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The Franchise said:
Great post, El. I've watched all their games, and I agree with all that. Wilson and McNeil will be a problem for us, but we should spread them out and tempo them to death. UNC and VT both destroyed them with a good run/pass mix and by being unpredictable. If Lashlee gets too simple and tries to force the run he'll play into their hands despite their bad numbers stopping the run. UNC ran it on them, but they opened it all up with the throw game.

NCSU was on the rise with Leary at QB. He's far superior to Hockman, but if we let Hockman dink and dunk us with wide open short passes, he will. We need to get in the receivers' pockets, and make Hockman throw into tighter windows because he panics and isn't accurate.
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Chise:
Will we break out the Turnover Chain?....and how many times?.
Under pressure the QB Hockman should be nervous as ****, and we can position for the dink and dunk, and occasional long ball when he is in trouble.
Got to put points ups bigly.....for style if nothing else,...and looking at their previous games....
 
Good work and break down LCityEl.......
If our depth, gets a lot of burn that is good too, just win the **** game and improve.....great points.
 
Go Canes!! said:
Yet somehow we haven't allowed more than 7 points in the first half to any opponent other than Clemson.
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Good point. But we have still had some pretty porous halves of defensive football. Again, we do a great job with halftime adjustments, I actually think its one of the things manny does best with his D. But we do concede a half usually. If not on the scoreboard in yards for sure..

Edit: I just checked. You are very correct. We have been pretty dang good in the first half this year. A bit porous in the second half, but darn good in the first half. I still think they will move the ball well on us in the first half. But that was a great point I had not picked up on.
 
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Liberty City El said:


Vs Va Tech gave up 495yds, 314yds rushing




Vs UNC gave up 578yds, 326yds rushing




Vs Wake Forest gave up 385yds, 149yds rushing

Defense:

They also gave up 411yds passing vs Pitt, 323yds passing vs UVA & 129yds rushing vs Duke.

They're 76th in Total Defense, 76th vs the pass & 69th in Run Defense, giving up 4.33 yards per carry & giving up 5.62 yards per play. 30th in 3rd down Defense & 45th in Red Zone Defense with a 81% conversion rate. 74th in scoring Defense.
19th in Sacks with 19, 22nd in TFL's with 47, 36th in pass efficiency defense, 30th in INT's & 45th in turnovers.
They give up 447.5 yards per game, allow 34.2 points per game, 265.5yds passing & 182yds rushing per game.

Best Defensive performers:

- LB Payton Wilson, 53tcks 5.5TFL's 2INT's 1.5 sacks & 1PBU (Had 18tcks vs Duke)
- LB Drake Thomas, 46tcks 6.5TFL's & 2 sacks
- SS Jakeen Harris, 43tcks 1TFL & 2PBU's
- LB Isaiah Moore, 41tcks 4.5TFL's & 1.5 sacks
- CB Cecil Powell, 27tcks 2TFL's & 3PBU's
- CB Shyheim Battle, 24tcks 1TFL 1 sack 1INT & 5PBU's
- DE Terrell Dawkins, 19tcks 6TFL's & 3 sacks
- FS Tanner Ingle, 19tcks 1TFL & 2PBU's
- NB Tyler Baker-Williams, 18tcks 1.5TFL's 1 sack & 3PBU's
- LB Vi Jones, 14tcks 1.5TFL's 1 sack & 1PBU
- S Devan Boykin, 14tcks 1TFL & 2PBU's
- NB Joshua Pierre-Louis, 14tcks
- NT Alim McNeill, 12tcks 4TFL's 1 sack 1INT (pick 6), 1FF & 1FR
- DE Daniel Joseph, 12tcks 4TFL's & 4 sacks
- CB Malik Dunlap, 12tcks 1TFL 1 sack & 5PBU's

They had a 31yd run vs Wake Forest, a 37yd & 51yd run vs Va Tech, a 23yd run vs Duke & a 27yd run along with 4 runs that went for over 15+ yards vs UNC. Simply put, their Run Defense is susceptible to getting gashed on the edge if you can bounce on the outside & get to the 2nd level of the Defense.

