South Carolina Post-Game – The Perfect Blueprint

'09 Football General Tom O'Brien78

You have to hand it to the ol’ ball coach. He managed to do what nobody could in 2008 – stopped Russell Wilson cold. When asked by the media afterwards how he managed to bottle up Wilson like that, Spurrier exclaimed “We’ve got athletes!” That they do. But what almost nobody is able to to pull off is to have their athletes play with near perfect discipline and consistently execute the gameplan. That’s one hell of a coaching job.

South Carolina was bigger than NC State. South Carolina was faster than NC State. South Carolina was better coached than NC State. South Carolina had three trips to the red zone. NC State had ZERO. It was amazing that this game was even close.

Fortunately, we have no games remaining against SEC opponents. I doubt many other teams will bring the same athleticism and defensive speed to the table in 2009. So, all is not lost. As I’ve said all offseason, THIS is NOT “the year.” But 7-5 or 8-4 is possible, and it starts with beating Pitt on September 26. Do that, and we are still on track. Fail and it’s back to needing another Herculean effort to get back to respectability.

We’ll see what happens.

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

'09 Football General Tom O'Brien

78 Responses to South Carolina Post-Game – The Perfect Blueprint

  1. travelwolf 09/03/2009 at 10:59 PM #

    we should have been down by 14. defense played great! amazingly enough, we were one catch away from winning this game. the good news is that TOB gets better as the season progresses. i’m hopeful – especially since we have 2 weak opponents to work out the kinks before meeting Pittsburgh.

  2. Mark_Wolfpacker 09/03/2009 at 11:05 PM #

    Well I must have drank the Kool-Aid, as I bought into the belief that we could beat the Gamecocks. They made our offense look pretty pathetic IMHO. After tonight, I’m having a hard time believing we will pull off 7-5, let alone 8-4.

  3. CStanley 09/03/2009 at 11:07 PM #

    8-4 will require several upsets along the way. Starting with the Pitt game.

  4. Broccoman 09/03/2009 at 11:08 PM #

    At least our D was better then we had any reason to expect. The O worries me though. Was Wilson sluggish tonight, or were they just that good?

    As for the Cocks, if Garcia can keep the bonehead mistakes in check- I got a feeling they might have a really good- as in our Gator Bowl season good- year. I hope they do now so this loss doesn’t look so bad.

  5. highstick 09/03/2009 at 11:11 PM #

    Did anyone notice that ESPN kept running that “Butch Davis, 12-13 in the ACC” banner on the bottom of the screen?

    I kept asking myself “So What”???

    The way we were getting manhandled in the first half I was afraid we’d totally give out of gas in the second half.

    I honestly think we’ll rebound. Nobody wanted to believe me when I said SC wouldn’t be as easy as some thought. Spurrier’s right, he’s got some athletes and played a bunch of freshmen tonight. My local Rock Hill boys sure looked good as did one of my son’s former middle school students, Devon Taylor. That kid is a beast!

    It’s time to get down to the ACC schedule and regain confidence.

  6. SaccoV 09/03/2009 at 11:12 PM #

    I have already posted my post-game thoughts on another thread. However, I would like an answer to one question. Why did NC State never run an I-formation running play with a solid fullback and two (three with Washington) capable running backs? Does Bible believe that passing with Wilson is the only way to win?

  7. BJD95 09/03/2009 at 11:15 PM #

    We’ll win 7 or 8. So will SC. It takes a better team to do that in the SEC.

    Yes, everybody was drinking the Kool Aid. Damn it, I tried to warn you! Though I was WAY off on the scoring total.

    Pitt won’t present the same atheticism and speed challenge that SC can. It’s the kind of team that this staff can beat with the players we’ve got. Now it’s up to them to do it, and I will be critical if they don’t.

  8. ChiefJoJo 09/03/2009 at 11:17 PM #

    SC was a better team than us, and despite our chances, probably deserved to win. Much more physical, and better overall team speed. I think that’s the difference in the SEC vs ACC, and it showed again tonight.

