It was a rough evening on Saturday for the NC State offense, which played about as bad as it possibly could. We hope. The Wolfpack’s worst game on a per-play basis last season came in the Gator Bowl against Kentucky, where the Pack averaged 4.8 yards per play.
Its performance against Mississippi State was quite a bit worse than that.
Among the other signs of struggle there was the fact that NC State faced 20 third-down situations. An offense that’s working smoothly isn’t going to end up facing that many third downs. The Pack only managed to convert on 30 percent of those third downs, which didn’t help.