Wake Forest 25, NC State 23

On a beautiful day for football in Raleigh, Wake Forest kicks 3 50 yarders to down the Wolfpack.

Couple Saturday afternoon thoughts for the blog:
-Great day for football. Noon games stink.
-Late arriving crowd, got into the game in the 2nd quarter.
-You would think a TD saving safety would be a good thing.
-Please kill the cartoon on the jumbotron before the game.
-Andre Brown is clearly better than Toney Baker, but Baker had a lot more touches in the second half.
-The second half play calling was a C+ at best. I would run Brown before Baker on first down
-One day we will “chip” a DE on a screen pass
-Jim Grobe is a great coach and hopefully he will get the hell out of Winston Salem
-Deraney didn’t have his “A” game today
-Mike Nugent Jr. had a great game
-John Bunting will be fired sometime soon
-If we lose to UNC it will be a death blow to Amato
-The 330PM game selection this saturday is awful.
-Officials missed a clear late hit on Andre Brown’s long run in the 4th quarter.

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General NCS Football

120 Responses to Wake Forest 25, NC State 23

  1. noah 10/15/2006 at 8:29 AM #

    Oh, one more thing….off topic but, Miami should be thrown out of the conference immediately.

  2. Mr O 10/15/2006 at 9:24 AM #

    Wake beat us on five key plays. The three 50+ yard FGs, the safety, and the TD at the end of the half.

    If we win one of those five plays, then we win that game. Each of the FG tries just happened to be with the wind too.

    I know it is only natural to hate coaches in every loss, but overall we played well enough to win and came up just short.

  3. CarnifeX 10/15/2006 at 9:27 AM #

    ^ they are a bunch of thugs, but what makes them any worse than, oh say, any other ACC team?

  4. brown pelican 10/15/2006 at 9:34 AM #

    evans performed as well as could be expected—wake’s d smacked him around pretty good a couple of times—noah’s right—as fans we often miss the obvious—our team has limitations—if we can mange within the scope of those we can be okay—good defense—good kicking game—just enough offense—should be good enough to win one or two more than we lose—just not good enough to beat a pretty good wake team yesterday—one that played defense and kicked it a little better than we did—hang tough—go pack—beat the terps

  5. choppack1 10/15/2006 at 10:05 AM #

    I am in the camp that we played pretty good today. Wake played the perfect game and if evans either throws the ball away or runs, we’re probably kicking a field goal for the win. The key play in the game was the Brown fumbled, coupled w/ WF flukish TD. Wake didn’t make those kind of mistakes – we did. I am proud of the effort – and for the most part, proud of the execution today. Kudos to the D for only allowing 3 points in the second half. That should have been good enough for the W.

    Now for my complaints:
    1) Playing not win in the first half: W/ Wake forest up 22-14, we get the ball in the area of the 40 yard line w/ 15-20 seconds left and 2 to’s. Delraney has good range – a FG at this point would be huge and get us some mo’ back. I know, I know, Chuck was afraid that Swank would get a shot to kick a 70 yarder and make it – but let’s take a chance some time. We certainly ended up taking them in the second half.
    2) Icing Swank after he’d just missed his last attempt – IMHO, this is the height of foolishness. Swank has missed his last kick, but he’s a good kicker – better to let him rush out there, not get in his routine, than compose himself, get in his routine and focus on the task at hand.
    3) Evans made his first big mental mistake so far. This morning I find out his bell was rung. I still think he played a great game, and I know why he didn’t want to run (again) now.

  6. johnny 10/15/2006 at 10:06 AM #

    ““Jim Grobe is a great coach and hopefully he will get the hell out of Winston-Salemâ€?
    Chuck Amato is a terrible coach and hopefully he will get the hell out of Raleigh.”

    With the talent Grobe has year after year he proves what a great coach he is. Agree with ya.

    Amato -I have mixed feelings. He has help get us improvements in CF
    and has been able to bring in good talent. He has also raised our expectation, but reality is his ACC record is about the same as MOC.
    You have to give MOC credit in that he did not enjoy the support that CTC was given.(Open check book to hire assistant coaches and $100M+ in CF improvements-MOC had to try and sell pictures of future plans for years).