    There’s still a lot of room for improvement and the entire ACC schedule left to go.

  9. Mark_Wolfpacker 09/03/2009 at 11:25 PM #

    Yeah, you warned us BJD95. Now I will just have to root for Florida and everyone else in the SEC to beat the crap out of USC, as it is strictly against my religion to pull for any team with “CAROLINA” on their jersey.

    I really hoped they had dug up that bad mojo witch doctor buried in the endzone and removed him with the summer field renovations. Guess not.

  10. 93Pack 09/03/2009 at 11:26 PM #

    I am worried that thru the coaches’ efforts to make Wilson better (and safer) they have taken away some of the edge he had. I don’t recall him playing a full game last year where he had negative rushing yards.

  11. NCSU84 09/03/2009 at 11:26 PM #

    Obrien needs to let Wilson “play his game”. I realize he wants Russell to stay in the pocket more and avoid injuries, but that is just not his game. To Obrien I say: let him play. If you don’t, you may as well put Glennon in because you will have crippled Russell and eliminated the attributes that make him a great QB.

  12. Wulfpack 09/03/2009 at 11:27 PM #

    BJD pegged this one perfectly. USC was just better than us in every area. I have no idea what was up with RW. That’s the worst he’s played. Yea, USC has a great D, but we should have had more than 3 points and 100 total yards.

    I guess it’s back to the drawing board. I wasn’t impressed, but all is not lost. A full season to play.

    Hats off to the Wolfpack defense. Kept us in it. And you have to feel for T. Baker. We need you, keep your head up. We can have a good year.

  13. FunPack 09/03/2009 at 11:28 PM #

    I thought RW looked sluggish too, but the more I think about it, it may be that USC’s defenders are pretty fast on the edges. We’ll see as we go along.

    We’ll win some games this year. This was a disappointing loss, but it wasn’t a disastrous performance like last year against USC — that was a real confidence killer. And it probably wasn’t as bad as the opener the year before when we almost didn’t beat William and certainly didn’t thrash Mary. 🙂

  14. FunPack 09/03/2009 at 11:31 PM #

    Also, I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing RW. I still love him. And thinking back to Evans and Beck in the past two openers makes me love him even more.

  15. BJD95 09/03/2009 at 11:33 PM #

    In 2008, two defenses had the speed and strength ti match USC 2009. Thos teams were USC and South Florida. RW played a total of 3 or 4 drives against them. Had he been healthy, we might have seen him “held down like that” before and not reflexively blamed Bible.

  16. Wulfpack 09/03/2009 at 11:36 PM #

    There was just wayyy to much hype going into this game. I’m not an idiot, I understand why. But when it comes down to it in the trenches, you have to play ball. USC did a better job of that than us, that much is clear. This wasn’t a TOB game. We got mauled. I just hope we can get up for the ACC games. Big year for Wolfpack football. Just like basketball, it is high time to win.

  17. tvp1 09/03/2009 at 11:42 PM #

    Sorry, not buying it.

    We just lost to arguably the WORST major college QB I’ve ever seen. Garcia is TERRIBLE. It’s a travesty that virtually the same offense that put up 38 against Miami, 41 against UNC, and 17 in a half against Rutgers scored 3 points tonight. This is a direct result of conservative playcalling and encouraged Wilson to not run.

    Flame away, but I lost a lot of faith in our staff tonight. Just a dreadful gameplan/playcalling performance on offense. Don’t give me this SEC/ACC crap. SoCar is a mediocre team that we should have beaten at home, period. Great staffs do not lose games like this at home in year 3 of the regime.

  18. tooyoungtoremember 09/03/2009 at 11:49 PM #

    USC will get eaten alive in the SEC this year. True, they are faster and stronger than us, but they are probably still near the bottom of the SEC in that regard. They will prove to be a handfull for Georgia (as is always the case with a Spurrier team) and then struggle through the rest of the season.