The weakness of this Defense is their LB corps is not very strong, they play a 3-3-5 & their Weakside backer Payton Wilson & Mike Backer Isaiah Moore are the most active in terms of being multi use backers that both drop back in coverage & Blitz the pocket. Their Sam backer Drake Thomas is basically just another Edge, they use him primarily to rush the passer & collapse the pocket.

Their DL isn't strong in Run Defense, they do a pretty good job getting sacks, Daniel Joseph, Terrell Dawkins (who's a 6'4 235lbs that gets after it) & Savion Jackson are their top 3 DE's & on the interior Alim McNeill is disruptive Run stuffing Nose Tackle, he was a 4-star kid coming out of HS & he's been playing his best football this year, he has a 85 PFF grade, Gaynor & Clark will have their hands full.

In their secondary they got True Sophomore CB Cecil Powell a Lauderdale Lakes kid former Florida Fire DB that went to Boyd Anderson & Piper. Red Frosh CB Shyheim Battle 6'2 185lbs big bodied physical corner with 5PBU's. They also have Red Soph Malik Dunlap is a big Boundary Corner, he's 6'4 220lbs & has 5PBU's on the season & because they play a 3-3-5 they use multiple Nickels in Tyler Baker-Williams who's a 6'0 200lbs converted WR coming out of HS, Joshua Pierre-Louis (from Palm Beach Gardens, went to the Benjamin school) & Devan Boykin who's a Nickel CB/S.

Their starting Safeties are Tanner Ingle an Orlando kid from Dr. Phillips, he had missed time due being in the concussion protocol but is back starting for this game & Jakeen Harris who is their Rover Safety.

They've had a bunch of injuries throughout the year so a lot of their DB's have gotten starts & reps, they rotate different guys so they end up playing more than usual amount of DB's. As an overall unit they do a good job in Pass efficiency Defense, they can cover but they're not really great either. You can stretch the field on them with the Deep ball, but once again it comes down to our WR's actually being able to separate & make plays down the field. They'll follow the same formula as other Defenses have in playing Press man on the outside & daring us to beat them deep. They'll drop 6 & 7 in coverage & try to force King into throwing into multiple Zone looks.

This game for us offensively will come down to Miami running the ball on the outside & creating mismatches with their LB's in coverage. With Brevin back & Mallory as well, this should be a big game for the TE's. At WR, they're going to put one of their Nickels on Harley & not let him run free like UVA did, so either Pope or whichever WR is available will have to win their matchups on the outside. I think Lashlee will lean heavy on the screen game, try to get the ball to Knighton in the passing game & run some Wide Trips formations & split some of the Zone coverages we'll see.

This can be the perfect game for King to run the ball on scrambles & get outside of the pocket while throwing the ball, because I don't see them aimlessly Blitzing too heavy, they'll sit back in Zone which will give King some opportunities to Run & throw the ball at the last second after forcing a LB or DB to decide if they're going to come up to close out on him running or stay back & cover.

I think we should spread the field horizontally with 4/5-wide sets while going Tempo, work the TE's for big chunk yard plays & make some throws to the RB's out of the backfield.

Offense:

Ranked 60th in Total offense, 31st in Passing, 74th in rushing averaging 392.8 yards per game. 42nd in scoring averaging 31.5ppg, 67th in 3rd down offense with only a 38% conversion rate, but are 6-8 on 4th down with a 75% conversion rate. They've given up 15 sacks on the season & 8 INT's

Best Offensive performers:

- QB Bailey Hockman, 531yds 3TD's & 4INT's at 58.6%cmp
- WR Emeka Emezie, 23rec 370yds & 3TD's
- WR Devin Carter, 13rec 243yds & 1TD
- WR Thayer Thomas, 15rec 205yds & 1TD
- TE Cary Angeline, 12rec 185yds & 5TD's
- RB Zonovan Knight, 406yds & 3TD's rushing & 12rec 106yds receiving
- RB Ricky Person, 335yds & 3TD's rushing & 9rec 59yds receiving
- WR Porter Brooks, 12rec 144yds

View attachment 134950

Junior QB Bailey Hockman will get the start. He's thrown 55 passes on 1st & 2nd down, the majority of his passes come on 1st down, NC St likes to create 3rd & short situations so they can hand the ball off on 3rd downs, they're a throw to setup the run style offense with Hockman at the helm. He's very inaccurate & turnover prone, which means they're going to dink & dunk the ball as much as possible. Expect screens, RPO heavy & lots of targets to the TE.



