God I hate being so right sometimes. Really crushed this game thread analysis except for my final score prediction.


We had a million opportunities but Doeren didn't play for points in the first half. We knew our chance to beat them was in a tight low scoring game. We knew quickly we could run the ball effectively and throw swing passes but we went away from it early on.

In the 4th we used it to give ourselves a shot to win but then we sabotaged ourselves with a bizarre passing play and even more bizarre decision to kill the clock after losing the yardage we needed to make the field goal certain.

In overtime we went with the bizarre strategy of playing the soft coverage that got shredded all game instead of trying to pressure the QB or give the secondary much needed help.

We knew we wouldn't be able to throw the ball in overtime yet we tried it anyway. Passing is near impossible for us in the red zone as the field condenses. We are a strong rushing team and we really should try to run the ball and win as many games as possible.


Another play that gets overlooked was our INT return where the runner failed to wait on his block and allowed the offensive lineman to tackle him against the sideline. It's tough because after running 90 yards on the play he's fatigued but true playmakers capitalize on opportunities to score or advance the ball into scoring position.

People look at the positive that you intercepted the pass but he had a chance to be a hero and win the game on that play and he went out of bounds instead.


Everything broke our way and we still came up with a way to leave a monumental win on the field by making the exact same red zone mistakes that plagued us vs ECU AND Notre Dame.


The team has talent and the offensive/defensive systems are effective. We just have horrible in-game management and it absolutely decreases our chances of winning the game week in and week out. Very frustrating. Maybe Doeren learns from his litany of coaching mistakes like Ron Rivera did.

10/15/2016 4:07:25 PM

Quote :

"ROFL holy shit did they just rush the field for beathing NCSU??? "

You must be new here.

10/15/2016 4:09:20 PM

Yeah, that's about the right way for that game to have ended.

10/15/2016 4:09:31 PM

Too bad we don't have a good kicker, we might be undefeated.

10/15/2016 4:09:34 PM

MORE NCSTATE SHIT!

10/15/2016 4:11:20 PM

Anyone have stats on Bambard's fg% against other State kickers or even ACC within a certain threshold? He has to be one of worst we've ever had.

Haha literally undefeated if it wasn't for Bambard. He's missed like 3 a game in our losses

10/15/2016 4:16:41 PM

Quote :

"I'm sure we've had a worse kicker in the past. I just can't think of one right now."

We had a pretty bad one at the beginning of the Amato era. I think his name was Scott Passingham (sp)? On the bright side he missed a really short FG vs UNC and we recovered a fumble a play or two later which led to a TD and put the game out of reach. That end our 7 game losing streak to UNC.

10/15/2016 4:18:22 PM

the worst thing about bambard is his name isnt even memeable so we cant make fun of him for years after he's finally given the boot

10/15/2016 4:18:26 PM

Connor Haskins had a good track record at UNCP not sure we gave up on him after he missed two long ones early

10/15/2016 4:22:29 PM

And now the holes are probably going to beat Miami. Fuck this world.

10/15/2016 4:23:18 PM

Bombard, I feel bad for the kid. Just not good enough for this level. Obviously doesn't have the steel nerve for those clutch kicks you need on this level.

And any highschool kicker worth half a shit could have made that chip shot anyway.

[Edited on October 15, 2016 at 4:28 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2016 4:27:51 PM

I don't get why the staff couldnt recruit another decent kicker. Its a pretty integral part of an offense.

10/15/2016 4:42:56 PM

There is probably a walk on inter mural soccer player at state right now that could kick better than bambad

10/15/2016 4:56:22 PM

Bambard, football isn't for everyone.
Perhaps law enforcement is more your speed.

10/15/2016 4:58:33 PM

Bambard might be worse than Kiker.

[Edited on October 15, 2016 at 5:13 PM. Reason : ]

10/15/2016 5:12:58 PM

Y'all retarded for calling to fire a coach who plays #3 Clemson to OT.

