NC State vs. Mississippi State: By the numbers

It was a rough evening on Saturday for the NC State offense, which played about as bad as it possibly could. We hope. The Wolfpack’s worst game on a per-play basis last season came in the Gator Bowl against Kentucky, where the Pack averaged 4.8 yards per play.

Its performance against Mississippi State was quite a bit worse than that.

Among the other signs of struggle there was the fact that NC State faced 20 third-down situations. An offense that’s working smoothly isn’t going to end up facing that many third downs. The Pack only managed to convert on 30 percent of those third downs, which didn’t help.

Obviously NC State has to get more from Devin Leary and the passing game in order to be successful—averaging under six yards per attempt while completely less than 60 percent of your throws does not equate to a winning performance.

On the bright side, the Pack’s defense did well to limit Mississippi State to 4.9 yards per play. Really the stat lines for these two teams were about the same, but the Bulldogs had the benefit of finishing +3 in turnover margin, plus that special teams freebie to start the night.

There’s plenty to clean up against Furman.