At WR, their best weapon is Senior WR 6'3 220lbs Emeka Emezie. He's got great hands & is averaging 16.1 yards per catch, he's their Flanker & they throw the ball to him mainly on 2nd down in between the 40's, when the ball is midfield they throw it to him on Deep routes. Because they line him up at Z, he will mostly face Ivey this game, I would move Al Blades around & have him follow him all game, but I know we won't do that lol.

True Sophomore WR Devin Carter is 6'4 216lbs, he plays X, he averages 18.7 yards per catch, his the big body Deep ball WR that they throw jump balls to, he's not really a speedster, he just wins with his size & boxing out DB's. Blades will mainly have this matchup, just play him physical & don't let him get behind you.

Thayer Thomas 6'0 195lbs is their Slot WR, they throw to him a majority of the time on 1st downs, he's a short area Slot with good speed, he gets in & out of his breaks with quickness & an explosive player. He also can throw the ball well... Why does it matter if he can throw? Because they used him on multiple trick plays last year where he threw the ball on 5 WR pass plays for 2TD's (the QB throws him the ball on what looks like a Bubble screen, but then he throws it to another WR either streaking from the same Bunch stacked formation or a WR on the other side of the field running free after the Defense has bitten down on defending against the Slot screen). This season he's already thrown it twice. The Defense better be on alert for this trick play with Thayer, especially given Hockman being such a terrible passer himself, they'll be pulling out all the stops & 30-40yd WR pass play would be an easy TD if weMre not prepared for it. Coach Baker, if I noticed this then you better have too!

Their TE Cary Angeline is a big 6'7 250lbs who they throw to a lot in the Red Zone 10 of his 12 catches on the season have come in the Red Zone. For whatever reason Miami never accounts for the TE so expect him to get his number called early & often, much like UVA's TE Tony Poljan, they're gonna use him in the middle of the field & feed him in the Red Zone, put Bolden or Frierson on him & do not let this kid get in a groove.

Their RB's are pretty good, the duo of Zonovan Knight & Ricky Person are very solid, Knight is 5'11 206 & Ricky is 6'1 215lbs, they're both big physical backs who don't go down on first contact. As a team NC St is only averaging 3.6 yards per carry, but Knight is at 5.9ypc & Person is at 4.6ypc. Run Defense will need to show up to stop these 2. Tackling will need to be a premium this game (as it is for every game obviously).

Their OL is solid at OT, their LT True Soph Ikem Ekwonu was a Freshman All-American last year & is touted as one of the best OT's in the ACC. They have a Red Frosh LG, but the rest of the line are all veterans.

Overall NC ST's offense is good when Devin Leary is starting, with Hockman they're not good at all & can be turnover prone. What we need to do is Bing heavy pressure upfront & get Hockman behind schedule & off rhythm. They'll be expecting us to Blitz them like crazy because of their QB situation, but due to their OL not being as bad as FSU's or Pitt's I think we should only bring the front 4 with an occasional Blitzer while dropping extra defenders & forcing Hockman to throw into tight windows. I know we won't do that lol, but I think just Blitzing insanely won't be as effective against a solid OL.

The key to this game will be causing turnovers & getting an early lead, we score early & put our foot on the gas & we'll walk out with the W. Cannot get down on the road on a Friday night.

Another big X-factor in this game will be who is available to play. It's still unknown exactly who is out with Covid, so that could wind up playing a huge part in terms of depth depending on how many are out & exactly at which spots.

As long as we have most of our starters on both sides of the ball I think we should still win, where we can't afford to have any Covid outs is at OL, CB & RB. But even with that said (barring mass Covid sits at crucial positions);

I got Miami for the win 31-17.
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I am very impressed with your previews. Very professional. Where do you research/get your info (retorical question)? Just very good.
 
