quarter.
It’s that “taking the lead for good in the fourth quarter” bit that’s frustrating, but since I have the luxury of it now, I’m going to focus on the process rather than the execution, the latter being really bad overall.
These things happen. What’s encouraging about this performance was just how open receivers were downfield, and how many options McCall had—how many different guys he missed, who were very wide open.
This gets to be encouraging for exactly one week, because it’s a welcome change—if McCall can’t execute, then we’re not much better off than we were before this, but at least guys are open. Clearly the potential for this offense is much greater, but McCall’s going to have to get his head out of his ass and let his teammates help him out. He was missing layups.
Odds are he’ll be fine—and to be clear, I think he will be fine—and he just had a rough debut, yet still managed to throw for 300 yards in the process. This offense clearly is different in terms of the athletes it has on hand to throw at other teams, and once everyone other than KC relaxes—KC is always relaxed—then State will find the efficiency that good offenses have.
The explosives are there, though, no doubt. That’s the big thing I wanted to see.
We’ll talk about the defense later.