First Thoughts on NC State vs Tennessee

Intro welcome back to the blue chair breakdown BS fans I'm your host boy we are one sleep away from kickoff officially starting by the time y'all see this video we'll be about 24 hours away from kickoff so obviously that's very very exciting and we did get to see some week one matchups last night and NC State is who I want to talk about today obviously because we have them next week now some of y'all might not like this because you don't like to look past teams but we're fans okay we're not on the team we're not playing on the team uh you know we're not coaching nothing like that so it's okay for us to look ahead and that's exactly what we're going to be doing today I have a lot of takeaways from that game last night um and also we might be going live tonight around 7:00 for Rome versus Carolton and we have a linebacker committed in the 2025 class that goes to Rome and his name is Jayden Haron he's a really good one actually he's our most recent linebacker commit and he's going to be playing up against a few of our targets uh you know for the 2026 class and uh 2027 as well but also guju Lewis plays for Carolton so that should be a pretty fun game we'll see if we can and get that up live for y'all keep a close eyee out on the channel but as always y'all please make sure to like And subscribe let's go ahead and jump NC State Stats into it all right so NC State beat Western Carolina 38-21 the game was a lot closer than the final score it was close for about three quarters of this game and I think Western Carolina just kind of ran out of gas or whatever it is but take a look at some of these stats right here Grayson McCall 26 of 40 which I believe is about 65% he had 318 yards passing three touchdowns one interception and you can see over here uh Western Carolina's quarterback went 24 of 40 for 241 so uh you know I think that they did a pretty good job of passing the ball through the air now as you just look at NC State's rushing Jordan Waters ends up with 20 carries for 123 yards and as a team they rush for 203 yards this is big because they didn't do a great job of running the football last year they were averaging about you know somewhere around 130 140 yards per game up until like the final two or three games of the season so that looks good but at the same time they got like 100 something yards rushing in the second half so I would not call it uh you know dominant performance by their rushing aame by any means as you can see Jordan Waters long was 50 yards and he is the transfer running back from duke now let's come on down here oh and also you can see the West Carolina was able to run for 120 yards 6.3 yards per carry uh versus NC State now let's come on down to the receiving numbers KC concepion is a stud he's a really good uh he's a really good football player kind of reminds me of a smaller Luther Burton but you can see right here nine catches for 121 yards 13.4 yards per catch three touchdowns also Justin Jolie or uh Justin Jolly I still don't know how to exactly say his name but that's the tight end from Yukon that we had brought up on a visit from the transfer portal last season and he really wanted to come to Tennessee but we turned him away because he wasn't big enough for our system and y'all know that the rest is pretty much his to we go on and get Holden stays and Miles Kitman to a hading room but I think that he looks really good obviously coming up versus us he's going to have a point to prove because we actually turned him away and they were just hellbent on coming on to Knoxville so those two players for sure we're going to have to try to minimize what they do coming up next weekend but you know as a unit you know obviously 318 yards we already talked about that uh let's see what they did here on defense move on down boom b boom b boom all right so their leading tacklers actually Aiden white who is their best quarterback I was not overly impressed with him in this game he got beat a few times what kind of highlight all this stuff but I just wanted to show y'all what the box score looked like some of the stats things like that but this right here just kind of tells you okay well it seems like Western Carolina was trying to get the ball out on the uh you know outside things like that you know maybe they just weren't doing a great job in coverage and that's why this cornerback is going to have the most tackles for that team that's that's very atypical you do not see that very often uh but you know those my biggest takeaways right there from the stats all NC State Offense right so let's take a step back let's look at this whole game from a 50 foot view my biggest takeaways number one um would be that NC State was not overlooking Western Carolina necessarily now were they looking past to Tennessee some yes you know they probably were being kind of light in their play calls especially early on in this game but as it turned into a game with that you know that they had win I'm sure that they opened things up it looks like they did I'm seeing the exact same stuff that we saw from their films last season so I think that they opened it up a pretty good bid we'll talk more about that here in just a second I just feel like Western Carolina came out and they wanted this game more they just played a little bit harder with a little bit more of an age and they pretty much ran out of gas in that fourth quarter but I saw won Carolina as a team that really was probably more