Tim Stevens: Pack doing well with in-state prospects

General NCS Football Tom O'Brien115

N&O Preps reporter Tim Stevens notes the progress NC State is making in-state.

State has eight commitments, including six from in the state.

But the key to in-state recruiting isn’t just signing players. It’s signing the right players.

So far, State is hitting that mark, too. Five of its six in-state recruits are ranked among the top 30 North Carolina prospects by rivals.com.

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General NCS Football Tom O'Brien

115 Responses to Tim Stevens: Pack doing well with in-state prospects

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 07/03/2007 at 1:58 PM #

    Just curious Noah. What do you do (in the real world)? Are you affiliated with the sports media? With NCSU? Teaching? Or just a person who loves the Pack?

  2. highstick 07/03/2007 at 2:04 PM #

    I’m not arguing with him either and am probably trying to be as objective and skeptical about setting the bar “too high” for TOB also. If Clemson and Ga Tech can win an NCAA title in football, I don’t see any reason that we can’t either.

    One of the major obstacles to overcome still “leads the athletic department” though and that gives me a lot of concern.

    I certainly don’t disagree about our basketball tradition, but it took a “major hit” during the last 20 years!

  3. noah 07/03/2007 at 2:04 PM #

    Ex-sports writer and news reporter (those are two seperate professions, believe me). I currently work in public relations. Lifetime NC State fan.

  4. packbackr04 07/03/2007 at 2:17 PM #

    did lush say he had a buzz? no fair? pass the dutchie ‘pon the left hand side. i want a buzz

  5. noah 07/03/2007 at 2:22 PM #

    “If Clemson and Ga Tech can win an NCAA title in football, I don’t see any reason that we can’t either.”

    If I were going to play complete devil’s advocate, I’d point out that Clemson and Ga. Tech have completely different histories than we have.

    Circumstances were also totally different.

    Clemson was basically an SEC school (right down to the cheating) playing an ACC schedule. The only other decent team in the conference was Carolina…so they basically just got to cruise through their schedule. Even Maryland, which normally was pretty good, had a losing record that year. The only tough games they had that year were UGa and UNC (both 10-win teams).

    Georgia Tech has it’s own proud history. John Heisman was their big coach and they had games like the Cumberland 222-0 game.

    The year they won the title in 1990 was sort of a fluke. The ACC was, once again, pretty weak. UVa was their biggest game and was on the way down (having been #1 earlier in the year). Clemson won 10 games that year. Georgia was a chump team that year…and Tech beat a pretty mediocre Nebraska in their bowl game. They didn’t have to play Notre Dame or Colorado or Miami or UW….

    Honestly, our Gator Bowl squad could have beaten the 1990 Tech team. Hell, the Tech team from our Gator Bowl year could have beaten the 1990 tech team. They had Marco Coleman and Ken Swilling…but…we could have taken them. The 1981 Clemson squad was pretty formidable though…

    To win a national title from the ACC, you’d have to run through league play undefeated, beat your three non-conf. teams and also win the league title game.

    To win a national title, you’d have to put together a really great team, have the schedule work in your favor just exactly so, get a little lucky here and there AND have some traditional teams be UNlucky. Then you have to be good enough to beat whoever you match up with in a BCS title game.

    I don’t think I’ll ever see an NC State football squad that’s one of these huge powerhouse teams like OSU or Texas or USC puts together that have 15 seniors on the team that will get drafted and 20 other underclassmen who will ultimately play in the NFL.

  6. BJD95 07/03/2007 at 2:30 PM #

    I don’t expect us to be UT (either one) or Ohio State. I do, however, think it’s reasonable to be one of those vast numbers of teams that at least periodically challenge for the league title, and occasionally win the thing and/or have a Top Ten finish and/or BCS bid. Whatever our history, a school such as NC State should not go some 30 years without a conference title.

  7. BoKnowsNCS71 07/03/2007 at 2:35 PM #

    That’s true. With other undefeated teams with bigger “reps” we’d get pushed down to a non-title bowl. Almost everyone would have to have one loss with us undefeated — and even then — there’s no assurance we wouldn’t be stepped over for something like those asking for a OSU vs. MSU re-match last year.

    It would take a perfect season like you say with everything falling our way.

    Wasn’t the national titles won by Tech shared? BYU?

