Painful: UVA 14, NC State 7 (Updated 4:20pm)

'06 Football Chuck Amato General91

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.

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'06 Football Chuck Amato General

91 Responses to Painful: UVA 14, NC State 7 (Updated 4:20pm)

  1. sautz 10/28/2006 at 8:16 PM #

    I feel good about possible candidates- Cowher is a no-brainer if he would be interested, Chow would most likely jump at the chance, I doubt Logan would, if Montgomery would have had a better season he would have been in there, Butch Davis :-)… obviously Chuck has been accomplishing little with a lot for far too long.

  2. redfred2 10/28/2006 at 8:35 PM #

    The really sad thing is that, neither Lee Fowler’s, Herb Sendek’s, nor Chuck Amato’s job performance is, or was, being challenged. And neither does it appear that their job security never has been, or ever was, in jeopardy at any time.

    I guess that’s true about everywhere you look but NC State doesn’t move on anything until it absolutely has too. Kinda like the forth quarter today, just too late for a anything good to come out if. It seems everyone involved with the unversity just loves drowning themselves in their own inaction and indecision. Truly a martyr’s, martyr. How could anyone not love, or a least pity them, for that?

    If I’m wrong about any of their job status’, please correct me.

  3. Texpack 10/28/2006 at 8:41 PM #

    4-8. That shouldn’t be good enough to keep your job with a schedule like the one we played. This is exactly what I expected after the BC and FSU games and why I laughed at the idea of State playing for the conference championship.

  4. Woof Wolf 10/28/2006 at 9:00 PM #

    2002 was CTC’s only season with a winning record in the ACC. We finished 5 – 3; 4th in the conference.

    He’s had three 4 – 4 seasons and was 3 – 5 in the last two. His winning (?) percentage in the ACC is .472. MOC ‘s was .481.

    JLO & LF: Are we happy with where we are? If not, can we give Chuck the tools he needs to get us there? If not, who is out there that we can get that can get the job done?

    I used to make $150.00 an hour as a consultant asking questions like that and was always thankful the clients were too stupid to figure it out for themselves. I’ll deduct it from my next donation. Get to work.

  5. redfred2 10/28/2006 at 9:04 PM #

    I also thought the the talk about a championship was far fetched. I also expected to have more set backs. But I expected to see the coaching and the players showing slight improvements from game to game, for the future. It appears that this staff just isn’t capable though.

  6. jhmd2000 10/28/2006 at 9:34 PM #

    Losses at UNC and ECU would drop Amato to even with Bunting in the win column, and one ahead in the “embarrasing behavior after an inexcusable loss to Akron” column.

    Eventually the common denominator comes to the surface: the offensive coordinator keeps changing, but the results stay the same.

  7. jhmd2000 10/28/2006 at 9:42 PM #

    I will not lie to you people: I am a UNC fan who is just as frustrated with our situation as I read some of you are with yours.

    I am frankly surprised you all didn’t run ALL OVER Virginia today. You guys have two incredible backs who, I can say without fear of being disproven, will each stroll with ease down the well-worn path through our secondary in a few weeks; but both of those guys should have should have gone for 130+ w/ TD’s in a win today. Not sure how that wasn’t the game plan, seeing how UVA couldn’t stop ECU’s ground attack.

    Rivalry aside, my heart goes out to you guys (my brother is one of yall). Watching Doherty p!$$ away conference champion-caliber talent was frustrating. I know what you’re going through.

    I cannot imagine what dueling coaching searches between the Rhodes Scholars that run each of our athletic departments would be like. My guess is Frank Beamer, Rick Barnes and John Calipari would all be in for another raise.

  8. Woof Wolf 10/28/2006 at 9:59 PM #

    If FSU comes back and beats the Twerps, we are solidly entrenched as the tenth best team in our conference. That of course is dependent on our ability to win the game on the 18th of Nov.

  9. Wulfpack 10/28/2006 at 10:35 PM #

    Note to LF: After you are done sipping your late Sunday morning latte, please take a glance at your newspaper and take note of where your Wolfpack is positioned in the conference standings. If you are pleased with it, please excuse this message and proceed to offer your resignation. If not, please go and have a candid conversation with your ball coach. With all that has been invested, with everything that has been said, we the fans of NC State expect much more.

  10. Cardiac95 10/28/2006 at 10:37 PM #

    Alpha Wolf’s piece on TR&W was an excellent read. Cignetti would be a great addition. Although I do wonder how potentially losing Trestman could affect Burke since he was apparently key in his recruitment.

    It has also occurred to me that Marty Galbraith may also be shopping for offers & also already lives in the triangle. He produced the best offensive lines we’ve had this century & was a pretty good OC as well.

  11. newswolf 10/28/2006 at 10:41 PM #

    why would Cignetti be a great addition? what has he done?

  12. redfred2 10/28/2006 at 11:06 PM #

    Burke? He is just one player, who I haven’t seen on the field yet, I guess I hope he sticks around anyway??? But Trestman can take everyone else wants to nap on the football field right along with him.

