Is MJ Morris going to fix NC State?

Back to quarterbacks, and again, I'm not sure there's a quarterback out there that can help the Giants, and I'm not sure that a change in quarterback is going to dramatically help NC State. Alec Lower from Trinity Road Times joins us making his maiden voyage on this program, and I thank you very much for your time, Alec. You've been writing extensively. I'm actually a little upset.

It looked like you took away the, and I'll just say it because I can on the radio, it's not vulgar, other than the image, the diarrhea volcano, that you've removed that from your story in describing the offense. It has not been good. Is MJ Morris going to fix that? Well, it's, I mean, it's hard to say, you know. There's a very small sample size right now on MJ, all from last year.

I think you really, really like what you've seen. You know, he's got a lot of natural ability. He's got a lot of, he really has it, you know, up there, I think. But, you know, I mean, there's issues with the offense, obviously, that he's not going to fix. The team really can't run the ball well right now. Your best receivers are all very young. So, it's a great question mark, you know. Well, I try to ask great questions if I can, if I work it in once in a while.

Alec Lower from Trinity Road Times is joining us here. We did see good things from MJ in a short, you know, stint last year. I guess my question for Dave Dore would be, and since I don't have Dave Dore and I have you, why didn't they just let MJ run it back this year? What do you think the thought process was in bringing in, I mean, a good quarterback in the past, but bringing in somebody like that because they let Devin Leary walk. They could have just said, hey Devin, you're the guy this year, but they didn't want to do that with Devin. They wanted to go another direction.

What do you think the thought process was there? Well, I actually think there's been some personnel mismanagement, I think, with State this year, but I actually do think quarterback really wasn't one of them. The plan, which Dave has said, I think, was this is, you know, Brennan Armstrong season, you redshirt MJ Morris, then you get three more years of him and you have these young skill position players that are coming in right now that are very exciting, like Casey Concepcion. And the receiving core, I think, has potential down the line. So I think it was kind of like a long-term vision thing, almost like we're building toward, you know, what MJ could be. And I think when you bring Brennan back with Robert and I, right, you pair them together, you know, you think you have a chance to have him be a good quarterback because you've seen it, right?

You've seen him play at high levels. So you bet on that and then you make your long-term play with MJ. And I think the thing with MJ is he played really, really well last year, but he made his share of freshmen mistakes, too.

And I think if you can, you know, you can cut those out this year and let him develop as opposed to just like throwing him out there at the start of the season, right? That was kind of the vision, but now his hand, I think, has been forced because the quarterback play just hasn't been there. So how does MJ Morris make the running game better? I think Brennan's a better runner than MJ.

He might be. MJ is a good runner, but I don't think anything makes the running game better right now. I mean, they get Dylan McMahon back at center.

Yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah, he's the best interior run blocker. I think he and Anthony Belton are the two best blockers on that line in the run game. But this is a team that a traditional run game, I don't think it's going to have it this year.

I don't think there's any way around that. I think that's why you see so much quarterback draw, so many, you know, quarterback scheme run plays because a traditional zone run game is not happening for State at all this year. And MJ can do that. He can do that. You know, I don't think he's quite as shifty as Brennan. He's a little bit more powerful.

I think he's bigger. I think they can still work that into the offense for sure. Oh, I think they have to. There are times where you don't have a run game. I'll go back a couple of years ago to Clemson. They had Travis Etienne and Trevor Lawrence, but if they weren't using zone read, they had no run game because the offensive line didn't block as well. And that's really what I think NC State's problems have been. Maybe the running backs aren't as good. It's hard to tell when there's no holes. And you already talked about the receiver package.

One of the things I like that you do at Trinity Road Times is that you show plays and you break down. This is where this went wrong. This is a mistake by Armstrong. Do you feel like he's been maybe a little bit too deliberate in whether it's decision making or delivery of the pass? I feel like he's been late to a bunch of throws.

I think the biggest problem with Armstrong really is just straight up in his accuracy. There's been, you know, he's, I think for the most part, he's made decent decisions this year. There's been a few, you know, questionable ones for sure, but I think when you go back and look at the tape and it really stands out the most in the Notre Dame game, I think, and a little bit in UConn as well is, you know, State's creating open, you know, separation to some degree at receiver, particularly with Concepcion, right?

It's not a, it's not a useless receiver core, right? There's something there. But he's just missing.

He is late for sure. You know, I think that there may be, you know, a little bit of lost chemistry there with a new guy coming in and they're still working through so many different guys in the receiver rotation. But my biggest complaint really with that was just the accuracy. I think if you go back to the really back-breaking interception against Louisville, it was a good read.

It was a good read. And you got, you got a house blitz there. You have a slant over the middle.

That's the right read, but the ball was just completely overthrown. And I think you've seen more of that than anything else. Alec Lower from Trinity Road Times is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show.

This, I guess, is the final, final thing on this. And this is from a big picture. I mean, Dave's been here more than a decade. And I think my opinion is the program is really good. I mean, the recruiting is generally good.

Player development is very good. They're putting guys in the NFL. Whether it's offensive linemen, defensive linemen, quarterbacks to the league.

I mean, Dave's got some quarterbacks in the league. Why haven't they won more? I mean, I mean, that's the way I look at it. They've done everything but the winning part of it. Yeah, no, you're 100% right.

I mean, it's definitely, it's definitely the bugaboo with Doran. If you ask me, so when you look at a program like NC State, what I see is I think you want a coach that can routinely get you in position. Because when you look at where state has come up short, when you talk about winning an ACC championship, winning a Atlantic division, formerly, they're within a play a couple different times. So 2017, they were, they lost by Clemson, they lost to Clemson, excuse me, by seven. They lose in Winston-Salem in 2021 by three points. You know, those are games that are decided by a play here, a play there.

And if you continue to put yourself in that position, right, you think eventually it falls one way versus the other. Because it really, if you break it down, it's, it's a three-point loss here, a three-point loss there that has really stopped them from, from getting to that game, from getting to 10 wins, from getting to a new year six bowl. You know, they are, they are right there, but you got to make that extra play. Yeah, and you know, it's funny, I'll just use a hockey analogy here. The Hurricanes got swept by the Florida Panthers in the postseason last year in the Eastern Conference Finals. And for those of us who watched basically every game and every shift of that season, they could have won all four of the games against the Panthers. But there's a reason they didn't. So yes, they were a play short. And I'm not, I mean, I thought the Hurricanes played really well, but they didn't play as well as Florida. And ultimately, I think there's a reason why State hasn't won the games you're talking about. There's a reason, there's a decision, there's a, a play that was, that they failed to make.

And if it keeps happening over and over again, I guess there's, there's a reason. But again, I think the program is in good shape. We're, we're not, we're not to the point where, where we're warming a seat, are we? No, I don't think so. I think Doran is, Doran has been clear that he plans to retire, you know, relatively young. So I think he'll probably finish his career here. And you see, I mean, like I said, you see a guy who continues to put you in position to have that chance.

You have to go back pretty far with NC state to find another guy who has had that, you know, Tom O'Brien was only in that position once. Right. So, you know, I think that's something that you want to end. Well, I remember that that was not fun. That did not end well, Maryland. Yeah. Maryland just scored again, I believe. Yeah.

Alec lower, Trinity road times at Alec lower on Twitter. I thank you very much for your, for your time. I appreciate it. We'll talk again. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.