NC State football: A view from the other beat, No. 16 Miami

By Noah Fleischman

NC State football is set to make its final road trip of the season as it visits No. 16 Miami on Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m., ESPN) at Hard Rock Stadium. 

To get a better understanding of this season’s Hurricanes squad, TheWolfpacker.com caught up with CaneSport’s Gary Ferman, who covers the team for the On3 Network.

1. What are your initial takeaways from Miami’s first nine games?

“They started out the year looking great, and people were calling them the most complete team in the country. They kind of earned that adulation, but slowly, the level of their play declined. They got into a little bit of a rut in the middle of the season, a couple open weeks very close to each other I don’t think helped a lot. I think it disrupted their rhythm a little bit, and they’re struggling to get it back. 

“In the middle of the Syracuse game the other day, they found it for a quarter and a half and put up a 31-point run on the Orange that decided that game. But it doesn’t take a lot to get yourself out of favor with pollsters and voters — they’re on the outside looking in right now, of where they thought they would be, which is in contention for the ACC championship and a berth in the College Football Playoff. Right now, it’s going to take a lot for them to get either one of those, and they probably won’t get either. 

“It’s a little rough down here in Miami, I’m not going to lie to you. People are a little bit bent out of shape about how this has gone, but all they can do now is just win out and see where it takes them at the end.”

2. Miami brought in QB Carson Beck from Georgia to help take this team to the next level. What have you seen from him this season?

“I would say a lot of inconsistency. When he’s good, he’s been good. When he’s been bad, he’s been bad. I think the one game where he threw 4 interceptions, he might have been thinking a little bit too much about trying to win the Heisman trophy that night. It was a prime-time game on national television. He was taking shots he shouldn’t have taken. The receivers were never open, and he was throwing it into coverage. It ended up taking them out of that game, really. When he’s been good, he’s been good and the Miami passing game has done well. The biggest issue for Miami has been consistency. They’re just not getting the same thing all the time, and it really has hurt them pretty badly in the two games that they’ve lost. 

“Beyond that, I think that there were times when they kind of got trapped by their own success. They were running the ball very effectively with a power run game predominantly up the middle. And then as the weeks went by and teams started getting a better scout on what they were doing and started taking some of that away, they maybe stayed a little stubborn for a little too long in trying to go there. It was putting them in bad down-and-distance situations, making the offense a little bit too station-to-station, way too many third downs and even fourth-down situations. When you’re getting in third and fourth down all the time, you know, if you’re really, really good at it, you’re going to convert 60 percent of the time. If you’re not, you’re going to convert, you know, 30-40 percent of the time, which is what’s been happening to Miami, and they’ve had 40 percent third-down conversions. That’s wasting way too many possessions through the course of the game, which means they’re not scoring enough points. 

“When they go against a decent offensive team like SMU was, like Louisville was, they are susceptible to getting caught. Even though they’re probably a better team than both of those teams, they ended up losing those games. How does that apply to this weekend? Well NC State is pretty good on offense. They can score points, at times. Miami’s got to make sure that they don’t allow this to become a scoring contest where the game is hanging in the balance of the fourth quarter and a single play can shape it one way or the other.”

3. Does a 45-40 type of game worry you going into this one?

“Of course, because then it’s one play late in the fourth quarter that’s going to decide the game. When you’re in those situations, you’re going to win some of them, and you’re going to lose some of them. That’s pretty much what’s happened with Miami, even in the games that they won convincingly early in the year, they were allowing the other teams to come back in the second half of those games and make it somewhat close on the scoreboard. They haven’t really shown any consistency at all in terms of getting out in front of people and staying out in front and finishing them off. And I would say that’s right now the wild card, the weakness of the Miami season.

“I know SMU came into that game a few weeks ago thinking, ‘I want to stay within a score of them.’ They expected Miami to come out with a good game plan and get a lead. They didn’t want to let it become more than one score. And they were successful in doing that. Then in the fourth quarter, they won the game. I would think that NC State will come down to Miami this weekend with a similar type of game plan. The onus is on Miami not to let NC State get going offensively and do the good job themselves on the offensive side of the football to take, you know, a good lead.”

4. Miami’s defense has been one of the best in the ACC this season, led by standout defensive line play. What has it been like seeing that group excel?

“Outside of the fourth quarter at Florida State, they’ve been very, very consistent, no question about it. I think they got a little tired up there in Tallahassee in that game chasing the quarterback around a lot. [Defensive coordinator] Corey Hetherman has really been a breath of fresh air for the program. He’s got a very good scheme, and he’s very good at planning for opponents. They’ve played good enough defense to get to where they wanted to go, which is the opposite of what happened last year, when they played good offense and didn’t play very good defense. He’s done a great job, and Miami is very good on defense.”

5. What does Miami need to do to avoid another hiccup with NC State in town? 

“Get after that quarterback and disrupt this NC State offense to the Nth degree. They’ve got to get to CJ Bailey. They can’t just let him sit back there in the pocket and let him deliver the football to his playmakers. The harder they make it for Bailey, the more likely Miami is going to be happy with the result in the end. And that will pretty much do it, in my opinion. NC State’s defense is not so great, and Miami’s offense should be able to score points in this game. So, it’s all about keeping NC State out of big plays for sure.”