NC State's Offense Struggles Again In 24-10 Loss To Syracuse

NC State lost 24-10 to Syracuse on Saturday, pushing State's league record to 0-3, which is almost certain to be 0-4 a couple of weeks from now, and it can get worse from there. I thought the Wolfpack would make it out of the Wake and Syracuse games with at least a split, but now I'm having trouble finding enough wins left on the schedule for bowl eligibility. But it's never as good or as bad as it seems, right?

NC State's performance against the Orange--and Pete Thomas' NCSU career to this point--can be summed up by this play:

Pete has had guys open over the top on numerous occasions this season and he's missed. The latest and perhaps most egregious of those was the above miss, which should have been an easy score, or at the very least a lengthy completion.

Syracuse brought a lot of pressure and the Wolfpack never made the Orange pay for it. Pete Thomas seems like a head case at this point, pump faking to oblivion, running for three yards, worrying that any throw downfield will end up being a mistake. This isn't the system he thought he'd be running here, and he just seems uptight, leading to the poor overthrows on gimmes like the one above.

Whatever the case may be, State's offense was horrific today. Some creative Amato-style formations couldn't help; they actually made matters worse.

This formation...did not work. http://t.co/rnxVxPrVF2

— Steven (@akulawolf) October 12, 2013

Thomas took the snap, rolled to the boundary with pressure from an unblocked Syracuse defender, and just threw the ball into the ground. We tried that ... thing ... again, to no avail. Smoke and mirrors can't save a Thomas-led offense, at least not this style of offense, under this particular coaching staff.