By Conner Farrell–
If it hadn’t been certain already, football’s defensive performance against North Carolina State cleared up any doubt about the unimpressive first year defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon is having.
Surrendering 520 total yards to a NC State, 367 of those yards coming by way of the pass. This recipe has marred with the defense all season.
Blown coverages by the secondary, weak open field tackling and vanilla blitz schemes on critical downs were all on display in the drumming.
Seemingly every series, the Wolfpack were able to get the ball past the fifty yard line with ease. The passing game, both down field and on the edge, set up runs up the middle.
NC State was only forced to punt the ball three times during the course of the game with, one of those being in the late stages of the fourth quarter.
That’s an issue.
If the defense is unable to get stops, the same approach from NC State will take place in the rest of the match-ups this season.
The defense gives up big plays, forcing the offense to play catch-up by throwing the ball and negating the run game. Quarterback Lamar Jackson is then put in a position to bail out his team, or go down swinging like he in Raleigh.
To put the icing on top of the cake of Sirmon’s Swiss Cheese, the team may be without defensive captain senior linebacker Stacy Thomas going forward.
There’s a lot of holes in the defense and it seems unlikely that they will be cheddar by next week.
You can follow Conner Farrell on Twitter @ConnerFarrell9.
Photo by Nancy Hanner / The Louisville Cardinal