  8. CaptainCraptacular 07/03/2007 at 2:39 PM #

    *The year they won the title in 1990 was sort of a fluke. The ACC was, once again, pretty weak. UVa was their biggest game and was on the way down (having been #1 earlier in the year).*

    To pick a nit, UVa *was* #1 when they played GT, and were unbeaten till that game. After that game they went on to lose 3 of their last 4. That may have been the very beginning of their way down, but they weren’t yet in the middle of their slide, and had looked like world beaters up to that point.

    http://www.jhowell.net/cf/Scores/Virginia.htm

    Your point still stands though. The ACC was weak that year, only Clemson and UVa having decent seasons.

  9. beowolf 07/03/2007 at 2:48 PM #

    I had forgotten how close we can to winning the league in ACC. If Tom Reed had gotten a decent backup QB for Sheridan, I think we would have won it. Erik Kramer got hurt late in the season, and we lost to a middling Virginia squad that we could easily have beaten.

    And then in ’92, Sheridan WON the “old ACC” the first year FSU joined. Which still bugged me — it had taken him that long to get to that stage (which he did in a TOB-like steady improvement).

    Wake Forest’s win last year was a “fluke” in that so many traditional powerhouse teams were down, but it is a credit to Grobe’s steadiness that Wake remained unperturbed throughout the season. Wake set a baseline for competence that in most years allows them to win and go to a bowl, but last year allowed them to take the ACC.

  10. highstick 07/03/2007 at 2:48 PM #

    I had added, but deleted, “times were different and rules have changed” when Clempson and Ga Tech won the national champsionship, but deleted it, so I really dont’ disagree. My only point or comment is that there is no reason that State cannot win a national championship in football. Just because we never have certainly doesn’t mean that it is impossible.

    To quote Noah:

    “To win a national title from the ACC, you’d have to run through league play undefeated, beat your three non-conf. teams and also win the league title game.

    To win a national title, you’d have to put together a really great team, have the schedule work in your favor just exactly so, get a little lucky here and there AND have some traditional teams be UNlucky. Then you have to be good enough to beat whoever you match up with in a BCS title game.”

    I can totally agree with that cause it’s exactly what happened with Clempson and Tech, along with the other factors that he mentioned.

  11. CaptainCraptacular 07/03/2007 at 2:48 PM #

    *Wasn’t the national titles won by Tech shared? BYU?*

    It was shared with Colorado, who won a game that year on the infamous 5th down play and also won their bowl game with Notre Dame when Rocket Ismail’s last minute punt return TD was called back due to a questionable block in the back/clipping penalty

    So in my mind Colorado’s title is totally bogus. GT wouldn’t have had to share had they not tied Carolina.

  12. beowolf 07/03/2007 at 2:49 PM #

    And if memory serves, Tech shared the national title because they were tied late in the season by a mediocre UNC team.

  13. lush 07/03/2007 at 2:50 PM #

    you know it packbaker. on the way to OIB for the rest of the week.

  14. JimValvano 07/03/2007 at 2:56 PM #

    Wendell Murphy is a very important part of the Wolfpack Club and has donated quite a bit of money to the program. He’s also a pretty nice guy, at least in the times I’ve had conversations with him he seemed to be. My granddad always seemed to like him…so that is good enough for me.

    However, Wendell isn’t the only individual whom has donated lots of money to the Wolfpack Club. Maybe you know your Wolfpack history, but if you ever want to really be “in the know”…feel free to visit with me and I’ll help you understand the real history of NC State athletics and what was occurring behind the scenes.

    I can tell you about when Coach Case got his license and his first car. Both of which happened while he was coach at N.C. State. I can tell you what happened behind closed doors when the decision to fire Jimmy V was made. I can also tell you…honestly…the football stories passed down to me have been few and far between, but that sh*t is in the past.

    I might not (without a little research on the internet) be able to tell you what Monte Kiffin’s record was his second year as coach, but I can tell you that there was once a coach that had a dream, and believed in that dream, and convinced his players to believe in that dream, and the fans to believe in that dream…and it came true (See Albuquerque 1983).

    So…Noah…come out of your ark…there will be no flood. Just because the sky is full of clouds and it is going to rain or has been raining…that doesn’t mean it will continue. The rains have stopped and its time to move forward. As a matter of fact…the clouds have already started to part…and damn…the future sure looks bright. (Thank you Sid and Tom)

  15. CaptainCraptacular 07/03/2007 at 2:58 PM #

    I honestly don’t know how the voters could have shared the tech/colorado title in good confidence. That year CU lost to Illinois and were tied by Tennessee, won the Missouri game only because the refs gave them a 5th down with which to score as time ran out, and won the Notre Dame game only because of a phantom penalty. They should have been 9-3-1 instead of 11-1-1.

