A brutal schedule, a new quarterback, and a crucial year for NC State

Check out the advanced-stats glossary here. Below, a unique review of last year’s team, a unit-by-unit breakdown of this year’s roster, the full 2016 schedule with win projections for each game, and more.

There are now 11 years’ worth of S&P+ ratings banked and available to explore. It is a rating that I am both immensely proud of and forever looking to improve, and one of the many things I’ve learned from it is just how hard it is for teams to keep pushing the boulder up the mountain.

Only about 50.7 percent of the teams in the S&P+ database have improved on their previous year’s rating. Of these 622 teams, only 232 improved again the next year. Only 68 improved for a third straight year, 19 for a fourth, and two (2006-10 Arizona and 2007-11 Temple) for a fifth.

If we use the combined F/+ rankings, it’s nearly the same: 618 teams have improved, 242 twice, 75 three times, 18 four times, three five times (2008-12 Notre Dame, 2009-13 Arizona State, 2009-13 North Texas).

We always think of program building as a linear phenomenon: You improve, then you improve again, then you improve some more. That almost never happens. There are potholes and unexpected impediments. This is a zero-sum universe, and there are more good coaches than there are opportunities to improve.

This is a long way of saying NC State is at a crossroads. Three years in, head coach Dave Doeren has yet to actually beat a power conference team that finished with a winning record. The Wolfpack have also only lost to one team with a losing record. That’s a good way of assuring your ratings are solid while also giving your fanbase very little to get excited about.

The Wolfpack have improved for four straight years per S&P+ and for two straight per F/+. The first two years of “improvement” were marginal at best -- State went from a minus-4.1 S&P+ rating in 2011 (87th in FBS) to minus-3.4 in 2012 (76th) to minus-2.0 in 2013 (78th) -- and an improved schedule meant the win total actually declined in this period.

State has made up a ton of ground in the last two years, however. The Wolfpack surged from 90th in Off. S&P+ to 43rd in 2014 and 30th in 2015, and the defense went from 64th to 45th last year as well. The result: a leap to 50th overall in 2014 (with an 8-5 record), then another one to 36th (7-6) in 2015.

The program is in decent shape. But improvement under Doeren has just resulted in the same types of seasons that got Tom O’Brien run out of town. And now, simple odds and degree of difficulty suggest he might be in for a little bit of a step backwards.

Doeren replaced offensive coordinator Matt Canada with Eli Drinkwitz and is now looking for replacements for his quarterback (Jacoby Brissett), his All-American offensive lineman (Joe Thuney), his best pass rusher (end Mike Rose), and his most disruptive defensive back (Juston Burris). Returning depth is solid, and there shouldn’t be a significant amount of regression. But we’re about to find out just how much goodwill has he stored up at this point.

This is Bill C’s daily preview series, working its way through every 2016 team. Catch up on the ACC so far!

Our reliance on the transitive property -- Team A beat Team B, therefore Team A was better -- is rarely actually helpful because Team A usually then proceeds to lose to Team C, which lost handily to Team B. It gets messy quickly. But there was no mess when it came to NC State’s 2015 season. If you were good, you defeated the Wolfpack. If you weren’t, they defeated you.

State’s closest win was by 13 points, and only one loss came by single digits. From a win expectancy standpoint, only one win was in doubt (a 61 percent win expectancy vs. Syracuse), and really, no losses were.

It was a similar story in 2014, when the Wolfpack’s best wins were against S&P+ No. 55 UNC and No. 57 Georgia Southern and their worst loss was to No. 39 Boston College. It’s not supposed to work out in such a clean fashion.

Doeren clearly isn’t satisfied with this, which is good. He actually let Canada go despite the offense’s top-30 status, and that had to have served notice to defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable, whose defense has lagged behind the offense and has had the inconvenient tendency of allowing 40-plus points to every good offense.

If you’re going to get rid of a good coordinator, you better replace him with a great one.

Doeren replaced Canada with a branch of the Gus Malzahn tree. Eli Drinkwitz was Malzahn’s coordinator at Springdale (Ark.) High, his quality control assistant at Auburn in 2010-11, and his running backs coach at Arkansas State in 2012. When Malzahn moved back to Auburn, Drinkwitz stayed on as Bryan Harsin’s offensive co-coordinator at ASU, then followed Harsin to Boise State.