This is the best our team has looked since he got here

10/15/2016 5:21:12 PM

Quote :

"Too bad we don't have a good kicker, we might be undefeated."

More like would be. And the crazy thing is that both time "icing" worked. He made the "practice kick" in both games, and then botched the ones that would have counted for the wins.

10/15/2016 5:24:17 PM

we need to forget about Bambard

Hines dropping that pass is the reason we lost

10/15/2016 5:26:38 PM

Quote :

"This is the best our team has looked since he got here"

that's not saying much

10/15/2016 5:35:34 PM

Quote :

"Y'all retarded for calling to fire a coach who plays #3 Clemson to OT."

Who said fire him?

10/15/2016 5:45:55 PM

Quote :

"More like would be. And the crazy thing is that both time "icing" worked. He made the "practice kick" in both games, and then botched the ones that would have counted for the wins."

Hard to say. You never know what could have happened if we had made some of those earlier field goals. We could have went up 13-10 and given up a kickoff return for a TD and lost 17-13. You just never know. Either way, making some FGs would have put some serious pressure on Clemson.

10/15/2016 5:49:53 PM

just got back from slitting my wrists the game. fuck everything.

Quote :

"Connor Haskins had a good track record at UNCP not sure we gave up on him after he missed two long ones early"

combination of him missing early and Bambard being not terrible (until today)

@UL next has the potential to be a total bloodbath after such a demoralizing loss. remember @clemson two years ago after almost beating FSU at home? woof.

[Edited on October 15, 2016 at 5:58 PM. Reason : g]

10/15/2016 5:50:35 PM

i'm gonna be honest, i'm having trouble shaking this loss. I'm walkin around like a zombie.

GET IT TOGETHER HOOPS

10/15/2016 6:08:28 PM

Quote :

"@UL next has the potential to be a total bloodbath after such a demoralizing loss. remember @clemson two years ago after almost beating FSU at home? woof. "

i agree, however last night and today have actually given me much more confidence for next saturday. If was can move the ball on Clemson's D, we can move it on any ACC team. Just need to carry todays defensive toughness (clemson moved the ball but paid for EVERY yard) on to the rest of the season.

10/15/2016 6:21:34 PM

^confidence-wise, i do agree. but just as far as the mental aspect goes, this kinda loss can be demoralizing. or it can be a jumping off point...we have the confidence that we can play with anybody in the country and need to just make a couple more plays to win those games. it can go either way, hopefully the team is not demoralized going forward. because in a lot of ways this is a very encouraging performance...but we've gotta build on it.

10/15/2016 6:24:20 PM

Quote :

"This is the best our team has looked since he got here"

Y'know, I'm thinking this game probably has more to do with Clemson being out of it/unmotivated than us being that good. I mean just a few weeks ago Troy looked like a playoff contender playing against Clemson. Maybe they just had another day like that. Too bad we couldn't capitalize.

10/15/2016 6:40:56 PM

Bambard was 19/21 on XP and 4/6 FG coming into today. One of which was in brutal field conditions so basically 4/5. Hes not THAT much worse than typical college kickers. Typical college kickers suck.

The first miss today from 43 wasnt pretty. The blocked kick wasn't his fault the online got bowled over. And the last one was just a straight pressure cooker, ice in the veins kick that he got nervous on and fucked up.

Given that we knew he was having a rough day and it would be a nerve racking kick there was absolutely no fucking reason to make him kick from any further than we had to. There was no reason not to move the ball closer and make it a chip shot. I refuse to blame him when the coaches responsibility is to put our players in position to succeed.

Also, there was absolutely no good reason to air it out when Clemson defense was clearly worn out and Dayes was fresh and really finishing his runs strong. Just freaking stupid.

Not to mention squandering so many scoring opportunities and playing prevent defense before the half and soft zones in OT and on numerous 3rd and longs.

Our game plan was solid, our players played to their capabilities, the breaks went mostly our way, and we still figured out a way to blow it with in game coaching decisions.

