NC State Football: 3 takeaways from Week 7 victory over Pittsburgh
1. What’s wrong with Ryan Finley?
This was not a good game for Ryan Finley.
While Finley’s streak of nine consecutive games, and over 310 passing attempts, without an single interception does still stand firmly intact following the team’s Week 7 victory over the Pitt Panthers, his accuracy was way off of his usual mark for much of the afternoon.
After completing 70 percent of his passes over the first six games of the season, the seventh highest mark of any quarterback in the nation, Finley only completed 14-of-25 passing attempts for 198 yards and a single touchdown, good for his second worst performance of the 2017 season, trailing only his performance in the Wolfpack’s Week 5 game against Syracuse.
Granted, not all of his incompletions were solely Ryan Finley’s fault, as his receivers routinely dropped easily catchable balls, but it is still concerning that the Wolfpacks’ aerial passing game couldn’t get anything going against Pitt’s 107th-ranked defense.
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After giving up an average of 280 yards through the air over the first six weeks of the season, the Panthers’ 115th ranked passing defense held NC State’s 21st-ranked passing offense to only 198 yard through the air.
As NC State now sits alone atop the ACC Atlantic as the only team that remains undefeated in conference play, their path to the ACC Championship, and a potential playoff berth, is firmly in sight.
But if Finley struggled so mightily against Pitt’s incredibly underwhelming passing defense in Week 7, how will he fare against the dominant defenses of future opponents Clemson and Notre Dame?
Even though it’s just one game, the Wolfpacks’ lack of a credible deep passing game, and aerial inconsistency, could come back to haunt NC State down the stretch.