On Saturday night, the NC State defense gave up 305 yards to the Troy Trojans, and allowed them to put 21 points on the board. I’m not going to make excuses for the defense, but it is worth noting that 157 of those yards were from 4 big plays. That’s 51% of Troy’s total yards. (The 4 plays are all in the video at the bottom.)
Two of those plays were runs by by Brandon Burks and the other two were receptions by Bryan Holmes.
Let’s look at Brandon Burks’ two big plays first. Burks had a 30-yard run that led to a Troy score at the end of the first half, and then busted loose for a 57-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.