  7. packpigskinfan23 10/15/2006 at 10:07 AM #

    “Where was the deep ball? Oh, I dunno…maybe the deep cover 2 drops by the Wake Forest secondary had something to do with that???”

    -understandable, but werent the recievers covers REALLY well in the BC and FSU games? I just think its Daniels strength….

    ” Seemed every pass today was a dump or screen.”

    -cause it was… and wasnt that what got us in so much offensive trouble in the first 3 games this season? and WHY consistantly throw screen passes against a team that is absolutly putting a ball up against the run offense?! Just MHO….

    I’m still not totally depressed over the loss…. just glad not to be UNC and Miami right now… We all really need to start praying that UNC dosnt hire Coker though!!!!!!

  8. Woof Wolf 10/15/2006 at 10:25 AM #

    Against the five 1A teams we have played this year, we have NEVER scored first. FOUR points is the largest lead we have had in any game. We have scored ZERO points we we were ahead or the game was tied, ZERO.

    Could that be an accident? I think not. “Don’t turn the ball over. Don’t get penalties. Win the kicking game.” How mant times have we heard that?

    Never have I heard, “We’ve got to be more aggressive on offense. We have to mix it up. We have to take some risks.” The players may have heard that on the sideline when we were behind, but I don’t think it’s been part of a game plan in the last few of years.

    As long as we keep playing the way we are, sometimes the clock is going to run out when we are ahead and sometimes when we are behind. I’d say the odds are about 50 50.

  9. PittsburghPackFan 10/15/2006 at 10:54 AM #

    It’s true…we are on our way to 6-6. Who out there REALLY thought we would be better than that this year? I am pretty pleased with things right now…sure it could be better, but we are still playing better than the 1st three games, and we still have a chance to make noise in the league for the rest of the year. The O-line is playing better than they have since ’02, and the D isn’t so bad. just remember, State is a field goal and a goal line stand away from 5-1.

  10. Wulfpack 10/15/2006 at 10:55 AM #

    Once again Wake gets more out of their student-athletes than we do. I have total respect for Grobe. If we could land him, we’d be much better off. They took it to us and we just came up a little short on the scoreboard. They made the big play when they had to and ran it right down our throat. We played decent, just needed one more play. But I think it’s about time people stop belittleing the Deacs. How much more evidence do you need? They are a very sound football team.

    I’ll go ahead and say it now this Maryland game is giant. They’re sky high after a comeback win over the rival Cavs. We need this one badly or else it’s another mediocre bowl for the Pack.

  11. Mr O 10/15/2006 at 11:31 AM #

    Personally, I think Wake Forest has a lot better athletes than people give them credit for. It isn’t all about Jim Grobe.

  12. GAWolf 10/15/2006 at 11:37 AM #

    There’s really only two points that can be made about this game from my perspective:

    1) Who didn’t see this loss coming?

    2) I’m so f’n tired of seeing us throw and run the ball sideways. No quarterback/running back is going to ever have awesome production when most of the movement is lateral. Those yards don’t count, and we seem to have more of those than the vertical ones that do. I’m sick and tired of watching that crap and I blame it on the play calling.

  13. GAWolf 10/15/2006 at 11:41 AM #

    To clarify, I wasn’t even upset about the loss. I’m not mad that we lost to a good team that is always better prepared than we are. I honestly expected us to lose and that’s what happened. History says we lose that game so a win would have truly shocked me.

    With that being said, I’m very disappointed in our play calling once again. We need to start moving the ball downfield. Throw it downfield. Throw it downfield. Throw it downfield. The hardest pass on the field is one that is lateral or backwards. 2 of 3 passes we throw seem to be of this harder variety. We’ve got guys that have proven they can get open and make plays. Danny Evans had decent pass blocking and at times had ample time to make throws down field. Why must we stick with the same bs play calling that hasn’t worked since Rivers left?

  14. GAWolf 10/15/2006 at 11:43 AM #

    Also, Wake’s quarterback had time to make a sandwich before he threw the ball. That, to me, was the difference in the game. We just didn’t get enough pressure on their QB on crucial third down plays.

