OrangeBowlMagic
CEO
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2014
- Messages
- 19,091
As always, these are only numbers from FBS vs FBS competition.
Offense:
Yards per play: 34th (6.13 YPP)
Yards per game: 36th (414.9 YPG)
Points per game: 22nd (32.4 PPG)
Passing yards per game: 32nd (261.7 YPG)
Passing completion percentage: 6th (71.2%)
Passing yards per attempt: 19th (8.5 YPA)
Passer rating: 17th (156.09)
Passing TDs: 36th (17 TDs)
Interceptions: 91st (9 INTs)
Rushing yards per game: 60th (153.22 YPG)
Rushing yards per attempt: 76th (4.17 YPA)
Rushing TDs: 33rd (18)
Sacks given up per game: 6th (0.78 per game)
First Downs per game: 38th (21.7 per game)
3rd down conversion %: 29th (44.83%)
4th down conversion %: 32nd (62.5%, 10 for 16 on the season)
TFLs allowed per game: 5th (3.33 per game)
Red Zone TD %: 18th (70.2% TD rate, 26 TDs in 37 chances)
Red Zone Scoring %: 16th (34 scores in 37 chances)
Field goal %: 36th (12 for 14)
PAT %: 1st (41 for 41)
10+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 60th (126) Season high 23 against NC State
20+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 67th (26) Season high 12 against NC State
30+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 56th (18) Season High 7 against NC State
40+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 71st (8)
50+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 92nd (3)
60+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 72nd (2)
70+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 99th (0)
Defense:
Yards per play allowed: 7th (4.39 YPP)
Yards per game allowed: 8th (279.8 YPG)
Points per game allowed: 7th (15.4 PPG)
Passing yards per game allowed: 34th (199.1 YPG)
Passing completion percentage allowed: 21st (57.7%)
Passing yards per attempt: 10th (5.9 YPA)
Passer rating allowed: 11th (111.32)
Rushing yards per game allowed: 3rd (80.67 YPG)
Rushing yards per attempt allowed: 5th (2.71 YPA)
Sacks per game: 17th (2.67 sacks per game)
3rd down % allowed: 12th (31.71% allowed)
4th down % allowed: 34th (47%, opponents 8/17 on 4th down)
Red Zone td % allowed: 96th (65% allowed -- 13 TDs in 20 chances) 20 Red Zone attempts is 7th fewest in the country
Red Zone Scoring % allowed: 71st (85% allowed -- 17 scores in 20 chances)
Punting: 37th (44.6 Yard average)
10+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 12th (93) Season-low FOUR allowed against NC State
20+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 15th (28) Season-low ONE allowed against NC State
30+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 6th (9)
40+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 5th (4)
50+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 10th (2)
60+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 11th (1)
Team Stats:
Penalties: 133rd (8.1 penalties per game) Texas and Georgia State the only 2 teams in America who are worse
Penalty yards: 118th (65.1 Yards per game)
Turnover margin: 22nd (+0.67 per game -- 16 takeaways, 10 giveaways)
Time of possession: 4th (34:07 per game)
Seconds per play: 129th (29.8 seconds between plays, only 7 teams slower, 3 of them being Army, Navy, and Iowa. But also Ohio State)
Takeaways:
Well, did everyone have fun?? My goodness, that was a splattering. BY FAR our best statistical game of the season, and it wasn't even close. Let's start with the defense, because I'm struggling to come up with unique praise at this point. I just think we need to admit this is the best defense we've seen in 20 years here. Mario, Heatherman, the entire defensive staff, and all the kids....just wow. I have said on this board and in my personal life for years and years that it's almost impossible to make MASSIVE statistical jumps from one year to the next. I said it all summer, we were so god awful last year, I just didn't think it was reasonable to expect that radioactive waste of a defense we saw all last year to jump up into one of the truly elite national units in just one off-season. Over the years, it usually takes a full two years. Year 1 will be a big improvement, but you rarely go from one of the literal very worst to one of the very best. I think with the portal, I need to forget that line of thinking. This is an ELITE unit in year 1 under Heatherman, and it's honestly better than I could've ever even imagined in the off-season. Still two games to go, and I think we will be stressed some by Pitt, but that was a complete bludgeoning we watched on Saturday. This is NC State's drive chart from Saturday:
