Boxscore | Recap | Drive Chart
Quick Thoughts:
• Is Amato on the hot seat? Could he survive a loss to UNC and/or ECU?
• Pack musters a measley 7 points after laying ANOTHER goose-egg for the entire first half.
• For the year, NC State has managed 12 combined points in the first quarter through 8 games.
• State fails to score on the first drive of either half for the 7th consecutive game this season.
• On 8 of the 9 first down plays in the second half, State amassed a total of NEGATIVE THREE YARDS.
• State committed four penalties on the team’s first dozen (or less) offensive plays.
• NC State has 4 games left to play: GT, at Clemson, at UNC, ECU (Predict the record in the last 4 games)
• Remember –ECU 31, UVA 21
• Why play Marcus Stone at all?
• What is wrong with our offense?
• Why not play our young offensive linemen more when our ‘experienced’ linemen are so bad?
• Is Marc Trestman‘s job on the line?
• Is Amato’s flexibility to make tough decisions regarding Trestman’s job negatively impaired by his bad national reputation with assistant coaches? Trestman is already State’s 4th Offensive Coordinator in just seven years.
• Anytime that you hold your opponent to only 14 points should yield a victory.
• But, oddly enough – the defense doesn’t get a complete pass because they can’t create turnovers to save their lives. NC State ranks right at the bottom of the country in turnover margin, must like last year.
• What is wrong with our 4th quarter defense when team’s seem to be able to score at will on us on late drives?
• Doc Walker uses favorite term “cyborg” in the broadcast today. Good stuff.
• Does the Cowher dynamic change to bring Amato back next year? You need to read this.
• Now that the Daniel Evans bloom has fallen off the rose we are predicting a lot more empty seats in Carter-Finley for next week’s game than most people have been accustomed to in Raleigh. Read this for great insight into the mental state that we project most Wolfpackers currently have.
• It will be interesting to see if Erskine Bowles and the UNC Board of Govenors will take as active a role in NC State’s football coaching position as they did with Carolina’s? What if both schools are simultaneously looking for coaches? Will the Board set paramaters and guidelines to limit a potential bidding war on coaches or will they just give Carolina first priority by default? Will Jim Oblinger muster the balls to stand up for NC State and risk offending anyone on earth?
• RAWFS asked “How can Amato save NC State Football?”.
Today’s opening drive by the Wolfpack sums perfectly the issues that this team has – it is inept in the first quarter. Entering the contest at Virginia, State had scored a miserable 24 total points in the first quarter. The reason why is simple: a lack of concentration, discipline and execution.
The First Drive In Charlottesville, Exemplified Everything That’s Wrong With NC State Football The Past Two Years.
The NC State offense is abhorrent, atrocious, awful, base, and downright contemptible. They fail to consistently execute.
On their first drive against Virginia, NC State was driving crisply and looking as though they might finally add to that miserable accumulation of points. Then on a short pass that he should have easily completed, Daniel Evans threw John Dunlap an uncatchable pass, ending the Wolfpack drive. A lack of execution, not the Wahoo defense, is what stopped NC State.
But it immediately got worse. Special teams again then let the entire team down as John Deraney nailed to the middle of the end zone. Add in an illegal procedure for an not having six players at the line of scrimmage, and the Wolfpack left the Cavaliers at their 25 yard line. From the near midfield.
