NC State has made significant strides on offense to this point of the season

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ChumbaCasino.com. All right, Extra Motivation. Who needs Extra Motivation when you've got State and Carolina, Corey Smith, Pac-Pride joining us on the Adam Gold Show. Do you think Dave Doran is having more fun coaching this team than he has had any season he has been at NC State?

First of all, thanks for having me on, man. I would say maybe at this point he is. If you asked me that a couple weeks ago, probably not. Right. You know, we had heard there was some clear frustration going into the bye week after what went down against Duke. But man, you know, I don't think you could point to a better season overall as far as a head coach for him than what he's been able to put together these last four weeks. And obviously there's still a game against UNC to go this coming up weekend. And there's a game to go against whoever they end up facing in a bowl game. Because, I mean, again, you know, coming out of the bye week with Clemson, Miami, a trip to Blacksburg, trip to Wake Forest where they've always struggled. And then UNC to close things out. Like, being in a bowl game didn't seem like a guarantee at that point. Now, I think Dave Doran is having some fun with this team just because he's proving everybody right. And that, as we know, is one of Dave Doran's favorite pastimes.

Corey Smith-Packbright is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. Just forget which win was it. Was it the Miami win where the ACC network was here and he's, like, hanging out on stage, joking around, there's cigars. Like, he just seems so relaxed at this point. Almost, and I'm not saying that this is true, but it almost feels like this season has become gravy or house money or however you wanted to look at it. And maybe it has everything to do with, and it wasn't even, I think the MJ Morris thing hadn't even played itself out yet at that point.

It just seems like there is a, I don't know, just kind of a relaxed nature about him right now. Yeah, at that point, it was actually kind of known within the locker room, at least, what was going to happen with MJ Morris, or at least amongst the coaching staff. But yeah, you know, I mean, and again, it kind of goes back to what I just said, you know, the fact that they had won those two games, the Clemson game. You know, you saw him afterwards say, you know, that he knew they were going to win the game.

And then that was when he took the shot at Steve Smith. The following week, you know, they come out, they beat Miami a defensive, with a defensive, you know, performance. And that was back to back weeks that they had a strong defensive performance.

And it just, it's kind of like, you know, he's seeing all of the things happen that he envisioned for this team. And, you know, some of that was, you know, a struggle early on in the season. Brendan Armstrong struggled to be able to just kind of hang on to the football.

Those types of things kind of snowballed in some games. But man, over those two weeks during the bye week and getting things back on track, you know, and even with Brendan Armstrong being reinserted, you've seen they've been able to really be able to win games with the offensive side of the football. Again, the defense has been strong, but the offense has been able to hold on to the football for 40 minutes plus in these last two games. And that's what's led to NC State winning. And that, you know, that's all Dave Doran football.

That's all he ever wants to see. And that's exactly what's unfolding right now. Corey Smith is joining us here. That's the thing about the last couple of weeks. It's been, wait, the offense has looked good. And 35 points at Virginia Tech. Look, it's not a vintage Virginia Tech team. Bruce Smith ain't walking through that door.

So we get it. It's not the same. They ran out of fullers in the defensive backfield, so it's not the same. But their offense has looked more presentable.

And maybe it's because they finally realized that, look, we have one difference maker at a skill position. His name is Casey Concepcion. And we can't just throw it to him six times a game. We have to be able to get it to him 15 times a game. And that's basically, like, we don't care where we're putting him. He's going to get the ball somehow.

Do they have somebody that can kind of be a second fit, a Robin, to his Batman? Yeah, I need to go back and actually track everything. Because if you watched him on just about every single play, unless he was lined up in the backfield, there was a motion with Casey. There was some kind of motion of, like, all right, we're going to go with a jet sweep.

All right, we're going to go with a pop pass. And even on those plays when they didn't, it led to a decoy where you were able to get, you know, Trent Pinnix wide open off of a pass for him. It led to, you know, a couple other big plays, like Dakari Collins, I think back to.

It basically swept everything over to the right side of the field, and they hit him. Bradley Rosner comes up with a big catch. There's not necessarily a Robin to that Batman. I guess if you had to put one person as the Robin right now, I guess it would be Brendan Armstrong because of what he's been able to do in the running game. He takes a little bit of pressure off of Casey, having to be, you know, the big playmaker every single time. And it's not to say that, you know, Brendan Armstrong is going to rush for, you know, 20-plus yard, 40-plus yard play every single time that he goes. But he's going to pick up first downs. I think he picked up seven total with his legs and with his arm on Saturday.

I actually have to take that back. Just his legs on Saturday was like six or seven and then with his arm, quite a few more. So what he's doing is taking some pressure off of Casey.