    I am so damned tired emotionless freakin “OFFENSIVE SYSTEMS” in Raleigh, and the pin heads who try set them up, that I can’t see straight.

  13. redfred2 10/28/2006 at 11:20 PM #

    Woof

    It’s hard to give it up, I thought they would show us something this season. I guess they have. I’m bummed, Amato blew it and doesn’t leave any options. Then there is still Lee Fowler, who I’m sure is drunk out of his mind right now. Oh well.

    No expectations, constant change and improvements, it’s on to Basketball! Basketball! Basketball!

  14. Glen Sudhop54 10/28/2006 at 11:57 PM #

    Unfortunately we should not be surprised. If there has been one constant under CTC, it’s that we have ALWAYS played like a poorly coached team that is somewhat unprepared for battle. The penalties have been such a constant that I just accept the fact that we’ll be penalized at least 10 times a game. I’m no strategist and my football knowledge is minimal I’ll admit, but if you need let’s say 7 yds for a first down, wouldnt it make sense to attempt an 8 YARD PLAY? God, how many times do we run a route INSIDE the first down marker? If that’s what the west coast offense means, how bout telling all those Bozos on the sideline to get a grip on reality and join the rest of us on the east coast!

  15. Cardiac95 10/29/2006 at 12:24 AM #

    newswolf: Read Alpha Wolf’s article “How Amato Can Save NC State Football” at the link provided above.

    As to this article’s first bullet point…. The last NC State coach that capped a mediocre season with losses to unc & ecu didn’t fair too well (also in Season 7).

    If the rumors are true that Amato doesn’t have tremendous support among the power players, I suspect a loss to either would be the death knell.

  16. Alpha from RAWFS 10/29/2006 at 12:49 AM #

    SFN: I can’t get mail from you. It’s my old server, not yours, so you can delete the RAWFS account I used in the past.

    Thanks guys for taking the time to read my essay.

    newswolf: at Fresno State, Cignetti was like young Norm Chow: he took lesser players than the big boys and proceeded to be the Boise State of three or four years ago. He really did have an offense that ran like thresher through dry hay. No matter what, Frank has much more germain recent college experience than Trestman. It would be a major mistake to grade Cignetti based on the year he’s had with Bunting. Not even Admiral Nimitz could save that sinking ship.

    Plus. Burke or no Burke, I’d take the Paulus kid as part of the deal and tell him to get back on that cell phone and call his buddies. Imagine the outcry if F. Cignetti came to Raleigh, brought Paulus and 8-10 of the guys he had previously convinced to come with him to Chapel Hill. Hence the picture of Blofeld….it’s so good, it’s positively James-Bond-Villain in scope.

    Then, there’s the little matter of payback for O’Cain. You took ours, now we take yours. And more of yours to boot.

  17. Alpha from RAWFS 10/29/2006 at 12:56 AM #

    One other thing. MAJOR PROPS TO JHMD2000 for one of the most astute observations I’ve ever seen in a comment on any blog. It was so good that I swiped it and gave it the entry somewhere it deserves: JHMD2000 Points Out Something That Makes You Go “Hmmmmm.”

    Losses at UNC and ECU would drop Amato to even with Bunting in the win column, and one ahead in the “embarrassing behavior after an inexcusable loss to Akron� column.

    Think about what he points out. Amato=Bunting. Bunting got fired.

    If Amato finishes the year with an identical overall record and a change is not made in Raleigh, does that mean that there are different standards for the the two programs – with NCSU’s being lower? It would certainly seem so.

    That would in turn beg the question: does Carolina’s athletic department want to win more than State’s? It would absolutely say that very loudly.

    SFN: You don’t need the difference between Amato and Bunting to tell you about the difference in standards at the two programs. Just look at the difference in Torbush – O’Cain / Torbush – Amato / and Doherty – Sendek to see the difference in standards.

  18. highstick 10/29/2006 at 1:07 AM #

    FOWLER SHOULD COMMIT SUICIDE@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

  19. TomCat 10/29/2006 at 1:49 AM #

    Relevant to this discussion… from Hattiesburg, MS: ECU 20 Southern Miss 17 (final)

  20. dj9686 10/29/2006 at 2:01 AM #

    First of all, before I start my rant, I believe that the players at NCSU are just as talented as any team in the ACC and are trying their best to win, so the fault lies where?

    All, I can say is that if Amato doesn’t fire both Trestman and Dunlap (I believe he is defensive coordinator), then he should be fired himself. Trestman’s play calling is just damn awful, pardon my language. Nothing imaginative ever happens on the first drive of either half. He obviously doesn’t watch his own offense in game film or he would notice that he has about four plays he calls and most allow for the defense to stack the line of scrimmage (maybe if he were upstairs he might notice this). He either calls a two yard stop pass, a screen or tries to run outside with the runningbacks. All of these plays go for losses or extremely modest gains. They might work if these 3 plays didn’t account for 85% of what he calls. The fourth play is the desperation downfield pass to the TE which is fairly predictable after losing yards on 1st and 2nd downs. If he would do his homework on his own team he’d realize that most of good running gains are between the tackles and passing down field will back off the DBs so they have to play honest rather than right up on our receivers. Man, Trestman’s lack of imagination and ineptitude makes me almost yearn for the days of Noel Mazzone. NOT… but I’m beginning to wonder if he ever really left NCSU and isn’t drawing up our plays in secret.

