NC State isn’t quite sure who will be playing Quarterback for UVA tonight. Senior Tony Muskett entered the season as the starter, but hasn’t played the past two weeks after suffering a shoulder injury in the season opener against Tennessee. Muskett is a transfer from Monmouth, and won the starting job in Fall Camp. When […] The post Previewing NC State’s Opponent: UVA appeared first on Pack Insider.

Photo by Williams Paul/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images What I’m thinking about with this game One Thing I’m Worried About Virginia’s offense has had its woes, but it has also been pretty explosive - especially in the passing game. The Cavaliers rank 6th in the country in Explosiveness, and that ranking jumps up to 2nd if you exclude garbage time data. Against an NC State defense that has surrendered a ton of big plays, and narrowly avoided disaster on several others by sheer luck, that’s not a good omen. Two Things I’m Confident In The Cavs might be explosive, but that’s a bit deceiving. Offensive Explosiveness measures the result of successful plays (successful plays are gaining at least 50% of yards to go on 1st down, 70% on 2nd down, or 100% on 3rd and 4th down). Virginia hasn’t had a lot of those. The Wahoos offense ranks 131st (out of 133 FBS teams) at Success Rate. If the Wolfpack defense can avoid giving up the big plays, the Virginia offense will derail itself. NC State’s offense seemed to click last week. Some complained that the offense only scored 31 points (defense and special teams each chipped in a TD) against an overmatched opponent, but the offense was efficient and productive when they had the ball. The running game clicked, Brennan Armstrong was accurate with the ball, and things went well. The Wolfpack should carry that momentum into this game. Three (More) Stats You Should Know Virginia is allowing an average of 5.1 points to opponents on drives that cross the Virginia 40 yard line. That ranks 129th in the country. Sadly, NC State’s defense ranks not much better at 125th allowing 4.7 points per opportunity. UVA’s offensive line has struggled to create success in the ground game, ranking 125th in non-garbage-time opponent Stuff Rate (percentage of plays stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage) and 130th in Line Yards. Brennan Armstrong is Virginia’s all-time leading passer by both passing yards (9,034) and passing TDs (58). He ranks second among UVA QBs in total TDs responsible for, having totaled 78 across passing and rushing; he finished behind Shawn Moore (55 passing TDs, 28 rushing TDs).

There’s been a lot of NC State football recruiting info flying around, and the update below won’t cover it all, but it’s my attempt at catching up a bit. NC State offered 4-Star 2025 Running Back Marquise Henderson (5’11″/172) out of Anderson, South Carolina. Rivals ranks Henderson as the #24 Running Back nationally in the […] The post NC State Football Recruiting Update (9/21/23) appeared first on Pack Insider.

William Purnell-USA TODAY Sports MJ Rice will indeed be on the NC State basketball team this season. The Kansas transfer posted a statement on Twitter yesterday reaffirming his commitment to the Wolfpack after being away from the program for several weeks. Rice stepped away from the program prior to the start of the fall semester, which led everyone to speculate whether or not he’d be back. His announced return comes just prior to the start of practice, so the timing there is great news for Kevin Keatts. I don’t know what led to the absence, but I hope hope everything’s good for him off the court. That’s the most important thing. On the court, he has the potential to thrive as a wing player in NC State’s system; he definitely has the talent, but didn’t get the opportunity to showcase his ability in his lone season at Kansas.