Tim Beck will have multiple plans for Saturday
NC State offensive coordinator Tim Beck goes into every game with multiple plans. He takes into account what happens in a worst-case scenario if he has to replace his quarterback. Beck also will consider what he wants to do if NC State has a lead or is trailing late in the game.
This Saturday, Beck will have a plan for the weather conditions as Hurricane Ian remnants are forecast to travel right over Clemson Saturday.
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“You’ve got to prepare for as much as you can,” Beck noted. “Nobody knows for sure what’s going to take place. There’s going to be crowd noise, and there is going to be potentially bad weather.
“As a coach, you feel like you check all the boxes and you at least address all those issues. You show them and you practice and you go through those things so that they are not shocked when it happens. Because it’s going to happen.”
To that end, NC State is not only practicing with wet footballs, Beck has had water sprayed in fifth-year junior quarterback Devin Leary’s face during practice to try to get the signal-caller used to the potential adverse conditions.
Ultimately, how Beck calls a game will be dictated by actual conditions on Saturday evening.
“You’re very well prepared in terms of what you feel like you need to do given that situation, but … you also make those decisions as they happen,” Beck noted.
Beck is also careful not to take away too much from the game film in Clemson’s 51-45 double overtime win at Wake Forest.
“Every offense is a little bit different, and so what [the defense] does is they prepare their fronts, their coverages based on what they feel like they need to use off that team,” Beck noted. “Sometimes there is carryover, sometimes there is not.
“As a coordinator, when you’re planning a game, you have to realize and notice that. You see what [Wake Forest] did, and you tip your hat. That’s a pretty good job what they did, but I don’t know if we’ll get the same thing or not.”
This will be the first time that Beck has called a game against new Clemson defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin, who replaced the celebrated Brent Venables, now the head coach at Oklahoma.
“I think he has his own tweaks to it, but I think it’s a system, and he learned a system from Brent,” Beck observed. “I think there’s a lot of similarities to it, but what he does and how he does and when he does it is different from Brent.”
NC State is likely to try to take advantage of whatever Clemson gives them. For instance, quick passes were made available by Connecticut last Saturday, and Beck dialed up the short throws.
“They were playing deep, and you’ve got to take what they give you,” Beck noted. “Sometimes I’ve been stubborn in trying to push the ball downfield, and some teams aren’t letting us. We just took a deep breath and re-focused.”