    As for Dunlap, the defensive coordinator, his team as stated in the above article, cannot force a turnover. Most of the time they aren’t even in postion on passing plays to knock down the ball. And… when State is finally has managed a touchdown to tie or go ahead, Dunlap’s D seems to be in the prevent (wins) D, allowing the opposing team to easily roll down the field to the winning score. This started with the Akron game. Each gain today, other than the first play of the final drive for Virginia, went for at least 8 yards. Talk about a clutch coordinator.

    Let’s see, Trestman had been out of coach for what, 5 years before State signed him? And Dunlap’s D was so bad during a terrible stretch for Syracuse that they didn’t want him. We got these two guys because they were cheap and nobody wanted them and they couldn’t afford to say no to Amato. It’s time to get rid of the Dollar Tree coaches.

    Oh man, I’m on my soapbox now… With Trestman call the plays, I refuse to waste another beautiful Saturday watching State’s games live. I will record them and check out the scores before watching and do something more productive, enjoyable and less painful on Saturdays. Trestman’s offense makes Herb Sendek’s look like a run and gun game plan.

    And sadly, all of the games left on our schedule look like loses. Clemson, Ga. Tech, UNC and ECU. At this point the Tigers, GT and Pirates all look like much better teams than the Wolfpack. Obviously much better prepared and coached. And I believe we have UNC on Bunting’s last home game. They sure were competitive against WFU. ugggh…

    Didn’t I read in this column that there was a certain offensive coordinator with the Tennesse Titans who would only consider two head coaching jobs in the NCAA and we were one of them? Maybe Norm Chow should be looked at? Heck he could even buy out those Chuck’em steak houses, if any are still open, rename them something like “Chow Down, at Norm’s?” He’d fit in great.

    Ok, I’m done, sorry to take up so much space… nite all.

  21. justaguy 10/29/2006 at 6:13 AM #

    dj9686,

    Good rant. And I do agree about the talent level and dedication of the players. I’m having trouble seeing how the talent will keep flowing to Raleigh given the coaching. The difference between UNC & NCSU is that UNC knows they have a guy that can’t get the job done. Chuck has delivered just enough success to prevent that blunt assessment. But when you have a rebuilding year coming off a 7-5 season, that’s the reality. At schools with high-level programs 7-5 IS the rebuilding year, not the high water mark.

  22. tvp 10/29/2006 at 9:29 AM #

    But…but…think of all we’ve accomplished here under Amato! Think about our slightly better than .500 record against UNC and Wake!!!!!!!!!

    Only a miracle (winning out) salvages this season, and even that would leave me seriously questioning the long-term outlook of the program.

    As it is, we look to be headed to 4-8 or thereabouts.

  23. OwenDorm83 10/29/2006 at 9:38 AM #

    I’m not a football coach, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express the other week…

    I think it’s simple. Our O-line STINKS! They are weak as ice water and dumb as rocks (reference false starting on 4th down). I mean dude, get a clue.

  24. class of 74 10/29/2006 at 10:04 AM #

    Until the AD, WPC and Oblinger realize we have a football program that is stuck in perpetual neutral or worse get used to it. IMHO, we have underperformed in Rivers senior season and every season since. Do I expect a Gator Bowl season every year? Heck no, but we should seldom have as little as a 5 win seasons with our weak schedules and we should expect 9 win seasons once every 4 to 5 years. I feel our administration and the WPC has let all of us down by not DEMANDING this level of success. They are quite good at demanding an ever increasing level of money from us but where’s the product they said the increase in contributions would help bring?

    Many of CTC’s backers love to site the increase in money and “star recruits” brought about by CTC, but IMHO, he would need to bring in 4 consecutive top 5 classes just to offset his inability as a coach. And that is NOT about to happen. Kids at that level don’t dream of going to programs that struggle to have winning seasons against weak schedules and go to minor bowls! And don’t forget CTC is struggling this, his seventh season, when the ACC is way down in terms of quality. What happens when FSU, Miami, Clemson and VPI get back to their accustomed levels? Or UNC finds the right coach? That woosh you you will feel in a couple of weeks most likely is from the Tarholes passing us by with a quality coach and staff to rescue that program.

    Face it, we have a DC masquerading as a HC. It is that pure and simple. In year 7, if the powers that matter can’t see this then there isn’t much hope for the next few seasons regardless of money, facilities or recruits.
    This is the trainwreck that some of us have feared would happen. Admitting our mistake is the first step to recovery!

  25. NCSUDude17 10/29/2006 at 10:21 AM #

    Agreed 74!

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