Time to re-acquaint ourselves with Jack Chambers

NC State is in the unfortunate position of needing its backup quarterback to go get a win or two, but this scenario is exactly why the coaching staff brought Jack Chambers in this spring—so they’d have an experienced player in this spot.

Chambers played in 32 games across four years at Charleston Southern and threw the ball 915 times. He has over 5,700 career passing yards to go with 40 passing touchdowns and 29 interceptions.

Last season he threw for 300+ yards three times, including a career-high 405 yards at East Carolina in September. He got used to throwing the ball quite a bit, as he attempted 40+ passes in six games (including 61 against ECU).

Chambers also ran for over 1,300 yards at Charleston Southern, averaging about 10 carries per game over the course of his career there. He had a pair of 100-yard games in 2021.

This aspect of his game is something that NC State obviously will try to leverage, and who knows, maybe this added dimension is the thing to jolt the Wolfpack offense out of its struggles.

The Wolfpack can’t get away with being as conservative as it was with Chambers in that second half against FSU, and as the staff eases him into the game on Saturday I’d expect a heavier dose of RPOs. Those plays are already in this offense, and they’re all the more useful now. Chambers should already be pretty comfortable running those, so that helps.

There will be other wrinkles, no doubt, though hopefully they don’t all involve new kinds of screen passes. At some point they have to trust Chambers will execute and make smart decisions, and I expect that’s what we’ll see from him. Whether it ends up being good enough to win, I don’t know. But he’s capable, and State will have a good plan.