Austin & the Moose discuss Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and DOOM

Austin and @wxmoose (well, mainly @wxmoose; Austin is not in right now, he is occupied by a fit of rage-defenestration) return to touch on the last garbage-ass game and talk about the next garbage-ass game.

Moose:

I've put this off as long as I possibly could, mainly because I didn't want to go through the pain of the VT game again. A week-long break was just what I needed to purge that atrocity and here I am, bringing it back up. My stomach is churning.

I mean, things started off as well as they could playing a road game at VT after a disappointing performance against Louisville. State scored the first 10 points and then something happened. Tech responded after the State score with a 5 play touchdown drive. After that, State ran 7 plays in the half for -8 yards.

THAT IS TERRIBLE BY ANY METRIC. YOU CAN'T EVEN CONVERT THOSE YARDS TO ANOTHER UNIT TO MAKE THEM PALATABLE.

Against Louisville, it was turnovers. Against VT, it was penalties. The penalties (9 for 81 yards) were awful because they were drive extenders. On VT's first and third touchdown drives, there were automatic first down penalties that kept drives alive. Ridiculous.

I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm getting angry. Any additional thoughts before moving on to the Battle of Derp coming up on Saturday?

Austin:

I am out of the office for the week of October 19-23 with limited access to email. I will respond to your messages as soon as possible when I return.

If this is Moose, I'm assuming you want to talk about the Virginia Tech and Wake Forest games. I'm over VT, but as far as Wake goes, my analysis says State should win by every measure I have, but I'm picking Wake Forest because magic.

Moose:

What...I....you're leaving me alone to do this? I don't know how to feel. This is a horrible time to abandon someone with an interest in NC State football.

Well, here goes...

Wake Forest is bad. Like really, really bad. They can't run the ball whatsoever, ranking 118th in the country. Only ten teams are worse. They throw it OK, but that's mainly a volume deal since it's been out of necessity. The thing that should scare you if you're a State fan is their ability to play teams close. With the exception of UNC, their losses have been by a margin of a touchdown or so, on average.

They're OK defending the run, but much better against the pass. State has to re-establish some sort of running attack or they're toast.

What I'm saying is they're toast. The running game has been predictable and uninspired. And I'm not sure what has happened to Jacoby's passing ability. This will come down to the wire. It will most certainly be gross.

And NC State will lose, 14-10. The season is over.