NC State Football: Wolfplack look to bounce back vs Syracuse

No. 22 NC State football heads up to the great state of New York to take on the Syracuse Orange. Can they avenge a crushing loss to Clemson in Week 8?

So… NC State didn’t look great last week. The Wolfpack faced their first real test last week against Clemson on the road and fell incredibly short in a 41-7 loss to the Tigers. The Wolfpack looked good against Travis Etienne outside of the redzone as the Heisman candidate accounted for 39 yards on 15 carries. Unfortunately, Etienne picked up the slack in the redzone however with three punch in touchdowns throughout the game. The secondary also gave up 309 yards through the air to Trevor Lawrence and could not find an answer for Tee Higgins who caught eight passes for 119 yards for a score.

Offensively, Ryan Finley completed 21 of his 34 passes for a measly 156 yards which averages out to 4.6 yards per attempt. In his defense, there were several big plays that could have went the other way had his receivers not dropped the ball in space. The ground game couldn’t get much going either against Clemson’s front seven outside of a 20 yards touchdown run from Reggie Gallaspy II late in the game.

Syracuse almost dropped the ball last week until a late game surge from Tommy Devito pushed them past the North Carolina Tarheels at home in double overtime. Devito came in after Dungey had trouble for most of the game and threw three touchdown passes in his 11 completions. The offense took on a new life. As is stands now, Eric Dungey is still the starting quarterback for the Syracuse Orange but Tommy Devito is expected to see time against the North Carolina State Wolfpack this week and if he has a big showing then Dino Babers could have an interesting decision to make going forward.

Defensively, Syracuse is not the best and that was certainly seen last week when the defense gave up 17 points in the third quarter to blow a two-touchdown lead. Syracuse is giving up an average of 236 passing yards per game which is 84th in the nation. The Orange need to improve in pass defense going into the game if they expect to come out on top at home against a ranked ACC opponent.

Date: Saturday, October 27, 2018
Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
Location: Syracuse, NY
Venue: Carrier Dome
TV: ESPN2
Live Stream: WatchESPN

Keys to Victory

NC State needs to make some key stops and keep scoring. The one real advantage that NC State has over Syracuse is that the Wolfpack actually have a solid defensive front. After losing almost everyone on that side of the ball, the Pack has developed into the 51st ranked total defense in all of college football and one or two stops in a game that reaks of a shootout could do wonders for NC State later in the game. Also, the key drops that this great receiving corps had last week against Clemson can’t happen in this matchup because every point will count when the clock strikes zero.

Cuse has a couple of objectives that they need to meet before the end of the game. Whether it’s Eric Dungey or Tommy Devito, one of these quarterbacks needs to be able to score early and often against the Wolfpack. The Pack run defense is the second-best statistically in the conference to Florida State of all teams and Syracuse will need to find some way to be effective on the ground to open things up in the passing game. Also, Syracuse’s defensive unit ranks 91st nationally in total defense and I’m not sure that they can make the key stops to win this one, prove me wrong and you can pull off the upset in the end.

Betting Odds

Points Spread: NC State -2

Over/Under: 66.5

Prediction

This one is going to be one of the more underrated games of the night and there will be no shortage of points scored. NC State has a great receiving corps and they’re going to come out and have a big game against a weak secondary. However, Syracuse has a monster offense and two quarterbacks that can do it well. With this matchup looking fairly even, I’ll go with the home dog.

Final Score: Syracuse 41, NC State 38