Punt
Three-and-Out
Pick Six
Interception
Three-and-Out
Three-and-Out
Punt
End of Half
Three-and-Out
Punt
Three-and-Out
Touchdown
Remember, this was a Top 25 offense in the country by essentially all metrics. They scored 48 before their bye week against GT. They scored 34 the week before that against Pitt. I don't think they ran a play in Miami territory until the 4th quarter. Our defense outscored their offense for the first 58 minutes of the game. Hollywood Smothers came into the game as the ACC's leading rusher, he had 7 carries for -2 yards. Yes, you read that correctly. NC State had 20 carries for 23 yards as a team. And we only had 1 sack, so those numbers aren't artificially depressed. (They're just depressing, if you're a Wolfpack fan). I haven't seen a Miami front 7 completely swallow an offense like that in a LONG time. Every single time they ran the ball, their offensive line was 3 yards in the backfield. CJ Bailey averaged FOUR yards per attempt, which is impossibly pathetic. Anyway, I could go on all day here, I just can't say enough about how much this defense has improved. This is a legitimate national championship defense. I'm not going to say it's the very best unit in the country, but paired with a good offense, this defense could absolutely win a national championship. Take a bow, Mr. Heatherman.
Offensively, obviously our best performance of the year as well. I'm not going to go completely overboard here, simply because I tried to tell everyone all last week that this was literally the worst defense we were going to face all season. Yes, worse than Syracuse, worse than Stanford, and yes, worse than USF. This is what you expect to do to a defense like this. So, I will say it was very nice to see a team as talented as we are on offense put belt to *** on a defense that deserved it. But I have to be honest, I'm not throwing a parade for these guys yet. That first half was still not good enough. Now, with the way the defense was playing, we just completely annihilated their exhausted defense in the 2nd half. I'm not saying it wasn't an excellent performance overall...it was. But here is our drive chart from the first half. Remember, I posted all week, this NC State defense was in the HUNDREDS in almost literally every category. This is NOT SMU or Louisville. Even though SMU sucks against the pass, they are very good against the run. NC State is genuinely completely awful no matter what you try to do against them:
Field Goal
Fumble
Three-and-Out
Touchdown (On a 48 yard drive)
Punt
Touchdown
We scored 17 points on 6 first half drives. 2.83 points per drive. That's good, it's not great. So, in the grand scheme, with how painfully average this offense has been, I'll gladly take what we did. Especially in the 2nd half, and I'm always the one here saying games are 60 minutes and they all count the same. So, of course, we averaged over 8 a play, and we scored 34 offensive points in essentially 3 quarters. For as amazing as the 2024 offense was, we didn't get over 8.30 yards per play against any P4 team last season. So at the end of the day, it was a great offensive performance. I just wish we'd have started a little faster. I'm sure we'll dissect the play-calling throughout the week, but just from a numbers standpoint, we had twenty-three plays of 10+ yards, which is incredible. And we had 12 plays of 20+ yards. In the 8 previous FBS games, we had a total of 14 plays of 20+ yards. We got 12 on Saturday alone. So the explosives finally came, and they came in bunches. We ran some play-action on short-yardage for the first time in 2 months. We ran about 5 trick plays, which are clearly designed to generate explosives. Gerard Pringle looks like a gift, although again, I'll caution everyone, that NC State defense is arguably the worst in America at the power level. Only Boston College and Rutgers are worse currently in YPP allowed from P4 schools.
All in all, a really fun game, and we needed this. Desperately. Especially on offense. It's been a painful, boring, frustrating season on that side of the ball. It was fun to see the kids having a good time. I expect much of the same this week against VT, who is almost as bad on defense as NC State. Let's finish strong these last 2 weeks, go score 40+ on VT and Pitt, and see where the chips fall.