These mistakes should have been rectified after the ECU and Notre Dame games. On offense don't drive the length of the field and then fuck around on plays that are likely to lose yardage or create turnovers.


We've had a pretty good run with Hauschka, deraney, Sade, and whoever that Greek god that beat UNC on the 50+ yarder in the 1980s was.

Kiker wasn't nearly as bad as people remember he just missed a handful of memorable kicks and we had good teams so it seemed brutal that we always underachieved with them.



[Edited on October 15, 2016 at 7:38 PM. Reason : A]

10/15/2016 7:33:12 PM

I, for one, do not think the problem was that Clemson was unmotivated. I think the problem *may* have been Clemson ran out touching a stone that was in danger of being crushed by a tiny dwarf. That tended to understate the hugeness of the game.

10/15/2016 7:42:00 PM

I was LOLing when I thought Clemson had lost because of an

Quote :

" EIGHTEEN YARD PUNT"

10/15/2016 8:29:20 PM

The Mike Williams fumbled probably should have been overturned.

10/15/2016 8:37:23 PM

When does basketball season start again?

10/15/2016 8:51:30 PM

November 26th

10/15/2016 9:01:50 PM

clemson has no shot against us without watson and williams next year in raleigh

10/15/2016 10:54:24 PM

Dave Doeren has had a lot of losses at NC State and this one was particularly hard to swallow. But the important thing to remember is Dave Doeren has had a lot of losses at NC State.

10/15/2016 11:43:22 PM

Quote :

"The Mike Williams fumbled probably should have been overturned."

what's the rule on that? he lost control of the ball in bounds, right? was it because he was on top of a defender who was out of bounds and touched it again?

10/16/2016 8:22:55 AM

It seems Finley does not have the arm strength needed for down the field passes. He just can't get enough zip on the ball. That explains why the Tigers broke up so many passes against our receivers.

10/16/2016 10:55:27 AM

Clemson was the first team all season that "exposed" Finley and they're a top 5 team. Finley is no NFL QB, but he's fine. Clemson also has a pretty dang great secondary and our WRs didn't get a lot of separation.

[Edited on October 16, 2016 at 10:59 AM. Reason : f]

10/16/2016 10:59:14 AM

It took them 3 hours to play 3 quarters of football.

I added 30 minutes to my DVR but still didn't even get to the end of regulation with added time. I got to 2 minutes left before we attempted the last field goal.

Either the broadcasters need to increase the designated timeframes to broadcast college football games up from 3 hours or the college football rulesmakers need to speed things up a bit. But 3 hours for 3 quarters of football is terrible.

As far as the game, I don't understand how you lose with a pick-six interception and they fumble twice on your 5-yard line. Our offense in the past two games have scored one total touchdown. We have the defense as a rock thankfully.

10/16/2016 11:00:13 AM

^yeah college football games are basically all 4 hours now. the 3 hour window they give is just dumb.

Quote :

"As far as the game, I don't understand how you lose with a pick-six interception and they fumble twice on your 5-yard line. Our offense in the past two games have scored one total touchdown. We have the defense as a rock thankfully. "

i mean, one game was in a hurricane and the other was vs an elite level defense on the road. i'm really not worried about the offense. penalties that shot ourselves in the foot and negated good plays was the bigger issue (plus duh kicking)

10/16/2016 11:02:42 AM

It's why I hate college football. The games are way too long. I absolutely detest going to them. Who in the hell wants to chug as much alcohol as possible in the parking lot then stand around watching that long in the elements while you sober up/get hungover? It's just a miserable experience.

One I was fine suffering through as a collegendary student but now with the quality of digital broadcasting and nice tvs it's just a better afternoon to watch on tv. Particularly since there is less commitment when the team sucks. It's nice to be able to just go about your day afterwards instead of getting dragged into the emotional aspect of it all

10/16/2016 11:09:08 AM

That Mike Williams fumble was called correctly. No part of him was touching out of bounds while he touched the ball(being on top of a player isn't being out of bounds).

