Top three disappointments of 2019 (so far)

With no game scheduled this week, it's a good time to take a look back at the first five games of the Wolfpack's season

Melina Meyers/USAToday sports

With NC State taking the week off for the first of its two open dates, now is the perfect time to look back and assess first five weeks of the 2019 football season.

Over the next few days, we'll review the top three surprises, disappointments and areas for improvement, along with the three most important players to the team's success looking ahead to the second half of the schedule.

Today, we check out the top three disappointments thus far:

QUARTERBACK QUANDRY

Nobody expected any of the three young quarterbacks in contention for the job to pick right up where Ryan Finley left off after three seasons as the starter. But even with that understanding, there at least figured to be some clarity to the situation by now -- especially with an early season schedule that lent itself to on-the-job training.

To his credit, coach Dave Doeren gave his first choice for the job -- redshirt sophomore Matthew McKay -- plenty of time to grow into the role of State's offensive leader. As it turned out, he probably gave McKay too much time. Finally tired of inaccurate passes, an inability to complete the deep ball and questionable decision making skills, Doeren finally decided to make a change last week at Florida State.

"At this point," Doeren said after the game, "we didn't have time to wait anymore."

He now has a week without a game to figure out how to move forward at the most important position on the field. And the answer is anything but clear cut.

Because while redshirt sophomore Bailey Hockman came in and did some good things in relief of McKay in Tallahassee, there were just as many instances in which his inexperience showed in the first extensive action of his career.

Then, after he hobbled off after taking several big hits on State's final drive of the day, one-time hotshot Devin Leary came off the bench and showed off a strong arm while nearly leading his team into the end zone.

Presumably, both will get a chance to audition for the starting job during this open week. The result of that renewed competition will go a long way toward determining the direction the rest of the season takes. 

LOST LEADERS

Of the four team captains that were selected at the start of the season, only one -- senior safety Jarius Morehead -- has played in all five games to date. Senior cornerback Nick McCloud was injured in the season opener against ECU and hasn't played since. Senior defensive end James Smith-Williams hurt his foot early in Week 2 against Western Carolina and missed the better part of three games while junior tight end Dylan Autenreith suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 3 at West Virginia.

Their absence hasn't just created a significant leadership void on a team that began the year with only nine seniors and whose lineup is filled with so many first-time starters on both sides of the ball. But it's also had other consequences. Autenreith's loss, in particular, has been a blow because of his value as a run blocker.

Out of necessity, younger veterans such as Emezie, center Grant Gibson, linebacker Brock Miller and cornerback Chris Ingam have already begun to assert themselves more as leaders. It's a process that needs to continue as the season goes on.

PROBLEMATIC PLAYCALLING

This is probably an offshoot, or better yet a symptom of Item No. 1 in that co-offensive coordinators Des Kitchings and George McDonald simply haven't been confident enough in their quarterback to execute a more complex game plan. It's not that they didn't try. They had to adjust their approach after it became obvious against West Virginia that either McKay wasn't ready or wasn't capable of making the decisions quick enough for run-pass option plays to work. And that he couldn't throw the deep ball accurately

Now that Hockaman (or perhaps Leary) has taken over the job, perhaps we'll start to see more of a vertical passing attack and a more creative game plan.

 But to put all the playcalling blame on the quarterback situation would be to overly simplify the situation. Kitchings and McDonald, who are likely still getting a feel for the dynamic of working together as co-coordinators, must do a better job of finding ways to get the ball to their team's playmakers. And they need to find better ways of converting short yardage and goal line situations. Because what they're doing right now isn't working.