Four Downs: Boston College hands NC State its 11th straight ACC loss
RALEIGH, N.C. -- With their head coaches entering Year 2 at their respective schools, Boston College and NC State both met in Raleigh at a bit of a crossroads. NC State (4-3, 0-3 ACC) played Florida State competitively before getting blown out by Clemson in a bit of a letdown game. This game, back at home against Boston College, was supposed to be a test of where the program is.
Similarly, Boston College (4-2, 1-1 ACC) -- a team that beat a top-10 USC team a few weeks ago -- was coming off of a loss at home to Colorado State and after a bye week, looking to get reorganized. Which team were the Eagles going to be?
Turns out, Boston College was the physical, in-your-face team that ran all over USC a few weeks ago, while NC State is left with more questions than answers as Boston College leaves Raleigh with a convincing 30-14 win.
For much of the first three quarters of the Florida State game -- and, quite frankly, for much of the first half of this season for NC State -- it has seemed like the Wolfpack could hang with anyone offensively. But in the past nine quarters, starting with the fourth against Florida State, NC State has scored a total of 17 points. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett has been sacked eight times and fumbled on six of those (losing four) in the last nine quarters compared to seven sacks and two turnovers in the first 19 quarters of the season.
Yes, the competition is improving. Certainly, jumping from Old Dominion, Georgia Southern and Presbyterian to Florida State and Clemson back-to-back is quite the leap. But this offense sometimes doesn't look the same from series to series, much less from game to game.
The NC State offensive line was understandably besieged at Clemson, and Brissett was (equally understandably) rattled against the Tigers and their formidable pass-rush. But after NC State started off with 161 yards in the first half, the Wolfpack would manage just 56 in the second and fail to move the ball much at all.
Brissett, understandably, was disappointed after the game. He wanted nothing more than to get back out there after his effort at Clemson. But the fact is that he's 18 of 48 for 209 yards and one touchdown (while being sacked seven times) in the last two games (he was 4-of-14 at Clemson for 35 yards).
This was all barely removed from him lighting up Florida State.
He didn't have many answers. When asked about a third-quarter interception -- his first since the first game of the season -- he didn't elaborate too much.
"He caught it. It was just the wrong team," Brissett said. When asked if he'd made a mistake on the read, he added simply, "It was just a bad ball."
Brissett has taken a lot of hits the last few games, and some of the eye-popping runs he made against the Seminoles might be coming back to bite him a bit. He seems to always think he can make something happen by extending a play, and that hasn't been working.
"(Brissett) had a great week of practice and he came out, we had good rhythm going. Then the pocket just started collapsing and we weren't getting open for him," Doeren said. "That guy is so competitive and at times, his competitiveness is getting too much of him. He needs to throw the ball away a little bit more. That's the biggest thing we've got to do. We can't stand there and take sacks and fumble the football like we did a couple times there."
Brissett didn't blame anyone else, either. As he sat on the stairs at NC State's football facility, surrounded by reporters, he hung his head and spoke softly.
Until asked if the team's confidence was shaken.
"I think we're fine. It all comes down to me playing better, which I've got to come back next week and do," Brissett said.
Whether it's talent, scheme, or some combination of a lot of factors, NC State has now surrendered 56, 41 and 30 points (127 total) over the last three games. And over the last nine quarters, it's 120 points.
Yes, NC State has faced three pretty good offenses. But the Wolfpack defense struggled early in the season against Georgia Southern (now the No. 1 rushing offense in FBS) and Old Dominion.
It took Boston College 31 plays and over a quarter before it had to punt for the first time. Boston College's offense is good, but it's not the dominant juggernaut FSU's and Clemson's can be. If NC State can't stop the Eagles, can it stop the rest of the ACC?
"I absolutely have confidence. I have the confidence in these coaches," NC State safety Josh Jones said. "As the players, we have to make plays. The coaches put is in the right area. They make the decisions. But at the end of the day, we have to make plays. I'm going to put all the blame on us as players because at the end of the day, if we don't make plays, then we lose. If we do make plays, then that means we win."
Doeren credited the defense for bouncing back early; after giving up 21 points in the first 17 minutes or so, it didn't allow another Boston College score for over a quarter more of action and gave the offense a chance to get back in it. But the offense couldn't do it.
"Defensively, I thought we showed some heart in the third quarter. Early on, we didn't play well and adjusted. I was proud of the guys for how they came out, especially with the lightning delay," Doeren said. "Having to start the lightning delay there at the eight-yard line, knocking them back, holding them to a field goal -- we had several sudden-change situations due to turnovers defensively and all but one drive, did a nice job there in the second half."
While there's some youth on defense, NC State does have some experience up front and it's a little confusing as to why the defensive line hasn't played better much of this season. But defense is a group effort too, and there are a lot of moving parts. Junior defensive lineman Mike Rose thinks that the Wolfpack will get it turned around.
