Akron @ NC State

'06 Football General154

ESPNUad

We’re going to use this entry as our game entry.

For pre-game, we urge you to check out the following pieces:

* Weekend #2 Television Schedule

* What the hell is going on at the N&O?

* Preparing for Akron

* A Tip for Saturday

* Rebate? 18.3 Plays Per Game Lost!

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'06 Football General

154 Responses to Akron @ NC State

  1. BJD95 09/09/2006 at 5:01 PM #

    Both defenses ran out of gas, IMHO. Teams like Akron won’t have ACC-caliber depth, so they tired with fewer minutes logged.

  2. apexpacker 09/09/2006 at 5:03 PM #

    He made the decision to go for the first down … the psychological turning point of the game. He handed Akron momentum and they used it. No way to know how the game would have turned out if we had just gone up 13-7, but there is no doubt that Akron would not have been fired up after a big defensive stop.

    A sad and frustrating afternoon. Hot too.

  3. Big Worm 09/09/2006 at 5:08 PM #

    “The defense just ran out of gas there. Getsy had free reign at the end.”

    Why does everybody keep saying this? The time of possession disparity was rather nominal – 31.5/28.5. It’s not like Akron had the ball for 10 minutes longer than we did. The defense didn’t run out of gas. The secondary blew assignments when it mattered most, which led to two huge pass plays that Akron parlayed into TD-scoring drives.

    Marcus Stone put this team on his shoulders in the 4th and put this team in a very good position to win this game, TWICE. If blame is to be placed for this loss, it falls on the ‘D,’ who didn’t do their job at the most pivotal point of the game.

  4. SaccoV 09/09/2006 at 5:17 PM #

    Big Worm — Time of possession isn’t where the disparity is. The disparity is between number of plays where Akron ran 78 and we ran 65 (offensively). As for Stone “putting the team on his shoulders,” fine. He did that in the last quarter. What happened to him “putting the team on his shoulders” during the first three? Plan English, this team is offensively inept with Stone at QB. We turned the ball over three times (really four if you count the unconverted 4th down near the goal). No team is ever going to win with a good defense alone. Period. It’s so stupid to think that our defense will carry this team. It’s a good defense. But telling the defense to stop the other team and score is impossible. Put in a QB (like Evans) who can throw the ball down the field and open up our running backs. If that doesn’t happen, then our season won’t be worth spitting on.

  5. HokieNerd 09/09/2006 at 5:20 PM #

    well, you guys are not the only team with offensive issues. my hokies are in the same boat. if your D can come around, you guys should be fine.

  6. noah 09/09/2006 at 5:22 PM #

    My prediction is that we’ll win about three games this year. I think my pre-season prediction was four wins.

    My post-season prediction is that we fire Chuck Amato, make all kinds of noise about hiring a top-notch, national-champion coach….end up hiring some poor, ill-prepared slob who wins about three games over the next five years and then 99 percent of the WPC stands around thinking, “Wha happened??” and saying, “I never wanted to fire Amato!”

    The problem isn’t coaching. The problem is that we’ve gone about 3-for-80 in recruiting quality offensive linemen. To date, we’ve landed quality OL in Leroy Harris, Curtis Crouch aaaaand….uhh…well, I’m sure one of the guys we signed in the last two years will probably be halfway decent.

    But we’ve whiffed on everyone else. We’ve been getting commitments from players who ought to be lining up for ECU and Marshall and W. Kentucky State and have no business trying to block for ACC backs.

    Problem #2 — we signed two top 20 recruits at quarterback to replace Philip Rivers…it just happened that they were both horribly overrated. I watched Dook and Wake today — neither Stone or Davis would start for those two teams (whoever thought we’d trail both Dook and Wake at the quarterback position??).

    It’s going to take a couple of years. I hope we give Amato the time to do it.

    I have no doubt that we won’t….

  7. SaccoV 09/09/2006 at 5:31 PM #

    Noah — Recruiting is a major issue at every college, but not only are we losing to Wake and Duke, we’re losing to Akron, and C. Michigan and everyone else. I cannot believe that having a Philip Rivers in our recent history isn’t incentive enough to pull another chance QB from somewhere, who everyone else passed on. Instead we get a running QB who fumbles and can’t throw. Give Amato time? He’s into his fifth year without PR!! And besides that, if Stone can’t get the job done, put someone else in there who can. Even if your recruiting wasn’t so perfect, you could at least make a game decision to put someone else in to wake up the offense and move the damn ball. Instead, Amato is praying that Stone will turn it around in the fourth quarter. If we think this game was bad, we’re going to be squashed by the good teams in this league.

