NC State runs by Charleston Southern, 55-3

Everything’s a process, and NC State did not have a great first quarter—it was a bit where they could have been pressing, but also if they had just executed a couple plays, then they’d have hit some big ones. This amounts to haggling if you’re Charleston Southern, which had to endure the rest of the game.

So you can read into this one whatever you want but the outcome was never in question, and by the time Devin Leary hit Anthony Smith on a ridiculous cross-body throw, well, the worries ended.

We didn’t have to worry a bit about this defense, which held Charleston Southern to a joke of a rushing effort, and put constant pressure on its quarterback. Those guys played great, and the offense played right off of that.

That we love to see. We love it very much.

All told, this ended up an academic exercise; Devin Leary and the first-team offense played about five minutes into the second half then hit the bench. There were good moments for the first team and the second, plenty of things to figure, but also: State ran the ball downhill whenever it wanted to do that, and this was an easy result.

Charleston Southern managed only 150 yards of offense on the day and finished a ghastly 1-15 on third downs. The Bucs finished with 36 yards rushing.

NC State piled up over 500 yards of offense and held a 45-0 lead early in the third quarter as Leary and the rest of the first-string offense took their exit. That’s exactly how they’d have drawn it up.