2010 NC State Wolfpack Football: NC State @ Georgia Tech

The Georgia Tech-North Carolina State game in Atlanta featured the ACC’s lone unbeaten team – and it is not the defending ACC champion Yellow Jackets. N.C. State beat Western Carolina, UCF and Cincinnati to enter its first ACC game 3-0, while Georgia Tech was tripped up at Kansas for its lone defeat heading into the game. The Wolfpack scored 45 points in an offensive shootout to defeat the defending champs and remain unbeaten.

Georgia Tech, despite beating North Carolina last week, has shown that it is probably not a serious championship contender this season, though it is not unthinkable that a three-loss team could win one or both divisions in the ACC. On the other hand, North Carolina State now finds itself being discussed as a darkhorse conference contender.

North Carolina State is led by quarterback Russell Wilson. The Wolfpack star is not only one of the top talents in college baseball, having been drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the latest Major League Baseball draft, but he has also established himself as one of the top quarterbacks in the ACC. Wilson strengthened his case for first-team all-ACC honors by torching the Yellow Jackets for 368 yards and 3 TDs. In addition to the 368 passing yards, N.C. State also added 159 on the ground, for a total of 527 yards on the game, easily outpacing the Paul Johnson offensive machine, which only managed 363 yards of offense.

The fact is, the Johnson machine has some serious mechanical issues. Yellow Jacket quarterback Joshua Nesbitt has lost his two big-play supporting skill players from a year ago, running back Jonathan Dwyer and wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, to the NFL. But there is more to Tech’s troubles than simply a loss of two extremely talented players. Johnson’s offensive system should thrive despite the loss of a big-time running back or wide receiver. The triple option attack still opens up big plays, and the Yellow Jackets still have the athletes to turn them. Witness Nesbitt’s 61-yard QB keeper, or his 50-yard pass to running back Anthony Allen, or B.J. Bostic’s 43-yard scamper.

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Something is not humming with the Tech offense, and it seems to be Nesbitt, which is perplexing because the senior quarterback has successfully run the option ever since Johnson was brought aboard for the 2008 season. In 2008 and 2009, Nesbitt seemed to always make the right decision, knowing when to hand off to the dive back, or when to keep the ball on the option, or when to pitch to the trailing back. This season, his decision-making has regressed. The big plays are still there, though less frequently than before. It is the rest of the plays that seem different. Instead of the dive back plowing ahead for 5 or 6 yards as Dwyer would often do, the dive has had little success this year, perhaps reflecting Dwyer’s absence. But more to the point, Nesbitt’s keepers are often stopped for no gain or a loss on the play, something that seemed to happen far less frequently in past years. To wit, Nesbitt had a 61-yard run on one big play. His other 18 carries went for only 34 yards, a remarkable drop in production for the senior leader. And while fumbles have long plagued Nesbitt and the GT offense, something which is perhaps unavoidable running the triple option, they become a much bigger issue when the offense isn’t cranking out yards en masse. (Though in fairness, it should be noted that neither of Georgia Tech’s two lost fumbles were credited to Nesbitt.)

Georgia Tech’s first five possessions were ugly, and emblematic of the Jackets’ struggles this year: 3 plays, 4 yards, and a punt (Johnson rarely employed this football staple over the past couple seasons); 7 plays, 33 yards (25 of which were on a Nesbitt run in which he fumbled), and a drive that ended on a lost fumble by Allen; 3 plays, 1 yard, and a punt, which was blocked and recovered for an N.C. State TD; 3 plays, 3 yards, and a punt; 5 plays, 3 yards, and a drive that ended on an Allen fumble. Clearly, something is amiss on offense for the Yellow Jackets.

The defense is not faring much better, an observation to which Wilson could attest. The N.C. State signal caller exploited Tech’s defense, finding soft spots in the zone all game long. With the exception of one brutally thrown ball on an incorrect read, resulting in a pick-six by Jerrard Tarrant that allowed the Yellow Jackets to pull within three points early in the fourth quarter, Wilson was efficient in picking apart the Georgia Tech defense, which struggled on pass coverage all game long. Following his one big mistake of the game, Wilson put it behind him to engineer a Yellow Jacket-crushing drive of 74 yards on only 9 plays. He hooked up with T.J. Graham on a critical 3rd-and-11 play for a 23-yard TD to put the Wolfpack up 10 with eight and a half minutes to go in the game. Had the Wolfpack had to settle for a field goal (no sure thing, mind you, as kicker Josh Czajkowski had already missed a pair of 31-yarders in the first half), they would have been up only six. Even when the Tech offense isn’t working, it is still capable of breaking a big run on any given play, and a 6-point lead is precarious. As it were, the Wolfpack stopped the Yellow Jackets on the ensuing drive, and then added one final touchdown for good measure, to secure the 17-point victory over the home team.

North Carolina State’s victory was its first in-conference, and the Wolfpack moved to 4-0 overall, the lone ACC unbeaten as October begins. The Pack hosts the Virginia Tech Hokies at 3:30 Eastern this Saturday. Georgia Tech dropped to 1-1 in the ACC and 2-2 overall and will travel to Wake Forest for a 7 p.m. Eastern time kickoff.

NC State Wolfpack @ Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Football Recap