prepared okay uh they looked like they knew exactly what NC State was doing several times especially you know their defense there were times man when they're running the routes for NC State's wide receivers I saw that a lot now people were open just because obviously NC state has a lot better Talent than Western Carolina does and also you know there were a few players that were just schemed drawn up at perfect times down the distance all that type of stuff that lets me know that um you know West Carolina understood what NC State was going to do on those downs and distances and they were able to score on those players to get you know really big chunks things like that so that leads me to believe okay that more than likely we've been trading notes with them I think that they gave us some notes on UT Chattanooga and we gave them some on NC State and I'm going to promise you that if that is the case within the next couple of days somebody from Tennessee will be on the phone with somebody from Western Carolina to get additional notes uh you know post scame like okay you know what did you see you know how do they look out there what's the speed like what's the size boom boom boom all the way down the list so just seeing how how prepared Weston Carolina was lets me know that we will have a really solid game plan for NC State and that's always very important now as far as how did NC State really lose this game you know again from a 50 foot view I would say that they kind of shot themselves in the foot with some really bad penalties uh you know just like the absolute worst times and I mean that'll always get you so that's something that you can expect should get cleaned up heading into next week I'm you know positive that that that will be a point of emphasis from their head coach um and then you know also I don't really feel like Western Carolina you know really dominated the line of scrimmage I saw that in some places they're like oh man Western Carolina just dominating NC State I didn't really see that now on some plays like we talked about they had a perfect play call you know they schemed it up well and you know they executed it well and it may have looked like they were dominant but whenever I say dominance I'm talking about moving bodies okay I didn't see Western Carolina doing a ton of that uh you know they also did a really good job with some run blitzes in third and short situations fourth and short situations um and you know I think that NC State tried to get a little bit too cute in some of those situations and that's why they weren't able to convert now on the flip side of that keep in mind Western Carolina's defensive front is not nearly as talented as Tennessee's is by any means okay we've got some real dogs this is not uh you know Florida State situation in week zero where people are hyping them up and they're not really that no no no this is we are really those dudes okay they are some bad men up there and uh and they play with a chip on their shoulder you will never have to worry about a Rodney Garner coached uh you know defensive line not playing with a whole bunch of effort they all will and we're going to come in ways and it's not just about that front four but the linebacker CT forget about it it's it's deep and I think that NC State struggling to push Western Carolina around lets me know that we are probably going to get the better of them in the Run game um and you know again we're going to touch on all this stuff as we continue to kind of unfold uh you know more and more about what we saw in this game but those are some of my biggest takeaways I don't think that it was some dominant performance upfront by Western Carolina but at the same time if you're an NC State fan then you got to be a little bit concerned that you weren't dominant upfront versus Western Carolina now um on to the next points let's talk about the offense okay number one I think that it's pretty much the exact same offense that we saw last season okay and that is to be expected we kind of touched on that earlier but I mean they're running the exact same stuff you're going to see a whole lot of stretch plays outside Zone plays rpos uh you know they're going to make the offensive line go one way throw the ball back this way they like to use KC concepion as a a decoy a lot in the orbit motions when they're running things like that I mean it's typical of what they have always done and I think that they executed some things well again the running game they they're going to have to get better at that okay if they want to win the ACC if they want to beat some of these bigger teams the running game they are going to have to improve there without question um also they had several wide receivers that were wide open that Grayson McCall just missed I don't think that this was his sharpest game he did throw for 300 yards but I mean he had four or 500 yards worth of wide receivers open that he just flat out Miss and they're not just open you know like on some short stuff they're open for you know potential touchdowns uh you know definitely big gains so I know that NC State fans have to be a little bit concerned about that now I'm going to to ask was it just some first game Jitters or you know what's going on I I think that he will end up playing better next weekend or you know being sharper I'm not going to say playing better but I think that he will play sharper and I also think just kind of going back to the offensive line they did a really good