With Drinkwitz as tight ends coach, BSU ranked 13th in Off. S&P+ in 2014. But as he moved up to the OC chair in 2015, he had to deal with a green backfield (freshman quarterback, sophomore running back) and a shuffled offensive line, and the offense sank to 52nd.

Drinkwitz’s pedigree is obvious, but he doesn’t have much of a track record just yet. Doeren is taking one hell of a leap of faith here.

The 2015 Drinkwitz offense played at one of the nation’s fastest tempos and took a pass-first approach. That’s a scary proposition when combined with a new starting quarterback, but after Jalan McClendon and Jakobi Meyers battled for the starting role in spring ball, Drinkwitz brought in a ringer: Ryan Finley, a BSU graduate transfer who began 2015 as the starter before getting hurt.

Finley should set a nice baseline. McClendon is a better-touted recruit and very much looks the part, but if he’s struggling to find his rhythm in the new offense, Drinkwitz will at least know that he’s got Finley to whip the ball from sideline to sideline effectively. He made some judgement errors last year, taking six sacks and throwing four picks in just 76 pass attempts, but he was only a sophomore and has two years of eligibility to figure things out.

Note: players in bold below are 2016 returnees. Players in italics are questionable with injury/suspension.

Matthew Dayes was on one hell of a pace before he got hurt. Dayes suffered a foot injury against Clemson and was lost for the season; before the injury, he was on pace to cross 1,400 rushing yards. It has been eons since NC State had a rusher as dangerous as Dayes. His efficiency was lacking a bit, but he made up for it by hitting the jets anytime he saw open field. And as with the team itself, he dominated lesser opponents. He rushed for only 4.1 yards per carry as the entire offense stagnated against Louisville and Virginia Tech, but he otherwise averaged 7.2 per carry, and he had nine rushes for 72 yards against Clemson when he went down.

Dayes had quite a bit going for him in 2015, however. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett was a lumbering presence but a highly efficiency runner, generating at least five yards on half of his non-sack carries. He took defensive attention away from the running backs. Plus, the line featured three senior, multi-year starters, including All-American Joe Thuney at left tackle.

Dayes will gain plenty of yards again in 2016, but with a younger line, a potentially less mobile quarterback (Finley was reasonably efficient in limited action last year but isn’t nearly the battering ram that Brissett was), and pass-first tendencies, it remains to be seen whether he can maintain last year’s averages and opportunities.

It also remains to be seen how Drinkwitz will choose to utilize Jaylen Samuels. Samuels was one of college football’s more unique threats, rushing 56 times and fielding 80 targets from a sort of fullback/tight end role (an H-Back-Plus, if you will). His success wasn’t correlated to team success -- he averaged 6.3 yards per carry and 8.5 yards per catch in wins, 6.9 and 10.0, respectively, in losses -- but he’s obviously a unique, efficient weapon, one that any offensive coordinator could find a use for. And with Drinkwitz’s previous emphasis on quick, horizontal passing, you figure both Samuels and slot receiver Nyheim Hines could see significant roles.

Of course, wideouts Jumichael Ramos and Bra’Lon Cherry were both more efficient and explosive than either Samuels or Hines last year. There’s a give-and-take there -- without the steady dose of Samuels, maybe the same opportunities don’t open up downfield -- but Ramos and Cherry might be the key to success here. [Update: Ramos suffered a knee injury and is out for the season.] The passing game struggled from a big-play perspective, and they were the big-play guys. Sophomore Maurice Trowell has potential in this regard, too, at least if his 83-yard touchdown catch against Boston College is any indication.

There is an X-factor in the skill corps this year: youth. With Dayes, Samuels, Ramos, Cherry, and Hines back, we know where a majority of the touches are going to go. But youngsters like four-star backs Reggie Gallaspy II (a sophomore) and Johnny Frasier (a redshirt freshman) and Rivals four-star freshmen Thaddeus Moss and Kelvin Harmon find respective niches as well. Gallaspy struggled for much of his freshman year before catching fire late (he carried 27 times for 158 yards against Syracuse and UNC in Dayes’ absence). For that matter, Hines is only a sophomore and took on the running back role in the bowl game. There’s unexplored athletic potential here.

NC State’s defense showed unquestionable improvement in 2015; the Wolfpack ranked in the Def. S&P+ top 50 for the first time since 2010 -- they had been between 61st and 70th in each of the past four seasons -- and were powered by a defensive line that might not have gotten enough credit last year.