    SFN: 3rd year without PR…and we have two great QBs on the bench – one transfer and one redshirting

  8. noah 09/09/2006 at 5:37 PM #

    Like I said….State will fire Amato and then discover what “We suck!” truly means.

  9. noah 09/09/2006 at 5:39 PM #

    BTW….if I recall correctly, didn’t we borrow the money to re-do Carter Finley?

    That’s going to be interesting.

  10. Big Worm 09/09/2006 at 5:40 PM #

    “Give Amato time? He’s into his fifth year without PR!!”

    Where are you coming up with these numbers from? This is the beginning of his third year without PR. Amato has only been here six years and PR played four of those.

    I’m with Noah on this one. We wiffed on Davis and Stone. The chances of two QB’s ranked as highly as Davis and Stone performing as poorly as they have are very, very small. We were sitting at the blackjack table with 20 twice in a row and lost both times. All you can do in recruiting is play the percentages – we played them well and lost anyway. What are you going to do? Maybe start Evans or Burke, but that’s a different argument.

    Also, the OL has got to get better. We’ve had one good line in the last 7 years.

  11. apexpacker 09/09/2006 at 5:41 PM #

    Watching the Clemson-BC game. We cannot play with either of these teams based on the way we played today. Akron had fair success running against us. That should never have happened. We could not reliably run off tackle against a MAC team. Again, that should never have been a problem. The problems are on both sides of the ball. I thought Stone would have had a decent first half but for a few missed routes. Sure his first few thows were off the target, but he improved as the game went on. The interception was not on him, though throwing into double coverage was questionable. No, the real problem seems to be preparation and play calling. In other words, coaching.

  12. tvp 09/09/2006 at 5:42 PM #

    Call me nuts, but I still think we go 6-6 and squeeze into a bowl. The schedule is soooooo weak. UVA, Wake, UNC, ECU…all pathetic teams. We’ll pull off our trademark upset somewhere (An unfocused Clemson, perhaps?)

    For the rest of the year, we need to:
    1) Move Harris to G, start someone else, anyone, at C.
    2) Play the “first half” with Stone in a Saturday morning practice at the stadium so he can get it out of his system.

  13. SaccoV 09/09/2006 at 5:47 PM #

    You’re right, it is the THIRD season without PR. It seems like a decade since we had someone who could complete a pass in the first half of a football game.

  14. noah 09/09/2006 at 5:50 PM #

    Just curious — but who is that we’re going to hire to replace Amato?

    Amato is the single-greatest recruiter in NC State history. No other coach has even come to close to pulling in prep all-stars like Amato.

    The ACC is a far tougher league than it was when Amato first got here. It’s not just the expansion…the league has really taken a couple of steps forward. Everyone has talent and you’ve really got to have a great recruiting class each year to keep pace.

  15. Wolfpack4ever 09/09/2006 at 5:59 PM #

    cfpack03 Says:

    Our offense did look great in the 4th quarter when the heat was on! But by then our defense was worn out from the playing the fist 45 minutes of the game

    I’d say the offensive game plan was “playing the fist” if you know what I mean. Sorry, labeling what I say to day as a game-plan is inaccurate.

  16. Cardiff Giant 09/09/2006 at 6:00 PM #

    “Like I said….State will fire Amato and then discover what “We suck!â€? truly means.”

    As if we don’t fucking know already.

  17. SaccoV 09/09/2006 at 6:05 PM #

    If Amato is the greatest recruiter in our history, how are we still not better than Akron?

  18. noah 09/09/2006 at 6:13 PM #

    “how are we still not better than Akron?”

    Because:

    1) The history of NC State is a pretty sorry one;
    2) The line between being pretty good and being pretty bad is a thin one;
    3) The failures that we’ve had in recruiting have been total losses and they’ve been at absolutely critical spots; and,
    4) Because even the best programs have bad years…Penn State, Tennessee, Notre Dame….

    Sometimes the answer is to fire the coach…sometimes it’s not.