job in pass protection a lot of the passes that he missed wasn't because of pressure He just flat out missed him so one of the biggest question marks for me is going to be can Tennessee get pressure on uh NC State the good news for us is it looks like they are willing to kind of let the plays develop down the field which will give us more time to get to him and I think that we will I think that they're going to struggle modly we'll see what he does uh you know whenever he's really got some pressure sitting in his lap if you're not able to be accurate with a very clean pocket what are you going to do when James Pearson Joshua Joseph and uh Caleb hering and everybody else Jason Jenkins uh Big O Omar no all those guys are coming at you from inside outside we're going to dial up blitzes every now and then what's he going to do then I think that uh right now you've got to feel very good if you a Tennessee fan but we haven't seen our boys play just yet we have to wait for sure to see if they are who we think that they will be but so far y'all I feel I feel very confident about the way that we match up versus their offense um take a look at my notes and some other takeaways uh I think that that's pretty much it for the offense you know I just wanted to make sure that we touched on some of the key points again just to kind of highlight what we talked about the offensive line doesn't look great as far as run blocking goes they do a whole lot of you know Zone schemes where you don't necessarily have to to uh you know be moving bodies you just have to kind of get your body in the way but I think that they're going to struggle doing that versus our front at the same time though Missouri ran those same plays up against us last season and we didn't really have an answer for it I think a lot of that goes back to the linebacker play which should be much improved this season the linebacker should eat on all those plays so uh you know next point was that the offensive line did a really good job in pass protection but they're going up against the much inferior defensive line compared to what they'll see versus our volunteers uh and also you know Grayson McCall just was not accurate in the first game but he's got over 10,000 yards passing uh you know I think he's close to 70% accurate so you would have to anticipate that that's going to pick up that's not going to stay the same and we already touched on uh guys like Casey concepion and um Justin Jolie or Jolly those two guys you have to really watch them for sure in the passing game now let's talk about uh the defense okay what I took away from them they're continuing to struggle like NC State Defense we talked about this entire week they are continuing to struggle with The Gap scheme runs okay uh we saw that all of last season We are continuing to see the exact same thing they did have a linebacker that went out early in this game um but he will be back I believe for the for the Tennessee game just because he went out in the first half I think that he only has to set off for one half and he already sat off for the second half of the Western Carolina game so just want to throw that out there because I know some people are going to be wondering about it but yeah I mean they struggle with that they also struggle with two tight end sets Okay we're seeing that so NC State runs a three 35 and you know you should be able to um you know you should be able to pull some guys around you know use your leverage things like that Gap scheme run versus them and have some gaping holes okay but the thing about the 335 is it does a really nice job of stopping spread offenses and we've struggled with that coach hpel has struggled with that have we figured it out I think that the answer to it is going to be two tight end set you can still run your Tempo you can uh you know Flex Ethan Davis out as a wide receiver sometimes okay and use him that way but you can also bring him back in in some tighter sets to get that extra man in to block you know we typically run one tight end I think that will do fine with that you know we run the Gap schemes with our tight end a bunch but you know I would just like to see us if we're not doing a great job of establishing the Run game I would love to see us add an additional tight end you know try it for at least one series we can do that and let's see how it works I have a feeling that we'll have a ton of success doing that versus teams that like to run three three FS or three man fronts in general but especially versus NC State um you know they also are still struggling with Zone Rees and quarterbacks who can run now you know the quarterback from for Western Carolina is not Nico but they struggle with him I don't remember how many yards he had rushing but it was a bunch he had several Big Time plays and uh you know Nico will run the ball versus them I think that this will be the first game that people will be on notice of man look Nico is a problem because he should be able to throw for a bunch of yards but he should most definitely be able to run for a lot of yards people don't understand how fast and how how uh you know Elusive and Shifty Nico actually is because he's so tall he's so long but he can make you miss and he is a dog I don't think he's afraid to low his shoulder or none of that he is a Fearless Fearless Warrior so not to boost us up too much y'all I'm just calling it like I see it okay I'm not telling y'all nothing that y'all will not see on Saturday coming