Developing a deep threat has been a little more difficult than expected for the NC State football team.
Redshirt junior C.J. Riley was the odds-on favorite for that role due to both his 6-foot-4 height and legit 4.4-second 40-yard dash. Riley had caught 28 passes for 315 yards and two touchdowns last year, was expected to have a bigger role with both Kelvin Harmon and Jakobi Meyers entering the draft a year early, and Stephen Louis graduated. Instead, Riley suffered a season-ending knee injury in the season opener against East Carolina, and that has reshuffled the receiving group.
“Every time you lose a player it is next man up, but it changes the chemistry,” NC State head coach Dave Doeren said. “You have to figure out where we are going from here.”
Former Wake Forest and Oregon receiver Tabari Hines caught a 48-yard touchdown against the Pirates, but the rest of the receivers haven’t caught anything past 19 yards. Junior Emeka Emezie’s longest reception is 17 yards out of his 21 catches and redshirt sophomore Thayer Thomas has a 19-yard reception. Developing a deep threat will help take some of the pressure off redshirt sophomore quarterback Matthew McKay, but that will take time, which was evident in the three-year development of past quarterback Ryan Finley.
“Between Emeka and [freshman] Keyon Lesane is growing into his role now because he’s fast and he was banged up a little bit in the first week,” said Doeren on his potential vertical attack. “Tabari is a guy that can do some things down the field. As you have seen with [freshman] Cecil Powell, he’s a guy that can do some things.”
McKay has given the coaches hope that the deep ball threat will start coming together.
“I think he threw a really good ball to Emeka in the game, but he ended up about six inches out of bounds on the catch,” Doeren said. “I think that trust is already there. We have to get the timing for those things. He did have a nice back-shoulder throw and catch in the opener to Emeka.”
Redshirt freshman Devin Carter had his role change the most with Riley’s injury. The former Clayton (N.C.) High standout caught five passes for 49 yards with a long of 18 this season.
“That is the thing we have to get [with Devin], so it’s on both sides of the field,” said Doeren on Carter’s ability to make a play.
Doeren knows whether it is his younger receivers or some of the youthful players sprinkled across the roster, when they start to grow up, the talent level will sharply increase.
“When it clicks, you have a lot of talented young guys out there,” Doeren said. “It just has to click. It’s a fast football team. I said during the summer to my staff that this is the fastest team, when you look at it top-to-bottom that we had. Speed doesn’t look fast when it is confused or shell shocked as it were at some spots last week [at WVU].”
Doeren said youth will continue to be served at the defensive end spot with the healthy return of redshirt freshman Joseph Boletepeli, but fifth-year senior James Smith-Williams is still “questionable.” NCSU sixth-year defensive end Deonte Holden is shaking off the rust of being injured during fall camp, but freshman Savion Jackson is taking advantage of his extra reps.
Whether young players or older, the team responded this week in practice.
“Tuesday was very focused, but there is always going to be mistakes on Tuesday because you are introducing game plan stuff to the guys,” Doeren said. “The energy was excellent.
“Wednesday was our best Wednesday that we’ve had this year.
“I expect a very angry football team. We have to put that into execution and go out and do our jobs.”
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