SI’s SEASON Predictions Wrong by Week 5

Sorry. We couldn’t help ourselves. We wanted to make point about the “power” of preseason prognostications.

The “experts” write it before a single game is played.

Therefore, it must be true.

The public – and fans – read what is written and start committing it to their conscious as something that is generally accepted to be true.

The rest of the media then takes what is written and expounds upon it as if it were true.

Therefore, the media ends up creating ‘realities’ that are NOT reality.

Luckily for everyone involved, the game is played on the field and not on paper.

Take, for example, Sports Illustrated’s fearless preseason football predictions BEFORE the season where SI proclaimed that NC State would finish the season 3-9 overall and 1-7 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. (The Sporting News followed SI’s predictions by selecting the Pack 5th in the Atlantic Division)

These preseason predictions were then taken to heart by many fans and most media outlets and before you know it one of the most successful coaches in the history of NC State football is excessively scrutinized in the public and put on the proverbial ‘hot seat’ by the media.

We ask that you check out our perspective of some of this BEFORE the season began by clicking here.

All it took was less than five weeks of football to validate OUR preseason perspectives (not just about NC State, but about UNC-CH) and ruin predictions of the likes of Sports Illustrated.

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61 Responses to SI’s SEASON Predictions Wrong by Week 5

  1. class of 74 10/07/2006 at 11:41 AM #

    They figured Stone would be our QB all season and if that had remained the case their predictions were probably accurate. There is alot of road to go, but first the hope, then the confidence Evans has brought to the offense is remarkable. Anybody that says the team that showed up for the first three games is the same team that played thursday night is not watching very closely. We are not an offensive juggarnaut by any means but we do have a passing threat where we did not before the change. And that just opens up more plays available to us and give us a better chance to beat the other guys defense.

  2. WolfPup35 10/07/2006 at 12:47 PM #

    ^I absolutely agree. Although it IS nice to be able to laugh at all the talking haircuts who think they know what the hell they’re talking about. Evans’ confidence and faith in his team mates has become infectious, and there is a definite change in the attitude of everyone. Football is fun again. Bring on Weak Forest.

  3. GoldenChain 10/07/2006 at 1:44 PM #

    The biggest difference is that Evans brings the true big play threat while leaving the big disaster threat behind (5TD’s vs 1int). When you can strike for more than 20 yards at any time it opens up the defense for the run.
    I’m loving it, should good fortune continue to be our lot I intend to call every sports talk radio show in the state and talk trash to all host that made a living making fun of Chuck for the last 2 years!

  4. Wolfpack4ever 10/07/2006 at 2:47 PM #

    GoldenChain Says: …I intend to call every sports talk radio show in the state and talk trash to all host that made a living making fun of Chuck for the last 2 years!

    GC, I love it! And while “making fun” is their job, call their arogant a$$es to account. But (as Chuck would say) you know what, my conern is so-called loyal fans jumping all over Chuck one week and sucking up the next. That’s the tarhole way.

    Not to just GC but to all of us: Chuck has a plan for NCSU to be a national-champion caliber football program. He planned his work and is working his plan. He is speaking the future. He is getting nothing but the best in facilities. (Yeah, his office is in one. So?) He is recruiting and landing players, not to be really by red-shirting all freshman like Wake, but to be great. He has a coach qualified to install and coach an offense that not only wins but, and this is important, attracts the best of the high school QBs. Our offense is fully capable of scoring lots of points but is NOT a high risk offense where you live and die by the pass. And contrary to what many think, Chuck does not coach the defense but his D coaches are getting it done in spades.

    Let us trust the man. here will be bumps in the road but make no mistake about it, we are on the road. And as always, thank you Mary Anne Fox and forgive the a$$-hole academics that ran you off. They know not what they do. Want to fire somebody? Lobby to get those futher muckers fired. They have done far more harm to NCSU football than is imaginable by this small mind.

  5. old13 10/07/2006 at 4:16 PM #

    Get rid of Foulup, and the idiots that HATE any kind of college sports but have positions of authority that are allowing them to screw it up for everybody, and we will have a premier OVERALL university. [Meaning that Oblinger may be able to handle the academics if he doesn’t handle them like athletics are being overall (mis)managed!]

  6. Mr O 10/07/2006 at 4:53 PM #

    Our only major hole on the entire team was at QB. That hole has existed for over two years. Fortunately, it looks like we don’t have to worry about that position for a while assuming Evans stays healthy. Evans will either be a three year starter at NC State or we are going to have a heck of a backup QB starting next season if Burke happens to win the job.

  7. noah 10/07/2006 at 5:53 PM #

    “Our only major hole on the entire team was at QB.”

    Tackle and linebacker too.

    I think we’ve filled the hole at QB. I think J. WIlliams and J. McCuller will fill the holes at tackle next year.

    Hopefully, Nate Irving, Avery Vogt and Ray Michel can fill the hole at LB.

    And don’t forget about Harrison Beck.

