Does Wolfpack have secondary help on the way?

N.C. State has been buried beneath 131 points in its past three games, and Wake Forest’s and Duke’s quarterbacks have picked its secondary apart. So help is desperately needed in that area, right?

Well, it is and it isn’t. There’s already talent on hand, according to our Ken Tysiac. The Pack does already have good young talent enrolled. At safety they’ve got a redshirt freshman—Earl Wolff—and a true freshman—Brandan Bishop—who should be quality players once they gain experience.

At CB, they had another talented freshman, Rashard Smith, but he’s now been lost for the season with a knee injury.

They also have some outstanding secondary prospects currently redshirting, particularly a highly-recruited CB named Jarvis Byrd.

The problem is a lack of veteran experience in the area. Sooner or later, this will be a good group, with or without help from the Class of 2010.

Still, help is on the way, particularly at safety. As you can tell from the above, there are plenty of talented young CBs on campus; now they just have to get them on the field.

N.C. State went after safeties in this class, and has commitments from safeties Dontae Johnson of Pennington, N.J.; D.J. Green from Macon, Ga.; and Pete Singer of Raleigh.

The keys here are the 6-foot-3, 180-pound Johnson and the 6-4, 202-pound Green. Green, in fact, has the physique to develop into an OLB, but for now the pair is being counted on to strengthen the Wolfpack’s secondary run support.

Depending on the development of Wolff and Bishop, Johnson and Green may or may not get early playing time. Both are smart players who are usually in the right position and solid tacklers.

The bottom line is that once the Class of 2010 is in place, the Wolfpack will have a batch of secondary talent that could eventually be as good as any team’s in the country. A little maturity is all that’s missing.

--Stan Olson