But really, Finley got "exposed"? The INT he threw was a clear pass interference where the CB shoved our player while the ball was in the air, our player was falling backwards and tipped the pass and it was caught for a pick, that's not on Finley, that's the refs clearly calling a shit game for 3 quarters. Hines also dropped a sure TD on a slant with a perfect throw from Finley. The last pick was a bad throw, but still, if Hines and Cherry stop dropping passes, and you take away that pick, his stat line would be fine. I thought Finley did enough to win the game yesterday, despite some iffy play-calling and playing a DL with several future NFL players.

I hate blaming the refs, but the turnovers were basically just canceling out most of the horrible penalty calls so it made it more of a wash. You're talking about 1st and goal after Samuels obviously got face-masked instead of setting for a long FG(that was blocked). Who knows if we score on that drive, but the blocked FG certainly doesn't happen and they don't gain any of that momentum.

Clemson played bad, our defense actually played well for the most part. Our offense played well save for some false starts and bad drops, but those are correctable things.

Obviously winning the game would have been huge and a big boost for our program since it was nationally televised, but it didn't happen, we'll survive.

Now ignore the ass-whooping next week and hopefully we'll still have a few chances at upsets the rest of the season. Will be interesting to see what our kicking game looks like next week. Doeren to become Riverboat?

10/16/2016 11:39:56 AM

Quote :

" But really, Finley got "exposed"? "

yeah that was my point...i was being sarcastic using that word. he held his own against an elite defense. we knew he wasn't a gun slinger, but he's been fine all season long. a great defense limited him, but he still didn't have a terrible game by any stretch. finley (and the offense in general) is not a problem.

10/16/2016 11:42:58 AM

10/16/2016 12:10:44 PM

our top wr is out for the season and he was the big type of possesion wr you can throw jump balls to in one on one coverage. everyone else is a slot type wr.

10/16/2016 1:54:38 PM

Quote :

"It took them 3 hours to play 3 quarters of football. I added 30 minutes to my DVR but still didn't even get to the end of regulation with added time. I got to 2 minutes left before we attempted the last field goal. Either the broadcasters need to increase the designated timeframes to broadcast college football games up from 3 hours or the college football rulesmakers need to speed things up a bit. But 3 hours for 3 quarters of football is terrible."

This. It's even more evident at the game. The "rulesmakers" don't need to do a damned thing. The issue is the fucking TV timeouts are too long and are happening too damned often. Several times during the game both teams were on the field, standing around for 2-3 minutes waiting for the TV guy to get the fuck off the field so they could play. It was the most painfully apparent during our last drive. That last 3rd and 1, the crowd got hyped up three separate times, thinking they were actually about to play what was clearly the most important down in the game up to that point, only to settle back down because some dickhead with a headset wouldn't let them snap the ball. That whole drive took 10 minutes longer than it needed to, just so TV could play a bunch of commercials. It was beyond ridiculous.

[Edited on October 16, 2016 at 11:07 PM. Reason : ]

10/16/2016 11:05:00 PM

Remember when they had the rule that the game clock would start as soon as the kicker got the signal that he was allowed to kick off the ball? If you wanted to, you could run the clock out and eliminate the chance for a team to make a comeback and get a return td. I'm pretty sure the rule lasted one year.

10/16/2016 11:43:33 PM

Dravius Wright got hurt late in the game does anyone know if he's alwright?

10/17/2016 1:12:44 AM

I'm having a hard time reconciling this loss. This one hurts a lot.

There are no moral victories here. Nobody gives a shit that we "almost" won. Doeren is still a crappy coach.

10/17/2016 11:30:37 AM

Yeah, it hurts, but losing on a missed last-seconds field goal to one of the best teams in the nation is a lot better then getting blown-out.

10/17/2016 11:37:33 AM

It'll mean something if we go 3/4 against Louisville, FSU, Miami and UNC. If not then it's just a fluke, an illusion.

10/17/2016 11:43:01 AM