  8. WolfPup35 10/07/2006 at 6:07 PM #

    We also clearly have a very bright future at wideout, too. Where the hell did those two come from?? The best way to open up a defense is to use every receiver you have on the field. Daniel can find them, and they can get open…that combination should strike fear into everyone else’s secondary. Like I said before……BRING ON WEAK FOREST!!!

    BRING ON CLEMSON!!

    OH….BY THE WAY…..F. S. WHO???

  9. redfred2 10/07/2006 at 10:04 PM #

    Notice to all NCSU coaches past and present: The bench is not the place to store your best play makers and athletes.

    Experiment. If it’s not working try to fix the part, or just replace it. Try to solve the particular problem itself, don’t try to mask it over and place the burden on the rest of the team until it is absolutely certain that there are no other options. Just give kids an opportunity to show what they can do beforehand, and BEFORE it has already unnecessarliy dragged things down. There is absolutely no need to have to go through a lot of negatives to start searching for a positive. Just give the opportunities, and see what happens.

  10. RickJ 10/08/2006 at 11:54 AM #

    We’ve had the playmakers on offense the last two years but nobody to orchestrate the attack and avoid the disaster plays. How many more total games would we have won in 2004 & 2005 with the QB play we’ve had against BC & FSU? I’d guess at least 5.

    With FSU, Miami & VPI coming back to the field, the difference in this league between 2-6 & 6-2 is pretty thin. Clemson & GT (2 of the better teams) should have lost yesterday but managed to eke out the victory.

  11. Wolfpack4ever 10/08/2006 at 12:17 PM #

    Are you suggesting that all players get a quarter of playing time in order to find out if there is a sleeper somewhere like Evans turned out to be? Ted Brown didn’t play until the 4th +/- game of his freshman year. Coaches don’t have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to guide them like us bloggers do. 😉

    BTW I sit in the stands and make stupid comments to my buddies about what plays the coaches ought to run and who they ought to be playing and from what I gather from comments from bloggers such as Cardiff Giant, I make stupid comments here on SFN as well..

    With all due respect redfred, you make it sound like the coaches are just not playing the best players and playmakers. Would you have benched Darrell Blackman for Geron James. If you are referring to Daniel Evans, Daniel was not known to be one of the best players until he worked his way up by instilling in the coaches the confidence he could get the job done. Burke did not do that with the coaches. Remember, Evans was once an unrecruited, non-scholarship player with suspect athleticism.

    Please take no offense, I am just voicing a different opinion.

  12. Mr O 10/08/2006 at 12:17 PM #

    Noah: I think our players at those positions were serviceable. Our QBs between Rivers and Evans weren’t even close to serviceable.

  13. redfred2 10/08/2006 at 12:29 PM #

    All I am plainly saying, or have ever said for that matter, is that if it’s not working make an effort to fix it. DO NOT try to cover it up while placing all of the burdens on others. If a defense can keep you in a game, what better time is there to experiment on offense?

    Talent like Daniel Evans and Ted Brown must not come over too well on the practice field, who knows, but give them an opportunity in a game and it is a WHOLE different story!!! There are kids like that from grade school on up and you shouldn’t have lose games to start searching them out.

  14. ncsu_kappa 10/08/2006 at 12:34 PM #

    Wolfpack4ever^ to reinforce what redfred was saying, the Darrell Blackman for Geron James isn’t necessarily an equal example. That’s replacing a perfectly working part for one that may have a possibility of performing better or worse. He was referring to swapping out a part that was malfunctioning on a regular basis with a part that may perform better or worse. I haven’t been to a spring game in a while so I don’t have the benefit of even speculating how good Evans was in practice but based on common sense I thought Mike Greco had to suck, Evans had to suck, and Burke as well because they weren’t getting playing time in lieu of Stone. Then for him to come out and play like he has just makes me feel like our coaches (whom I still support) placed to much weight on developing Stone when they could have been developing his successor after his lack of development in the off season.

  15. noah 10/08/2006 at 1:05 PM #

    Evans was not impressive in the spring game. The plays Greco made were against the third string defense and he made them on the ground, not in the air.

    Also, while I haven’t been to any practices, I’ve talked to two folks who have and they said that Evans’ progress in practice has matched his efforts on the field. He wasn’t ready to play during the first part of the year.

  16. redfred2 10/08/2006 at 1:44 PM #

    ^ncsu_kappa

    That’s exactly what I was trying to say. If you look back you’ll see that I never one who wanted to replace Stone without a more open offensive scheme, or some real proof of something better. If you put a new QB, RB, anyone, in on second down, it doesn’t mean you are throwing the starter under the bus, you can take that different player out on the very next down if you wish. You guys act like if someone else even gets a shot, that it disrupts the whole order of things.

    I am damn glad that they decided to start D Evans against BC, I wouldn’t have. I would have had him playing, when everything was sputtering and dead in the water, in the FIRST quarters of every earlier game against App St, Akron, and MSU before I would have had the balls to start him in the conference opener. I would have known something about him, on GAMEDAY, before I made that drastic change.

