View attachment 135643
Offense:
D'Eriq King - 24/38 255yds 1TD 63%cmp & 18att 15yds & 1TD rushing
Cam'ron Harris - 14att 63yds 1TD
Dee Wiggins - 8rec 106yds
Mike Harley - 6rec 51yds
Mark Pope - 4rec 50yds 1TD
Jaylan Knighton - 7att 27yds
Don Chaney Jr - 8att 25yds
Brevin Jordan - 2rec 22yds
Will Mallory - 2rec 21yds
Gained 386yds total (255 passing & 131 rushing), off 86 plays, at 4.5 yards per play, 26 first downs, 6/17 on 3rd down & 32:36 in time of possession.
First drive was scripted well & setup perfect for King to go for it on 4th down, Idk who's decision it was to run a fake FG with Borregales but it was a dumb one, especially to the opposite side of the hashes where he literally had no blockers. On 4th down & short put the ball in Kings hands. There's a ton of options you can run in that scenario, Fake FG is probably dead last on the chart.
OL was
horrid.
Scaife played absolutely awful, he got beat routinely on inside moves & gave Va Tech's interior rushers a fast track lane straight to the QB. Unfortunately, Jakai Clark, Cleveland Reed & Jalen Rivers were all out for the game, so basically we were stuck with having to play Scaife no matter what with no replacement backup because Traore had to start in place of Clark. We didn't even have the option of playing John Campbell at Guard.
Wiggins played his best game of the year, yeah he did have a bad hands drop earlier in the game & he still plays with no physicality, he cannot separate at the top of his routes, but his best route is the Deep out towards the sideline & the Bubble screen. He's still inconsistent with second level routes down the field but the last 2 games he's had 15 catches for 183yds, so just keep working & getting better.
Pope has found his comfort zone, he hasn't had the drops issues he had earlier in the year & has now become a legitimate playmaker. He's come into his own as the Flanker & has shown up more & more as a WR that can be trusted to move the chains in space & win his matchup.
The WR group overall is beginning to gel, with the loss of Spring reps it was clear in the first half of the season they were not on the same page with King, but as they've continued to gain confidence & build continuity they've become a productive trio of Harley, Pope & Wiggins. Obviously, still tons of room to grow & still need more consistency, but they're headed in the right direction down the last stretch of the season, the WR's are trending up.
The run game is still an uphill battle, much like the Pitt game, we managed to rush for over 130yds as a team but averaged 2.7 yards per carry, obviously the sacks bring the average down quite a bit, but even without them it's still Death by a thousand paper cuts. Our RB's haven't had a 100yd rusher since Louisville, but Harris was solid on a couple runs & Chaney/Knighton are always good for some tough runs on key drives every game. Gotta keep working to improve the run game, but our Interior OL is the source of the problem there.
Terrific play calls on the drive for the go ahead TD off the RPO Slant. We kept them off balance with some tough runs from Chaney & quick passes to Wiggins, Harley & culminating with a TD to Pope.
On the first 2pt conversion try, if King actually just throws it to Harley peeling off on Flag route he would've caught it easy, I don't get throwing it to Zion Nelson in that situation. On the 2nd 2pt try, it wasn't a bad play call, just probably should've run it with Knighton instead of Chaney. But otherwise, I didn't have issue with Lashlee's play calling, especially considering how bad the OL was today, he did a great job going tempo when necessary & orchestrated multiple methodical drives for TD's. He identified Va Tech's inability to keep with the RPO plays & utilized their soft zones against them hitting with Bubble screens frequently to give us manageable short yardage downs. The only time we would get behind the sticks was primarily in the 3rd quarter when the OL was hemorrhaging & couldn't stop Hewitt. Lash has been a Godsend of this team as an OC, with Enox this team wouldn't score 1/16th the amount of points we do nor get anywhere near the offensive output we gain every game. By far the best OC we've had since Chudzinski.
King carries this team on his back, he's literally our best player by a country mile & without him we would be a below .500 team. He's been absolutely dialed in & elevated his play since the loss to Clemson, he's the unquestioned leader of this team & is by far the best QB we've had in decades. All hail the King!