up uh let's see what else I have here in my notes now their secondary played a ton of man in this game now I don't know if that was just because they didn't want to see or they just didn't want for Tennessee to see a lot of their different schemes and things like that I also saw them you know drop eight Run cover three things like that I mean they can do a lot of funky things because they have so many people um that aren't playing up on the line of scrimmage but they can also bring guys up to the line of scrimmage so they can give you a whole lot of different looks but I just noticed that versus Western Carolina they played a lot of men the secondary is supposed to be the strongest unit on their entire team and I was not impressed they were getting beat a lot by Wern Carolina's wide receivers our wide receivers I mean we're deep with some guys they can go talking about Dante thoron Brew McCoy worldwide Chris Brazzle uh I mean listen chass nrod who's up to 220 lounds um who else we got uh Caleb we Mike Matthews you know he might get into this game brillan Staley what if Nathan leot gets in we probably won't play all those guys but we got a lot of guys that can go a lot of guys that I feel like if you want to play one-on-one coverage with us manto man we're going to beat you you know nine times out of 10 especially if you're not getting pressure on us that's it's going to be very tough for them to stop us playing that sort of a defense all the time so I think that they will try to mix things up and that was probably one of those instances where they're just kind of trying to cover things up you know to keep us from seeing what their schemes and things are moving forward but I mean listen old habits die hard I mean they've got the same OC I believe and I think DC might be a new defensive coordinator but either way we're going to know what their Tendencies are and people T you know people usually do not get away from their Tendencies uh now let's see what else do I have here they do like the blitz I saw them blitzing a lot usually if you're going to play you know bunch of man you're going to have to Blitz you can't just play man and think that front four is going to get home all the time so saw a whole lot of different blitzes I saw you know some different looks where they might have one safety plan high like in the middle of the field and he'll come Blitz from the third level and you know they'll bring a linebacker right up underneath him just kind of overload that a gap uh things like that so yeah I mean there's some things that you're going to have to kind of be able to identify you know I feel like pre- Snap and everyone's got to be on the same page and especially you know third and long situations they really like to dial it up uh in those in those instances and I think overall y'all that if we can establish a good run game early and get those safeties you know get those uh you know get a lot of those secondary pieces that they like to float around from you know the first level to the second to the third level if we get them up into the first and you know second levels a lot more than all of a sudden man look down the field we're going to have people wide open all the time and I think that that's what we're going to try to do come out early establish that running game whether it's with the you know read options things like that uh or if it's with rpos let me also say this they it looks like they struggle versus rpos too so that is I think that there's a lot of things in that defense that's I don't know if not fundamentally sound as the correct word but there's something off right there you know I haven't seen enough film to really be able to ID what that is but something is off with all the reads and things like that maybe they're just a step too slow maybe they're overprocess whatever that is I think that we'll see a bunch of that versus them next Saturday um and you know I think that that is pretty much it yall you know I think that you know if we you know again come out on defense if we can um you know stop their run game um you know make sure we can get some type of pressure on Grayson then we should be fine down the field now they do have some guys they can make you pay and they will win some matchups they do a lot of stuff that Tennessee has struggled with but I think that we'll be fine in this one um just because I feel like we are going to manhandle them up front it's something that we had identified way back in Spring practice I told you I had been watching them in some spring clips and I said man look they've some really good athletes but up front I think that we are going to push them around I still feel the exact same way I think I feel even more that way coming out of this Western Carolina game and then you know on the flip side uh talking about our offense we're going to have to establish that running game early uh but we will get into a lot more notes as this week progresses y'all already know that uh very excited about our game coming up tomorrow hope to see everyone on the live stream we'll probably start that one at around 11:00 a.m. but we will have that out uh for y'all officially at some point today but as always thank you so much for sticking all the way to the end please please let me know your thoughts down in the comment section and make sure to like subscribe hit that notification Bell share with your friends family and other volunteer fans we'll see youall on the next one thanks peace