Go Canes.
Offense:
Yards per play: 34th (6.13 YPP)
Yards per game: 36th (414.9 YPG)
Points per game: 22nd (32.4 PPG)
Passing yards per game: 32nd (261.7 YPG)
Passing completion percentage: 6th (71.2%)
Passing yards per attempt: 19th (8.5 YPA)
Passer rating: 17th (156.09)
Passing TDs: 36th (17 TDs)
Interceptions: 91st (9 INTs)
Rushing yards per game: 60th (153.22 YPG)
Rushing yards per attempt: 76th (4.17 YPA)
Rushing TDs: 33rd (18)
Sacks given up per game: 6th (0.78 per game)
First Downs per game: 38th (21.7 per game)
3rd down conversion %: 29th (44.83%)
4th down conversion %: 32nd (62.5%, 10 for 16 on the season)
TFLs allowed per game: 5th (3.33 per game)
Red Zone TD %: 18th (70.2% TD rate, 26 TDs in 37 chances)
Red Zone Scoring %: 16th (34 scores in 37 chances)
Field goal %: 36th (12 for 14)
PAT %: 1st (41 for 41)
10+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 60th (126) Season high 23 against NC State
20+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 67th (26) Season high 12 against NC State
30+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 56th (18) Season High 7 against NC State
40+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 71st (8)
50+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 92nd (3)
60+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 72nd (2)
70+ Yard Scrimmage Plays: 99th (0)
Defense:
Yards per play allowed: 7th (4.39 YPP)
Yards per game allowed: 8th (279.8 YPG)
Points per game allowed: 7th (15.4 PPG)
Passing yards per game allowed: 34th (199.1 YPG)
Passing completion percentage allowed: 21st (57.7%)
Passing yards per attempt: 10th (5.9 YPA)
Passer rating allowed: 11th (111.32)
Rushing yards per game allowed: 3rd (80.67 YPG)
Rushing yards per attempt allowed: 5th (2.71 YPA)
Sacks per game: 17th (2.67 sacks per game)
3rd down % allowed: 12th (31.71% allowed)
4th down % allowed: 34th (47%, opponents 8/17 on 4th down)
Red Zone td % allowed: 96th (65% allowed -- 13 TDs in 20 chances) 20 Red Zone attempts is 7th fewest in the country
Red Zone Scoring % allowed: 71st (85% allowed -- 17 scores in 20 chances)
Punting: 37th (44.6 Yard average)
10+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 12th (93) Season-low FOUR allowed against NC State
20+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 15th (28) Season-low ONE allowed against NC State
30+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 6th (9)
40+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 5th (4)
50+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 10th (2)
60+ Yard Scrimmage Plays allowed: 11th (1)
Team Stats:
Penalties: 133rd (8.1 penalties per game) Texas and Georgia State the only 2 teams in America who are worse
Penalty yards: 118th (65.1 Yards per game)
Turnover margin: 22nd (+0.67 per game -- 16 takeaways, 10 giveaways)
Time of possession: 4th (34:07 per game)
Seconds per play: 129th (29.8 seconds between plays, only 7 teams slower, 3 of them being Army, Navy, and Iowa. But also Ohio State)
Takeaways:
Well, did everyone have fun?? My goodness, that was a splattering. BY FAR our best statistical game of the season, and it wasn't even close. Let's start with the defense, because I'm struggling to come up with unique praise at this point. I just think we need to admit this is the best defense we've seen in 20 years here. Mario, Heatherman, the entire defensive staff, and all the kids....just wow. I have said on this board and in my personal life for years and years that it's almost impossible to make MASSIVE statistical jumps from one year to the next. I said it all summer, we were so god awful last year, I just didn't think it was reasonable to expect that radioactive waste of a defense we saw all last year to jump up into one of the truly elite national units in just one off-season. Over the years, it usually takes a full two years. Year 1 will be a big improvement, but you rarely go from one of the literal very worst to one of the very best. I think with the portal, I need to forget that line of thinking. This is an ELITE unit in year 1 under Heatherman, and it's honestly better than I could've ever even imagined in the off-season. Still two games to go, and I think we will be stressed some by Pitt, but that was a complete bludgeoning we watched on Saturday. This is NC State's drive chart from Saturday:
Punt
Three-and-Out
Pick Six
Interception
Three-and-Out
Three-and-Out
Punt
End of Half
Three-and-Out
Punt
Three-and-Out
Touchdown
Remember, this was a Top 25 offense in the country by essentially all metrics. They scored 48 before their bye week against GT. They scored 34 the week before that against Pitt. I don't think they ran a play in Miami territory until the 4th quarter. Our defense outscored their offense for the first 58 minutes of the game. Hollywood Smothers came into the game as the ACC's leading rusher, he had 7 carries for -2 yards. Yes, you read that correctly. NC State had 20 carries for 23 yards as a team. And we only had 1 sack, so those numbers aren't artificially depressed. (They're just depressing, if you're a Wolfpack fan). I haven't seen a Miami front 7 completely swallow an offense like that in a LONG time. Every single time they ran the ball, their offensive line was 3 yards in the backfield. CJ Bailey averaged FOUR yards per attempt, which is impossibly pathetic. Anyway, I could go on all day here, I just can't say enough about how much this defense has improved. This is a legitimate national championship defense. I'm not going to say it's the very best unit in the country, but paired with a good offense, this defense could absolutely win a national championship. Take a bow, Mr. Heatherman.
Offensively, obviously our best performance of the year as well. I'm not going to go completely overboard here, simply because I tried to tell everyone all last week that this was literally the worst defense we were going to face all season. Yes, worse than Syracuse, worse than Stanford, and yes, worse than USF. This is what you expect to do to a defense like this. So, I will say it was very nice to see a team as talented as we are on offense put belt to *** on a defense that deserved it. But I have to be honest, I'm not throwing a parade for these guys yet. That first half was still not good enough. Now, with the way the defense was playing, we just completely annihilated their exhausted defense in the 2nd half. I'm not saying it wasn't an excellent performance overall...it was. But here is our drive chart from the first half. Remember, I posted all week, this NC State defense was in the HUNDREDS in almost literally every category. This is NOT SMU or Louisville. Even though SMU sucks against the pass, they are very good against the run. NC State is genuinely completely awful no matter what you try to do against them:
Field Goal
Fumble
Three-and-Out
Touchdown (On a 48 yard drive)
Punt
Touchdown
We scored 17 points on 6 first half drives. 2.83 points per drive. That's good, it's not great. So, in the grand scheme, with how painfully average this offense has been, I'll gladly take what we did. Especially in the 2nd half, and I'm always the one here saying games are 60 minutes and they all count the same. So, of course, we averaged over 8 a play, and we scored 34 offensive points in essentially 3 quarters. For as amazing as the 2024 offense was, we didn't get over 8.30 yards per play against any P4 team last season. So at the end of the day, it was a great offensive performance. I just wish we'd have started a little faster. I'm sure we'll dissect the play-calling throughout the week, but just from a numbers standpoint, we had twenty-three plays of 10+ yards, which is incredible. And we had 12 plays of 20+ yards. In the 8 previous FBS games, we had a total of 14 plays of 20+ yards. We got 12 on Saturday alone. So the explosives finally came, and they came in bunches. We ran some play-action on short-yardage for the first time in 2 months. We ran about 5 trick plays, which are clearly designed to generate explosives. Gerard Pringle looks like a gift, although again, I'll caution everyone, that NC State defense is arguably the worst in America at the power level. Only Boston College and Rutgers are worse currently in YPP allowed from P4 schools.
All in all, a really fun game, and we needed this. Desperately. Especially on offense. It's been a painful, boring, frustrating season on that side of the ball. It was fun to see the kids having a good time. I expect much of the same this week against VT, who is almost as bad on defense as NC State. Let's finish strong these last 2 weeks, go score 40+ on VT and Pitt, and see where the chips fall.
Go Canes.