State’s aggressiveness led to a bit of a big-play problem -- opponents had 25 carries of 20-plus yards, 101st in FBS -- but the Wolfpack still ranked 13th in Adj. Line Yards, third in stuff rate, and 10th in power success rate. End Bradley Chubb and tackle B.J. Hill combined for 13 non-sack tackles for loss, and linebacker Airius Moore added 7.5 more. On average, if you ran the ball on standard downs, State was stuffing you.

Of course, all you had to do was pass on standard downs, and you were probably going to be fine. Opponents managed a 148.6 passer rating on first downs, producing both efficiency (61 percent completion rate) and explosiveness (14.6 yards per completion). Coordinator Dave Huxtable’s attack is old school, attacking the run on standard downs and the pass on passing downs. That can work pretty well, but State’s No. 80 ranking in Standard Downs S&P+ shows that there were some balance issues they couldn’t account for.

Judging by returning production, State’s strength could get even stronger in 2016. Seven of last year’s top eight linemen (including Chubb and Hill) and each of the top four linebackers are back. Meanwhile, the weakness might not get any less weak.

In theory, youngster Darian Roseboro, a former four-star recruit who produced four sacks while being on the field only long enough to make 12.5 tackles, could pick up the slack for departed pass rusher Mike Rose. But losing the combination of Rose, top safety Hakim Jones, and top corner Juston Burris is disoncerting, even if almost everybody else is back.

Perhaps the best news of all about the front seven: It’s STILL relatively young. The only senior in the rotation is tackle Monty Nelson, and he was asked to make all of six tackles last year. There’s always a chance that a star could go pro early, but as of now, every key player in the already-solid front seven is a junior or younger. And former four-star athletes like Roseboro and Germaine Pratt could still improve further. If experience leads to fewer breakdowns, State could easily end up with a top-25 run defense in 2016. And if not in 2016, then 2017.

Continuity is nearly as important as star power in the back. That’s good because State has the former if not the latter. Of the eight players responsible for at least 10 tackles last year, eight are back, including a pretty disruptive nickel back in Dravious Wright. Losing Jones and Burris means losing 5.5 tackles for loss and 12 passes defensed for a secondary that was a bit lacking in the havoc department.

Actually, it was a bit lacking in a lot of departments. The Wolfpack weren’t efficient enough to get away with allowing 22 passes of 30-plus yards (87th in FBS), and the pass rush that was strangely decent on standard downs (18th in standard downs sack rate) wasn’t very good when opponents actually had to pass (53rd on passing downs). Uncertainty at cornerback was high enough that receiver Johnathan Alston flipped to defense.

There are actually some seniors in the back, and the continuity really is solid, but while the pass defense might improve, it will still drag down this unit a bit.

All but one aspect of NC State’s special teams unit was at least mediocre in 2015. Nyheim Hines and Bra’Lon Cherry were explosive in the return games, and punter A.J. Cole III was nearly unreturnable as a freshman.

One problem: the Wolfpack couldn’t make kicks. Kyle Bambard missed two PATs, three shorter field goals, and all four of his longer field goals. He was a freshman, which explains some of the trouble, but because of the importance of kicking the ball between the goal posts, State’s special teams unit graded out poorly because of Bambard. His improvement (or the emergence of a better option) is vital.

I guess there are two ways to look at NC State’s schedule. Going by S&P+ projections, you’re looking at three likely wins, four likely losses, and five relative tossups with win probability between 37 and 64 percent. That suggests something in the neighborhood of six wins and a third straight bowl appearance -- not great, but not terrible.

Then there’s the NC State-centric way of looking at the schedule. The Wolfpack begin with four teams projected 74th or worse before taking on eight straight projected top-50 opponents. Recent trends suggest a 4-0 start followed by eight straight losses.

This is a “put up or shut up” kind of year. The Wolfpack have definitely improved but don’t have any big wins to show for it, and now they face life with a new quarterback and an increasingly tricky schedule. If they don’t start beating decent teams soon, they’ll be looking for a new coach. Doeren has not yet cleared the bar set by O’Brien.

That said, I would be surprised if State didn’t claim a couple of decent victims. The run defense should be strong, the addition of Ryan Finley to the QB race assures a certain baseline level of quality, and there is still diversity and athleticism in the skill positions.

The schedule could assure this is another 7-5 campaign or so at best. But retaining a spot in the top 40, uncovering some interesting new offensive weapons, and further solidifying the defense should keep Doeren safe and poised for a solid 2017.