And again, it's not, it's not necessarily doing a million things, but he's just doing a couple things right. And that's leading to taking some pressure off of him. And then they're utilizing him when he's not touching the ball as a decoy. Well, how much did it help when he got on the field even when MJ was playing, right? Morris was playing and they had Armstrong on the field, like as a wingback or something in the backfield at times. It just made, maybe it helped him feel more part of the team because he has gotten back under center or in the shotgun, mostly. And it has looked better than it did before.

Yeah. I mean, you know, Michael Clark said this on our podcast the other night and I have to give him a shout out before I say it, but like he just said, Brendan Armstrong is basically everything that's right about college football. The guy has just shown so much resiliency during all of this that regardless of whether or not he's lined up as the quarterback, he's the starter, he's just willing to put himself out there and do anything and everything he can to help this team win. And that's exactly what he was doing when he was lined up as a running back, when he was lined up as a clear, you know, wildcat formation quarterback, where it was like, hey, he's not going to throw the football in these formations even when MJ Morris was in. He's going to be the guy that you're going to lean on to run the football. He's just a physical quarterback. And luckily for NC State, it sounds like he's perfectly fine.

Dave Doran, I asked him earlier today about his status because he was out after the last play of the last game. And it sounded like he was he was perfectly fine. He was getting treatment after the game.

He's going to be fine. But he's just put his body on the line and he's playing like a guy that he knows these are his last few games. He's going to do everything to go out as, you know, a hero for this program. And that's something that wasn't guaranteed early on in the season. It it goes a long way to giving you legendary status if you ball out in a game like this, because I know there's not necessarily increase like state doesn't have to spoil North Carolina season here because I think North Carolina in some ways took care of that on their own. And I mean, I know that sounds like I'm throwing shade at you, NC, but they have said that already maybe not the program but their fans like we have screwed this up because frankly, they should be better than eight and three right now. State at eight and three is probably I mean, even if at the beginning of the season we probably thought this would have man if we could be eight and three when we get to this game, knowing it was a transition year and then going back, you know, four weeks, we'd be like we're totally surprised.

But you can become an ancient instant folk hero if you play well and win this game. Yeah. And, you know, he's already done that over the last two games. I mean, it's, you know, for one for NC State, one for himself. You think back to the Wake Forest game. That was the him and Jacoby. We're set are the only two NC State quarterbacks to have won in Winston-Salem in the last 20 years. Philip Rivers is the last to do that back in 2001.

Then you've got a guy. He goes into Virginia Tech. He's the former UVA quarterback. He played Virginia Tech twice and lost to them both times.

He goes into Virginia Tech and it's kind of a personal thing for him. He wins that game. It's the first time NC State's won in Blacksburg since 2004. So he's, you know, putting his name in the in the NC State record books already. But yeah, I mean, you beat you and see you ball out against you and see whatever you have to do to beat them, regardless of whether it's, you know, rushing for a touchdown and only getting, you know, 65-70 tough rushing yards and only passing for, you know, a little over 100-150 and all of them being to Kevin Concepcion.

It doesn't really matter. You win that game and finish with five straight and then finish for himself personally with three straight wins. That's the stuff of legends, regardless of how things started out for Brendan Armstrong. A final thing for you, Corey Smith, Pack Bride, joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. I just saw the news report that Cam Ridings, the quarterback at Utah, is coming back going to play a seventh year. It's not quite seven for Peyton Wilson. What's that going to be like for Peyton to come out on that field for the final time? I mean, you know, you can't – you couldn't have asked for a more storybook year for him or storybook ending for him to be able to go out and play against UNC that, as most remember, who was initially committed to UNC before he flipped to NC State. It'll also be nice for him to move on and never be asked that question again, because he will undoubtedly be asked it again this week about floating from UNC.

And there will be so much going into this game. But, you know, just what he's put together this year, you know, the stats is the first time he's ever had over 120 tackles in a season. This is the first time he leads the country right now. I know not everybody loves PFF or Pro Football Focus, but he leads the country right now in defensive stops with 60 on the season. So – and he just had another six against Virginia Tech this past weekend. But just aside from the numbers that he's put together, the growth that he's shown as a player, he came in.

Dave Doran talked about it last week, like he was afraid of, you know, speaking in public. He's a guy that came in with a little bit of a stutter, comes away as one of the biggest leaders for this program. He is the voice of the defense and the voice of this team as a whole going into this final week. And you couldn't have asked for a better leader and a better representative of what NC State is all about than what Peyton Wilson has put on the field this season and what he's overcome to get to this season too. So it's going to be a unique one because there's a lot of guys that are going to be coming out of that tunnel for the final time. And Peyton Wilson coming back, you couldn't have asked for a better finish to his career than, you know, especially after the roller coaster ride that he's been on with the success he's had too.

No question about it. Corey Smith, I appreciate your time, man. This has been fun. I cannot wait until Saturday night.

I've probably been looking forward to this game more than I have any other Carolina NC State football game. So have a good time. We'll talk to you soon. Appreciate you, Adam. You have a goal, man. You got it. We'll be right back.