"Oh yeah. I think we'll definitely figure it out. We've got a lot of young people. When you've got young people, they'll make mistakes," Rose said. "But if you make a mistake, just make it full speed. That's what we really need to get at."
Just like there were questions about who NC State was coming into this game, there were plenty about Boston College. And winning ACC road games is never easy. But Boston College made it look easy enough in Raleigh, running seemingly at will and cranking up their defensive pressure at just the right times.
It's hard to know how much of this will carry over -- the Eagles have to host a Clemson team that will be without dynamic quarterback Deshaun Watson next week, but then it travels to Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Florida State in three of its next four games (hosting Louisville in between). It's not an easy stretch, but just two wins away from bowl eligibility for the second straight year, it's all within reach for the Eagles.
It's impressive to watch head coach Steve Addazio and offensive coordinator Ryan Day adapt to the talent around them, too. Last year, the Eagles were a power-running team with Andre Williams, a Heisman finalist. This year, the Eagles have mobile quarterback Tyler Murphy running an option-based rushing attack, and it works beautifully with misdirection and trickery and the like, not to mention fantastic blocking.
"BC's a good football team," Rose said of the Eagles. "They're hard-nosed, old school running team. We just didn't fit some of the gaps that we were supposed to fit. ... Tyler Murphy made some exceptional plays. He's the key to the whole thing."
Murphy, indeed, was excellent. The graduate student Florida transfer (like his former teammate Brissett) finished with 132 yards rushing and two touchowns on the ground, completing 12-of-19 passes for 101 yards and no touchdowns (but no interceptions). If he plays like that the rest of the year, the Eagles are going to be tough to beat.
It was an odd game, one that featured a delay of nearly an hour for lightning, but the delay was the same for both teams. Everything was the same for both teams. And these two teams were thought to be relatively even. With NC State being the home team, they might have even had an advantage.
But Boston College looked like the better team, and Doeren is now 0-11 in ACC games during his time in Raleigh.
The biggest problem has been the parallels many have drawn between last season (which ended in a 3-9 record for the Wolfpack) and this one -- a good start against non-conference opponents, then playing a top-10 opponent close before ultimately not being able to get it done. Last year, NC State played Clemson tough and then lost its remaining games. This year, NC State is 0-2 so far after starting out 4-0 and dropping a close one to Florida State.
Doeren wants everyone to know, though, that he's very well aware of the fact that he doesn't have an ACC win yet.
He brought it up himself.
"I know I haven't won an ACC game. I hear it way more than anybody, trust me, and it -- I want to get them monkey off my back, you know what I mean? ... I'm not going to quit on myself. I'm not going to quit on my players. I'm not going to quit on my coaches," Doeren said. "I just ask our fans to do the same for us. If they don't, they don't, but it's just going to take us time to get there."
Doeren referenced the perception of him from outsiders quite a few times during the postgame press conference, even without being asked about it. But he understood that the fans might be getting a bit restless. He addressed it when asked how he would keep the confidence of his team up after this stretch.
"It's a challenge. Every day, building this program, it's going to take time. We all want microwaved results, me included. I know our fans do. I get it," Doeren said. "But two years in a row, I haven't had an ACC player on the preseason list. Two years. It's going to take me time.
"I just didn't inherit a cabinet stocked of redshirt seniors. I didn't get that. So I'm going to build it with good players and we've got to teach them how to play with better technique and get off blocks and tackle. We're going to do it the right way. We are. I'm not going to cut corners. I'm going to keep my head up, I'm going to keep working my butt off and I'm going to stay positive with our football team."
No one associated with the NC State program admitted that perhaps the "moral victory" against Florida State was not great for the young team. Maybe they took the "good job, good effort" a bit too far and thought they'd accomplished something. But Rose came as close as anyone has to admitting that was a thing after this game.
"It's hurting about now. There's a lot of people but the good thing is, I'm glad to see that people are starting to feel bad, finally. When it hurts, that means you care enough," Rose said. "Losing, I don't like losing. Nobody likes losing. It should hurt to lose. It should be painful to lose.
" ... I think Florida State, the guys came out and really did what they had to do and they played hard. Against Clemson, we had some players who didn't believe. Against BC, I think when we got down and things got bad, they stopped believing."
Rose said that the young players just need to see some of what they're being taught every day in practice work on a consistent basis in a game for it to take. He hinted that perhaps some early panic was setting in in the last few games.
"Doing your own thing is not going to work. You have to actually use what we're teaching," Rose said.
Doeren is not in any real trouble, obviously. He just arrived in Raleigh, and he signed a top-25 recruiting class a year ago with some more good recruits coming. Doeren is relatively young, and he hasn't been through a stretch like this as a head coach before. And if he comes across as a bit defensive, that might be the reason why.
"I've won a lot of football games, and I know I need to win more here. I get that. I believe in what I've done in this profession and I think it stands. I'm going to keep going and going and going until I have this place where it belongs," Doeren said. "It takes players to get there. It just does. Our recruits see that. They know what kind of men our coaches are. They know what our values are. They believe in us."