Defense:
Gilbert Frierson - 8tcks 2TFL's 2 sacks
Jaelan Phillips - 8tcks 4.5TFL's & 2 sacks
Sam Brooks - 7tcks 1TFL & 1 sack
Gurvan Hall - 7tcks 0.5TFL's
Amari Carter - 7tcks
Jon Ford - 6tcks
Te'Cory Couch - 5tcks 3TFL's 1 sack 1INT & 1PBU
DJ Ivey - 5tcks
Nesta Silvera - 4tcks 1TFL 2 hurries
Quincy Roche - 4tcks 1TFL
Bradley Jennings Jr - 4tcks 0.5TFL & 1PBU
Gave up 362 total yards on Defense, but had 11TFL's, 6 sacks & 1 turnover.
Defense did a horrible job on the 53yd run by Hooker, the LB's got sealed off in the alley & Bolden got completely sucked into the hole over pursuing, took a bad angle & couldn't recover.
Bubba Bolden with a boneheaded penalty after Phillips gets a huge sack & gives them a fresh set of downs instead of a potential 2nd/3rd & long. Once again the undisciplined nature of this team shoots us in the foot any time we start to get positive plays going for the Defense.
Jaelan Phillips played his best game since FSU, he gave Va Tech's OT's fits & did a great job wrapping up on Hooker & getting him down, he came up with 3 sacks on crucial downs & helped changed the complexion of the game in the 2nd half.
Nesta Silvera played a terrific game as well, he was disruptive all game long, he was routinely held by VA Tech's OG's but still was able to make a big impact taking Hooker off his mark in the 2nd half.
Gilbert Frierson played great as well, his football IQ is off the charts, he made a great read on the key sack he got late & has developed into the quintessential Striker. He's good in coverage & great against the run, he's been the most imrooved player of the year on the Defense.
That was a great pick by Couch, he played great all game, he was active in the backfield getting home on his Blitzes & he had a great day tackling, he has emerged as clearly the best DB in our secondary, props to
@ajone228 for calling it. Couch & Phillips were the co-MVP's of the game on Defense.
The LB's are still just not very good, Brooks played well IMO, Jennings made the best play he's made all year with a dropped INT, but the LB group needs a serious infusion of talent. Although I will say, they looked much better without McCloud.
This Defense played bad in the first half per usual, but was able to make 2nd half adjustments.
After giving up the TD to start the 3rd quarter, the Defense hunkered down & played good ball getting off the field. After the TD, on 6 possessions Va Tech went, FG, Punt, Punt, INT, Punt & turnover on downs. Miami Boa constricted VTech in the 4th quarter & held them to 0 scores.
Diaz called this game today & you can tell the glaring difference between a Diaz called & a Baker abomination called, 2nd half adjustments has been Diaz's forte since he's been at Miami & showed today. At season's end he will do himself a huge service by replacing Baker & finding a competent DC that he doesn't have to babysit & micromanage. This game just proved how worthless Baker really is.
Overall, another tough gritty nail biter win, not pretty & pristine like we'd all like but good teams win ugly & winning is the name of the game. This team is of course flawed & still has depth issues & needs a good 2 recruiting classes with an infusion of talent at all levels before it should be looked at as a true contender, however, what matters above all is stack W's & parlaying that into success on the recruiting trail. We didn't play perfect by any stretch of the imagination but we did what we had to do in order to win & I'll take it.
We're still an overl penalized team, with 8 penalties for 77 yards, but at this point, that's who this team is, just an undisciplined laundry magnet for these horrendous ACC refs. At best, as long as we can keep our penalties under 10 for less than a 100yds we should be good lol. (All jokes aside, ACC officiating crews are highly litigious, but I honestly believe they are told to be extra flag happy against us because we're an overly chirpy team that essentially begs for them to fck with us).
Next week vs GTech is revenge time & we should win that game more comfortably than we have these last 2 weeks, either way just keep trekking ahead & finding ways to win, we got 2 more potential shootouts left with Wake & UNC, 10-1 is a very real possibility this season.
Go Canes!.