    Our defense is what we thought it was. Decent up front with a thin and inexperienced secondary. USC didn’t have the QB to take advantage of our secondary, but other teams will. RW needs to get back to being RW, but I’m afraid he’s lost a step. He was chased down from behind by too many linebackers and d-linemen for my liking. That probably wouldn’t have happened even against SEC speed before his injury in the bowl game. Hopefully this is just another characteristic slow start by a TOB NC State team and everything will fall into place as the season progresses. Regardless, I’ll keep watching and keep my fingers crossed.

  19. #44 17 24 09/03/2009 at 11:50 PM #

    Why is everybody so up on SC’s defense being sooo great? So many times russell could have jetted to easy 15 or more yards that wound up being sacks or short gains because he hesitated. 50% of the time when he would run outside the pocket he thinks to himself “Oh yeah they don’t want me to run as much this year and I have to prove I can throw as well as Glennon”. So he would roll, with plenty of room, stutter for a quick second by looking downfeild and just like that, the play was over. I ‘ll give SC had some speed, and they made him pay when he hesitated,but it’s like the coaching staff took away what he did best and made him such a threat, and that was the ability to run downfield.

  20. jmgiorgi 09/03/2009 at 11:53 PM #

    tvp1, I can’t agree more. Poor gameplan/playcalling. RW didn’t not have a bad game, SC defense was fast, but no turnovers for him. And would somebody explain why Glennon is QBing in a crucial drive toward the end of the first half????

  21. BJD95 09/03/2009 at 11:53 PM #

    I never saw Wilson pass up a sure 15 yards. SC’s defenders were waiting for him if he tried. That’s why they were in single coverage deep almost all night.

  22. 61Packer 09/03/2009 at 11:59 PM #

    Everybody says we need to start with the Pitt game. After tonight’s performance, which I witnessed from the stands, we’d better start NOW, like in next week against Murray State. If we play like we did tonight next Saturday, it could be another Akron. I know some people on here don’t think there’s any way we could lose to MSU at home, but when you’re slow, anything’s possible.

    I was there tonight and NCSU84’s comment just about sums up how I saw this game too. If our offense is being designed to protect Wilson, he may not see much of the red zone this season. He sure didn’t tonight.

  23. tooyoungtoremember 09/04/2009 at 12:01 AM #

    Another thing that bothered me was not even trying to get a first down on third and long all night. There were so many times that there was 7+ yards to go on third down and they would either call another one of the running plays that hadn’t yielded more than 3-4 yards all night, or RW would pass it to someone underneath that was way short of the first down marker and USC’s defense would gobble them up immediately. State’s offensive playcalling was very conservative from the very first snap. USC’s defense had the right gameplan from the beginning and State never forced them to adjust so that RW could be turned loose.

  24. packforestry 09/04/2009 at 12:03 AM #

    I believe everyone on this board who is saying that Russell would not run. OK, he got hurt last year running and we were trying to avoid that but I kept thinking that at some point they would turn him loose. I have no idea what to think. I wasn’t this optomistic about a game for a while and now I have to question the coaching which I haven’t done since Amato was here. I don’t know how we went from a team that had a questionable defense to a team that had NO OFFENSE. This one is hard to explain. Say what you want about speed for USC but Wilson had chances to run for first downs and didn’t. Were the coaches thinking that this was a non-conference game and that it wasn’t worth getting Wilson hurt? Who knows?

  25. mafpack 09/04/2009 at 12:03 AM #

    jmg – TOB had said previously that he would put Glennon in the game during the 2nd quarter. From my understanding it is a philosophy he’s always held to get the back up QB real game time experience. I for one, was actually pleased to see him keep his word (not that he’s ever given us reason to think otherwise) and played Glennon as he said he would.

    packforestry – I don’t think this staff feels that any game is worth getting a player hurt, and I’d have to say I would agree. Especially one that has been hurt previously but that continues to have real prospects to play pro sports. Having him gain an extra 5 yards isn’t worth a career ending injury, imho.

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