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The Franchise said:
Great post, El. I've watched all their games, and I agree with all that. Wilson and McNeil will be a problem for us, but we should spread them out and tempo them to death. UNC and VT both destroyed them with a good run/pass mix and by being unpredictable. If Lashlee gets too simple and tries to force the run he'll play into their hands despite their bad numbers stopping the run. UNC ran it on them, but they opened it all up with the throw game.

NCSU was on the rise with Leary at QB. He's far superior to Hockman, but if we let Hockman dink and dunk us with wide open short passes, he will. We need to get in the receivers' pockets, and make Hockman throw into tighter windows because he panics and isn't accurate.
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Exactly!

I watched that Va Tech game & Vag Tech had them reeling from the coin flip, they put NC ST's Defense on skates attacking the edge of their Defense, those fckers were leaning from side to side all game.

What I noticed about NC St's Defense is they play primarily downhill, they're a North & South ball club, they don't have a lot of team speed sideline to sideline, so if Lashlee is the play caller I believe him to be he'll get them swaying from hash to hash & once they decide to commit their Safeties to the run game, attack the Deep third with the TE's.

Idk which WR's will be out for the game, but this would be the perfect game to feed Keyshawn Smith on a Deep Post Corner route because their secondary doesn't cover the deep ball well, they're a short area group who are physical but not fast.

Despite the roadblocks that are in front of us, we should have an advantage in this game, it's a talent vs talent game & we're better from top to bottom except at OL lol. I think King will put the team on his back & rise to the occasion.

Phillips, JHH, Nesta, Roche & Harvey need to make their presence felt all game, this is their game to control.
 
DTP said:
King has made multiple comments to the media this week about keeping on the zone read more. I understand he didn't do a lot of read at Houston but it's a staple of this offense and it's not brain surgery. If we can just gouge them with the pass enough to keep from overloading against the run, it will be a runaway.
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Especially from the Trips formation, if we work the Mesh while the Defense has to pull Defenders to the Boundary side of the field he'll have a shît ton of green grass to trek once the DE bites down on the ball fake, or even if he doesn't completely go after the RB just the slight hesitation will give King enough time to get in full stride for 7-8yd gains by the time they adjust & pursue him.

I'd even go empty backfield & run a QB Draw at midfield against NC St's 3-man front.

There's a number of ways to get easy quick yards on QB runs with King, especially against a team with a very soft run defense like NC St. I'd even go full Pistol offense with a number of plays out of 12 & 22 personnel.

If I'm Lashlee I'm going deep into the exotic play call bag for this game, on the road Friday night with multiple people out due to Covid, I'd force NC St to have to defend against shìt they've never even seen on tape.
 
Liberty City El said:
Especially from the Trips formation, if we work the Mesh while the Defense has to pull Defenders to the Boundary side of the field he'll have a shît ton of green grass to trek once the DE bites down on the ball fake, or even if he doesn't completely go after the RB just the slight hesitation will give King enough time to get in full stride for 7-8yd gains by the time they adjust & pursue him.

I'd even go empty backfield & run a QB Draw at midfield against NC St's 3-man front.

There's a number of ways to get easy quick yards on QB runs with King, especially against a team with a very soft run defense like NC St. I'd even go full Pistol offense with a number of plays out of 12 & 22 personnel.

If I'm Lashlee I'm going deep into the exotic play call bag for this game, on the road Friday night with multiple people out due to Covid, I'd force NC St to have to defend against shìt they've never even seen on tape.
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Feel like we did this decently a few times vs. UVAg but King never ran, either due to abuse aversion or not seeing the field. That said, I think our mesh is a little slow and I'd like to see a more seamless decision/transition. This has been part of the problem in King keeping the ball too long leading to sacks/throwaways.
 
JeddTheFisch said:
Feel like we did this decently a few times vs. UVAg but King never ran, either due to abuse aversion or not seeing the field. That said, I think our mesh is a little slow and I'd like to see a more seamless decision/transition. This has been part of the problem in King keeping the ball too long leading to sacks/throwaways.
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When he's decided to run he's had some big runs like vs UAB, FSU & had a 20+ yarder against Pitt.