  15. packpigskinfan23 10/15/2006 at 11:47 AM #

    we had NO pressure on their QB… he hardly ever threw the ball… they had a good rush offense.

    our play calling once again gets a C-
    and this is after a game of a B+ followed by an A!!!

  16. CaptainCraptacular 10/15/2006 at 11:51 AM #

    ^^^*2) Icing Swank after he’d just missed his last attempt – IMHO, this is the height of foolishness. Swank has missed his last kick, but he’s a good kicker – better to let him rush out there, not get in his routine, than compose himself, get in his routine and focus on the task at hand.*

    We had already used a timeout (or were down to 1 I believe) at that point, and were probably wise to save the last timeout without spending it trying to ice the kicker, which has a dubious success rate.

  17. CaptainCraptacular 10/15/2006 at 12:29 PM #

    ^ sorry, I misread your comment. I didn’t remember the situation. You are right, trying to ice him was foolish.

  18. Cardiff Giant 10/15/2006 at 12:46 PM #

    ^ I agree with that.

    What chaps my ass is that this was such a winnable game…. also, I really hate losing to the Florists and they absolutely have Amato’s number. They own him.

  19. RickJ 10/15/2006 at 1:09 PM #

    Amato said they took the timeout before the field goal because someone said we had 12 men on the field. I don’t think that was the case but it had nothing to do with icing the kicker.

    Everybody that says we should have thrown the ball down the field against Wake might as well post – “I don’t know anything.”

    Amato is 4 – 3 against Wake. It feels like 0 – 7 but it is 4 – 3 and 4 – 3 sucks against Wake Forest.

  20. class of 74 10/15/2006 at 2:22 PM #

    We were outplayed and outcoached and that usually results in a loss. Congratulations to Grobe and WF. If we played them on the field 10 times they’d probably beat us 6 or 7 times. If you play the game on paper we would win based only on talent. Our guys have to remember, other than maybe Duke, they must respect every team they play whether at home or away.

  21. packpigskinfan23 10/15/2006 at 2:33 PM #

    “Everybody that says we should have thrown the ball down the field against Wake might as well post – “I don’t know anything.â€?”

    -RickJ I think that was just a useless attempt to degrade others who’s opinions differ from yours… why SHOULDNT we have thrown the ball down feild?! sure they had a 2 man coverage… but the WHOLE game we had screen passes and ran the ball… We have only one win this year with that kind of offense. The only kind of offense we have been able to win with is one that throws the ball down the feild… so those like you who say that I dont know anything might as well post “I dont know what a win is”

  22. packpigskinfan23 10/15/2006 at 2:35 PM #

    or better yet… “I dont want to win”

  23. Wolfpack4ever 10/15/2006 at 3:14 PM #

    Mike Says: ” At the end of the half, we are playing it safe, happy to be up by 1, 2 minutes to go in the half. Fluke fumble and safety, and now we have to kick. Wake gets ball on 25, 1:30 to go. Wake, a running team, does not play it safe. They come out trying to score before the half. Playing to win, give them credit. We played it safe, playing to not lose.”

    That is so much crap. We were on our 20, were running our best back on a sweep. That’s not playing it safe or playing not to lose. Pull another cliche’ out of your bag of clever analogy items BUT GET OFF THIS TEEAM’S ASS.

  24. Woof Wolf 10/15/2006 at 3:40 PM #

    From the N&O:

    “GUTSY GROBE: Wake Forest was bold in its gold pants.”

    “With his team ahead 15-14 with 1:18 left in the first half and deep in its own territory, coach Jim Grobe didn’t sit on the ball. He took the risk-and-reward approach and watched his team travel 77 yards in three plays, culminating with Morton’s TD catch and run.”

  25. Woof Wolf 10/15/2006 at 3:56 PM #

    Amato is 25-26 against the ACC; 4-3 against Wake; & 3-3 aginst UNC;

    After Phillip those numbers are 8-11; 1-2, & 0-2.

    And some of you are happy with that???

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