Spring Round-Up
The top priority for the relatively young Wolfpack this spring was to avoid major injury – mission accomplished.
ESPN.com has THE PORTAL for all the spring football news throughout the nation that you may want. Click here.
In addition to ESPN’s round-up of the ACC’s Spring Football, the ACC Area Sports Journal has detailed spring round-ups on each ACC Team. Link to Part One; Part Two)
Their article about the Wolfpack discusses the role reversal between the responsibility/expectations of the Pack’s offensive and defensive units this season from last.
The Wolfpack was in desperate need of a seamless spring, and in relative terms that took place. Coordinators Marc Trestman on offense and Steve Dunlap on defense are entering their second season in Raleigh, and that bit of stability ought to help a program that has been jolted by staff changes throughout Amato’s six-year tenure.
After all, N.C. State needed to get right down to business. The Wolfpack won five of six games to end 2005, but the spring was partly about trying to further distance itself from the wounds that festered by midseason.
Sorting out the defense took precedence ahead of offensive issues, and Amato is a stickler for fielding a strong defense. A year ago, State defenders might have been described as cocky during the spring. This year, they had all they could handle while facing an offense that hit some sort of groove.
Amato said his staff was moving defenders around so often in the spring that he had difficulty keeping track of the switches. It was all an attempt to find the best combinations with the available personnel.
Around The ACC Horn
* BC Eagle in Atlanta asks why The Sporting News doesn’t publish an ACC Football preview, so he offers some of his own quick thoughts. (Link)
* GT Sports goes deeper into TSN’s preseason ACC Football (Link)
* The ACC will battle a better Big East opponent in future Meineke Bowls as the bowl has moved up the Big East’s choosing order. (Link)
The new deal gives the bowl the No. 3 selection from the Big East through 2009. In its first four years the bowl had the No. 4 pick.
* ABC announced that it will televise prime time Saturday night college football games this year. (State related link) . In an attempt to show you a little different perspective of the news, click here.
* 850TheBuzz’s Blog has recently been very active and has linked up a lot of “fun stuff” as of late. Just scroll through some of the entries. One item that you will see is this entry on NCAA 2007 that includes a link to a entry chronicling the history of the college football video game. Pretty fascinating.
Related:
* 2006 NC State Football Schedule
Summary/Conclusion
The ACCASJ summarized State’s current football situation as follows:
Seventh-year coach Chuck Amato deserves a lot of credit for (1) raising the profile of N.C. State football, (2) motivating the fan base and the school’s administration to finally upgrade the program’s previously embarrassing facilities, (3) dramatically improving the team’s talent pool and increasing its NFL-caliber star power, and (4) winning a school-record 11 games in 2002 and earning five bowl bids in six seasons.
At the same time, the coach mostly has fallen short of his own big talk and the fans’ sky-high expectations, and his honeymoon in Raleigh ended after a 5-6 campaign in 2004. Through six years, Amato’s ACC record is a pedestrian 23-25, and there have been significant problems with high staff turnover and undisciplined play. Yet another ho-hum non-conference schedule (Appalachian State, Akron, at Southern Miss, East Carolina) awaits this fall, but an unexpected talent drain to the NFL complicated the possibility of a special season.