Slowing Texas Tech’s Air Raid offensive attack will be key for NC State football

N.C. State’s Dave Doeren and Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire are two coaching buddies who have offered up platitudes to each other this week.

“He coaches with a good heart,” McGuire said of Doeren. “He’s in it for the players.”

All that is nice but football games often are decided by the work of the coordinators and their staffs, of those crafting schemes and game plans. The same will be true Saturday when the Red Raiders come into Carter-Finley Stadium to take on the No. 16 Wolfpack, both teams 2-0.

N.C. State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson and Texas Tech offensive coordinator Zach Kittley will be trying to counter each other’s X’s and O’s. Gibson runs a 3–3-5 stack defense — “He’s one of the Godfathers of that,” McGuire said this week — that pressures from all angles, and Kittley will be coming at the Pack with his version of the Air Raid passing attack.

Kittley’s impression of the Pack’s D?

“A veteran defense. A lot of chemistry there,” he told reporters at Texas Tech this week. “They’ve played together for a long time. They’ve got seven starters on defense who are seniors or graduate students. They’re not playing a lot of freshmen out there. They’ve got a lot of 21-plus year olds on their defense who have played a lot of football and seen a lot of stuff.”

Gibson, in turn, noted the Red Raiders ran 109 plays last Saturday in their 33-30 double-overtime win over Houston.

That’s a load, and a lot more plays than Gibson wants to face. Asked his ideal number of defensive snaps, Gibson smiled and said, “Forty.”

Which is unlikely, and Gibson knows it. The Red Raiders will come into Carter-Finley Stadium determined to test the Wolfpack defense with a dual-threat quarterback in Donovan Smith, some tall receivers and an experienced line in a speed game.

“With these teams they’re going to go as fast as they can and run a lot of plays,” Gibson said Tuesday. “I was a defensive coordinator (at West Virginia) in the Big 12 for five years and every week it was that.”

Gibson is also aware that his counterpart, Kittley, is a football devotee of the Air Raid schemes based on passing and more passing — go fast, throw the ball, keep going fast.

Kittley, 31, was the offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky last season when the Hilltoppers led the FBS in passing yards per game (433.7) and averaged 44 points a game. Quarterback Bailey Zappe threw for 5,967 yards and 62 TDs in 2021 — both FBS records — before being drafted by the New England Patriots.

A Texas Tech graduate, Kittley was a graduate assistant and later assistant quarterbacks coach for former Red Raiders coach Kliff Kingsbury when Patrick Mahomes was slinging it at quarterback. He’s back at Texas Tech in Maguire’s first year as head coach.

The biggest challenge for the Pack’s defense?

“Everything,” Gibson said. “The quarterback distributes the ball very well. Their run game is good. They use a lot of uptempo to try and get you on your heels.”

But Gibson said watching video of Texas Tech perked up his defensive guys. “It got our attention,” he said.

Gibson said the Wolfpack defense had its best Tuesday practice since he has been at N.C. State, as the Wolfpack players look forward to a night game under the lights — including new LED red lighting — at Carter-Finley.

“It’s a secondary’s dream to have a team that passes a lot,” Pack cornerback Aydan White said Tuesday. “You have more opportunities to make plays.”