It's just a matter of catching the Defense off guard, if the DE/LB is reading the QB & not biting, then handing it off to the RB is right decision even if it goes for a short gain, King just has to get a better feel for it in terms of the rhythm of the game & knowing the exact time when to catch the Defense slipping & pull the ball.
 
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Awesome stuff LCE!!! thanks for taking the time to do that. Makes the football experience much better and is one of the great bonuses of the site. 🙌🙌🙌
 
Liberty City El said:
Exactly!

I watched that Va Tech game & Vag Tech had them reeling from the coin flip, they put NC ST's Defense on skates attacking the edge of their Defense, those fckers were leaning from side to side all game.

What I noticed about NC St's Defense is they play primarily downhill, they're a North & South ball club, they don't have a lot of team speed sideline to sideline, so if Lashlee is the play caller I believe him to be he'll get them swaying from hash to hash & once they decide to commit their Safeties to the run game, attack the Deep third with the TE's.

Idk which WR's will be out for the game, but this would be the perfect game to feed Keyshawn Smith on a Deep Post Corner route because their secondary doesn't cover the deep ball well, they're a short area group who are physical but not fast.

Despite the roadblocks that are in front of us, we should have an advantage in this game, it's a talent vs talent game & we're better from top to bottom except at OL lol. I think King will put the team on his back & rise to the occasion.

Phillips, JHH, Nesta, Roche & Harvey need to make their presence felt all game, this is their game to control.
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See the same stuff. For all the **** Fuente takes on here, he was masterful keeping NCSU reeling. Like you said, he had them chasing their tails. He's good with misdirection, though, and we aren't. It's an area I'd like to see Lashlee improve on.
 
I saw a Lashlee interview last week where he said defenses were doing something read wise to make him hand off instead of pulling it; anyone know what that was and potential counters?
 
gatorsSUCK! said:
I saw a Lashlee interview last week where he said defenses were doing something read wise to make him hand off instead of pulling it; anyone know what that was and potential counters?
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The defense is taught to attack the mesh which makes it harder to read. That’s why you’ll see a qb hold the ball at the mesh point for an extra second because it can force the defender to make a choice. Sit home and wait for the QB or totally commit to the mesh/handoff where the QB should pull it back and keep it. If the free defender (the guy the QB reads) manages to stay in no man’s land and doesn’t commit it can kill the entire play. But the defender can’t play both for more than about a second so once he commits, King has to make his decision.
 
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Great informative post. With Canes on offense what would be the first 3 plays you would call.
 
DTP said:
The defense is taught to attack the mesh which makes it harder to read. That’s why you’ll see a qb hold the ball at the mesh point for an extra second because it can force the defender to make a choice. Sit home and wait for the QB or totally commit to the mesh/handoff where the QB should pull it back and keep it. If the free defender (the guy the QB reads) manages to stay in no man’s land and doesn’t commit it can kill the entire play. But the defender can’t play both for more than about a second so once he commits, King has to make his decision.
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Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me👍🙌
 
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Liberty City El said:
I wanna see us play with aggression too, vs UVA we settled for too many FG's & punted the ball back to them way too many times.

On the road on a Friday night (idk how many fans they allow in their stadium in the current Covid protocol) but I'm expecting max amount of fans attending, it will be loud & the energy will be high. We need to take the air out of the stadium by converting drives for TD's & going for it on 4th down a lot more.

Can't have too many demoralizing 3 & out stops & giving them momentum with extra possessions.

I would throw the kitchen sink at them early & overwhelm them from the jump, if we come out there playing safe conservative ball we'll give them life & make it much harder game than it needs to be.

This team without their starting QB is not that good, we need to mash on the gas & hit'em in the mouth early.
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Would love to see us come out firing the ball all over the field and then play press man 1 and make them feel us early. I guess I could settle for offense aggressive and defense in prevent all night since that’s how far away we are in zone most plays anyhow
 
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