    Like someone stated earlier, Stone definitely looks the part, Evans maybe not. I have to believe that the staff was stuck in limbo counting on Stone to finally live up, and ignoring the rest at that position. From what I have heard and read, there was not enough accomplished by Evans in the limited playing time against MSU to facilitate an outright QB change. The game was already decided and he was playing against prevent defense. That to me, tells us that the coaches had already seen something in Evans in practice but they were still figuring that even if Stone didn’t step up, that they could still count (too heavily) on the rest of the team to somehow overcome. It wasn’t until they were staring two straight losses in the face, until they basically chunked it all and started all over with a more diverse offensive scheme. It was not by design, it was not gradually eased into, only facilitated when there scheme was dead in the water.

    Either way, just thank goodness it happened.

  17. class of 74 10/08/2006 at 1:49 PM #

    ^And Stone was?
    Quite a few of my friends who have seen the Evans kid since high school said it was about time the change was made. Unless we were to completely scrap our offense for an option attack Stone was never the QB for this system. As I see it we had a choice, change QB’s or change the scheme and the staff went with the more senseable choice. And thank god for that.

  18. RAWFS 10/08/2006 at 2:21 PM #

    Some of you should hve seen the Third Down and Shane (Montgomery) Offense that worked incredibly well.

    Or how well Geoff Bender played when he came in as a third stringer.

  19. redfred2 10/08/2006 at 2:37 PM #

    “Coaches don’t have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to guide them like us bloggers do.”

    And fortunately enough for them, while people sit around with your ‘they can never do anything wrong’ attitude, they don’t have to worry about the burden foresight either.

  20. Wolfpack4ever 10/08/2006 at 3:11 PM #

    redfred, Did you read Noah’s post? Evans was not ready early. I was at the Spring game and Evans did not appear ready and nor did Stone for that matter and as Noah pointed out, Greco did his stuff on the ground. Evans was coached and got himself ready. Your wanting to bring QBs in on 2nd down to see what they can do… I don’t know what to say except with the QB position that is an unviable method of evaluating QB talent.

    Why is it that Amato is faulted and deemed stupid for not playing Evans and asserting that Amato played Stone because he LOOKS like a better player. What evidence do you have for your statements like that.

    In SI there is a review of “Friday Nite Lights” where a Texas HS HC is quoted as saying that the assistants do all the hands-on work with the players. This is at the HS level for goodness sake. Trestman provided the input for Amato to play Evans. Without his input and recommendation Evans would not have played, period. IOW a coach with impeccable credentials for coaching QBs, one bloggers opinion notwithstanding, advised his HC that Evans was ready to play. The quarter in SM was great experience and Evans has played beyond expectations.

    Football is a team game. Exchanging players willy-nilly to see what happens is a bad idea. Chemistry gets destroyed, players are out of sync and the result is not pretty. The pro coaches with all their talent are very concerned about this. And so it is in college and HS.

    The Wake Forest coach is lauded for REDSHIRTING players. Wonder why? Most players fresh out of HS are not ready to play at the college level. At the pro level when a rookie QB is played it is expected that the season is a bust while one of the best players, drafted high out of college, learns the speed of the pro game. (Yes, there are some exceptions who play for good teams like Pittsburgh.)

  21. Mr O 10/08/2006 at 3:49 PM #

    Come on…we should know that all coaches at NC State purposely keep players who can help us win on the bench.

  22. Wolfpack4ever 10/08/2006 at 4:50 PM #

    redfred2 you say: All I am plainly saying, or have ever said for that matter, is that if it’s not working make an effort to fix it. DO NOT try to cover it up while placing all of the burdens on others.

    What you plainly said is and I quote: “Just give the opportunities, and see what happens.” Oh, if it were that simple.

    What makes you think the coaches are not making an effort to fix what isn’t working? Every coach in the world is making an effort to fix what isn’t working.

    Your accusation “DO NOT try to cover it up while placing all of the burdens on others.” is ludicrous. The one thing Amato HAS not done is throw his players and coaches under the bus.

  23. redfred2 10/08/2006 at 5:20 PM #

    4ever,

    Go back, slow way down, read the post again. But s l o w l y this time.

  24. redfred2 10/08/2006 at 5:29 PM #

    ^Like I said before, about 400 times already now, practice and inter-squad games, ARE NOT REAL FOOTBALL GAMES.

    “Did you read Noah’s post? Evans was not ready early.”

    OH, AND MARCUS STONE WAS????????????????????????

    Get real.

    ^O

    Nobody is or was ever doing it purposely, but it has happened.

  25. redfred2 10/08/2006 at 5:43 PM #

    I don’t know what kind of breakfast cereal the ‘sophmore’ Daniel Evans was eating in those two weeks before that could have elevated his play all the way from one brief and limited appearance in a lost cause game, and then sky rocketed him right into the starting QB position in the first conference game against a nationally ranked opponent. Must be some good stuff though.

    Two weeks, that’s bionic, six million dollar man kinda development, of the type that QB coaching legends are made of.

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