    I’d just caution everyone that wants a new coach to recall the difficulty we had in hiring a coach for our basketball program…a program with two national titles and 10 league titles in the greatest basketball conference ever.

    In football, we’ve won 10 games or more a grand total of ONE time. We would have just fired the guy who got us that double-digit win total. We have not won a league title since 1979.

  19. BJD95 09/09/2006 at 6:14 PM #

    He’s recruited fine except for OL and QB – which have been fatal flaws. My main problem is what he has done (or more accurately failed to do) with the talent he’s brought in. Momentum is in the wrong direction (which will hurt recruiting), and at his age and temperament, I don’t see Amato transforming himself into a good gameday tactician.

    I agree to an extent, though. I will give Chuck next year to put a team on the field in 2007 with a new QB that gets us excited about the future again. But he had damned well better come through.

  20. Cardiff Giant 09/09/2006 at 6:16 PM #

    “We would have just fired the guy who got us that double-digit win total.”

    And the guy who made history by losing to the MAC, at home.

    Chuck Amato is an idiot.

  21. Wolfpack4ever 09/09/2006 at 6:22 PM #

    I am fruatrated but with the institutional controls in place, we will not be firing Chuck or anyone at NCSU for failing to win big. Noah said it well, who are we gong to hire to replace Amato if we could get him fired? Bill Cower? That would be great but not likely to happen next year. Pete Carroll? Weis?, Richt from Georgia? Sure. As who do you think is coming to a school with little or no real football tradition.

    Cower is a pospect but don’t count on him being up for dispacing one of the family like Chuck is damaged goods.

    Our best shot is to let Chuck work this out even if it does take much longer than we would have ever thought and certainly don’t like.

    I also don’t think most of the people screaming for Stone’s head realize that Stone is a part of a team that is very close. You just CAN’T not give him more time.

    Chuck is responsible for sure but if he doesn’t give his coaches and coordinators some authority and let them coach, we ain’t seen nothing yet in the coaching turnover.

    Sad to say. but our best bet for this year is to get underneath the team and off their backs. Just like children: when a team needs support most is when they deserve it least.

    And Chuck’s grade for today is D minus or F.

  22. Wulfpack 09/09/2006 at 6:25 PM #

    “If Amato is the greatest recruiter in our history, how are we still not better than Akron?”

    Because Akron’s football coach knows how to coach football.

  23. noah 09/09/2006 at 6:34 PM #

    “And the guy who made history by losing to the MAC, at home.”

    Dick Sheridan lost to ETSU at home. Should we have fired him? He also lost to awful Louisville and Va. Tech teams in years when he had great teams.

    MOC lost to Baylor….any Baylor didn’t win another game all year.

    Monte Kiffin only beat Richmond by six one year and got smacked around by Dook more than once.

    Tom Reed lost to Furman.

    Bo Rein lost to Furman and ECU when they were in the Southern Conference.

    Earle Edwards lost to Richmond in 1970.

    Al Michaels lost to Kent State.

    Unless your name is Lou Holtz, you have plenty of bad losses on your resume if you’ve ever coached at NC State.

  24. Woof Wolf 09/09/2006 at 6:36 PM #

    The recruiting may look good on paper, but he won the first two years with inherited players. He hasn’t done so well with his guys.

    But I don’t think recruiting is the problem. Norm Chow did a great job with the offense and Phillip made the final play calling decisions the next three years. Chuck has a problem hiring and keeping the right coaches on offense, but once he decides on a starting quarterback he won’t sit him down.

    The second quarter was the perfect time to get Stone out of the game for at least a couple of series to see if one of the other guys could get something started. I’m not saying that he should have sat him for the whole game or that he shouldn’t start the next game. But when things get as bad as they did today you need try something different.

    I also have major problems with the play calling today. When we found out that we could not run up the middle, why didn’t we try running wide instead of totally airing it out. Almost verytime we went wide today we gained, but we didn’t do it enough. I don’t remember trying either of the two running backs wide all day. Also Akron had a big hole over the middle in the pass defense and it took us over three quarters to figure that out

  25. tvp 09/09/2006 at 6:36 PM #

    I agree w/ 4ever for the most part. Good post.

    He’s still not great but it seems pretty clear to me that Stone has improved in his reads, decision making, and accuracy from last year.

    And given what happened last year, I have no doubt that we will see Evans or Burke if they are better options.

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