Notebook: Matthew McKay, passing game struggles

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A lot of the postgame focus for NC State football from Morgantown will probably be on the performance of redshirt sophomore quarterback Matthew McKay.

The numbers bear out the struggles the Wolfpack had passing the ball. He completed less than half of his passes (23 of 48, 47.9 percent) for only 207 yards and was sacked three times.

NC State averaged just 9.0 yards per completion.

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At one point in the fourth quarter, it appeared that redshirt sophomore quarterback Bailey Hockman was warming up on the sideline, but McKay finished out the game under center. Afterward, head coach Dave Doeren cautioned it was too soon to evaluate McKay’s performance without having watched the film.

“I didn’t think Matt played rattled,” Doeren said. “He was pretty calm on the sideline. He did some good things.”

Doeren acknowledged that getting good quarterback play is paramount going forward.

“It always is, from Pop Warner to the NFL,” he added.

The coach also said that there could have been other factors involved. He noted on one third down a tight end ran the wrong route, and subsequently McKay’s pass looked off the mark when the fault was on the intended receiver.

“There’s a lot of things out there that are out of Matt’s control,” Doeren said. “You got to look at whether it’s guys dropping passes or not running the route at the right depth.”

McKay diplomatically first answered in his postgame media scrum that he thought he had played solid, but later acknowledged it “could have been a lot better.”

McKay has a reputation from those around the team of being a harsh self-evaluator, but he wants to see the film to understand where the breakdowns in the passing game were. Redshirt sophomore receiver Thayer Thomas, who caught an eight-yard touchdown, added that everyone needed to step up.

“I think the plays were there, we just weren’t connecting on them,” Thomas said. “I’m not going to blame anyone. It was just the collective whole group not executing. We need to look at the film tomorrow and figure out what things to fix.”

Earlier this week, Thayer Thomas described getting the chance to play at WVU's Milar-Puskar Stadum as a “dream come true.” Thayer and his younger brother, freshman linebacker Drake Thomas, are the sons of a former Marshall football player, while their mother is a West Virginia alum.

The two attended many games as fans of WVU (except when playing Marshall) at the stadium growing up while making the long drive from Wake Forest, N.C., to Morgantown.

Both Thomas brothers took home memories from playing in front of about 30 family members and friends at the game.

Thayer Thomas caught an eight-yard touchdown, and then he also threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to redshirt junior tight end Cary Angeline. He is the first NCSU player to catch and throw a TD pass in the same game since Rashard Smith against Boston College in 2013.

“It means everything,” Thayer Thomas said. “I have like 30 family members here. I grew up coming to games here. My grandmother passed away about four years ago Sept. 30, which is around the corner. I sort of prayed for her and went out there and tried to play to the best of my ability.”

Drake Thomas had what could have been a key interception in the third quarter, picking off West Virginia redshirt junior quarterback Austin Kendall at the West Virginia 32-yard line and returning it 11 yards to the 21.

“I dropped into my coverage, reading the quarterback. … He basically threw it right to me,” Drake Thomas remembered.

Like Thayer, Drake was happy with the individual play but more disappointed with the team result.

“It was exciting, one of my first big plays ever on the college level,” Drake Thomas said. “I would have preferred to have the win.”

It meant everything but we didn’t get the win,” Thayer Thomas concluded.

West Virginia came into this game having not had a running back rush for longer than six yards on a single run through two contests. Overall it rushed for 34 yards on 24 carries vs. James Madison and 32 times for 30 yards at Missouri, counting sacks in those totals.

Doeren gave credit to West Virginia’s coaching staff for changing things up to jumpstart the running game and, as a byproduct, the offense.

“Offensively, they had a lot of different things than we’ve seen,” Doeren said. “We adjusted as we went and didn’t do a good job getting the players to understand the adjustment.

“We have to own that first and foremost as coaches and players have to take to coaching as we’ve done. I thought we did a really good job of that the first two games.”

The combination of stretch runs and jet sweeps led to West Virginia rushing for 173 yards on 28 carries, and those numbers did not include a few sweep passes that are essentially running plays but count as throws.

Morehead pointed specifically to the sweeps as a play that they had not anticipated.

“We really didn’t see that on film,” he said. “We had to adjust to it.”

Overall, WVU finished with 445 total yards after not breaking 300 yards in either of the first two contests, and its 44 points were more than they scored in their first two games combined (27 points).

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