NC State handles what it needs to in 45-7 win over VMI

The proper approach to the game Saturday from NC State’s perspective was basically that it’s an exhibition game: so go on with that dabbling. State has plenty of issues to work out, and it could do so through the VMI defense, which, well, ain’t real good. Neither is the VMI offense, now that we’re talking about it.

It was a big-play day for Brennan Armstrong and the offense early; Julian Gray made a speedy early impact, and Armstrong connected with Bradly Rosner for an easy touchdown on a real easy jump ball, which happened, by the way, right after Bishop Fitzgerald scooped a whoopsie and returned it for six.

Everybody had a pretty good day, which is the design of these afternoons. Put a few highlights out there, take care of business, get your execution down. NC State did all of that. We had fun. Lots of fun moments to this one, and a very easy victory to show for it.

Brennan Armstrong was excellent and his receivers were very good today.

And the highlights were better than expected, honestly. This was a game where State worked in real time on whatever problems it felt it had. There’s no need to parse it beyond that; it was a good day, and a confidence-builder. Does it help? We’ll see.