    Their one common opponent that year was Nebraska.

    Colorado 27-12 over Neb
    GT 45-21 over Neb.

    Either way, even with the Carolina tie GT was way more deserving.

  16. noah 07/03/2007 at 3:00 PM #

    “Whatever our history, a school such as NC State should not go some 30 years without a conference title.”

    100 percent agree.

    We really, really should have won the ACC title in 1986. UVa was more than just middling…they were bad. They were 3-8 that year and lost to William and Mary the week before we beat them.

    We should have lost to South Carolina…although we had a big halftime lead. There was no reason for that DT to come sprinting through the line. We weren’t lined up. We weren’t even close to being lined up.

    We should have never gotten the final play that ultimately won the game for us. If we don’t get that play, Erik Kramer’s ankle is not 100 percent, but he got creamed on that hail mary throw and couldn’t even walk off the field. He had to be carried by his teammates.

    If Kramer’s ankle is only gimpy, he probably plays against UVa and we beat them easily. Cam Young remains a clipboard holder and we win the ACC title in 1986 by a half-game (Clemson and Maryland tied on the final weekend, as I recall) and played Stanford in the Gator Bowl.

  17. noah 07/03/2007 at 3:17 PM #

    “I honestly don’t know how the voters could have shared the tech/colorado title in good confidence.”

    Two different groups of voters, wasn’t it? Didn’t the AP give the title to one and the coaches to the other? I might be mistaking that for the year Miami and UW shared the title (1991?).

    Notre Dame probably deserved the title more than anyone that year. I think their only loss was to Colorado and as someone else pointed out, it came as the result of a crappy call.

    If you wanna piss off some Tech fans make sure you tell them they “backed into a national title.” Make sure you use the verb phrase “backed into.”

  18. BJD95 07/03/2007 at 3:30 PM #

    ^^ That sequence sums up perfectly what it has been like (for the most part) being a State fan. A miracle play that gets us a win against a bitter rival – but ultimately costs us the ACC title.

    Our memories overlap well – I remember UVA being 2-7 or 2-8 going in, and the backup QB (Cam Young?) threw 4+ INTs and we lost 14-9 or 14-10. We would have won the tiebreaker with Clemson, so we had to lose for the Tiggers to have a chance. In their last game (at MD), they were down 3 late, but played totally for the tie and kicked a short FG to win the conference crown by a stinking half game.

  19. CaptainCraptacular 07/03/2007 at 3:33 PM #

    *Two different groups of voters, wasn’t it? Didn’t the AP give the title to one and the coaches to the other? I might be mistaking that for the year Miami and UW shared the title (1991?).*

    It was the 2 different groups of voters, but I guess what I was saying was I don’t know how the one group could with good conscience voted CU #1.

  20. CaptainCraptacular 07/03/2007 at 3:34 PM #

    *Notre Dame probably deserved the title more than anyone that year.*

    Actually, Notre Dame was 9-3 the year CU and GT shared, so I have to disagree there.

    http://www.jhowell.net/cf/Scores/NotreDame.htm#1990

  21. BJD95 07/03/2007 at 3:34 PM #

    Also, the ND/CO Orange Bowl represents the only time I have ever cheered for Notre Dame in football (good of the league and all that), and for once they are the VICTIM of luck/blown call on the Ismail punt return. IRC, GT would have been #1 ahead of ND regardless.

    How any voter could treat the Buffs as a 1 loss/1 tie team (instead of 2 and 1) after the “5th down” game still blows my mind. This wasn’t a blown judgment call that LIKELY changed the outcome, it was a fucking extra play as time expired!

    On a better note, the Georgia Tech/UVA game in Charlottesville that year was a real classic. Bees won 41-38, or something like that. Think UVA was #1 at the time.

  22. Rick 07/03/2007 at 3:42 PM #

    “So…Noah…come out of your ark…there will be no flood. Just because the sky is full of clouds and it is going to rain or has been raining…that doesn’t mean it will continue. ”

    Is this guy for real?

  23. noah 07/03/2007 at 3:44 PM #

    Maybe I was thinking of the year before when they were 12-1 and BEAT Colorado. My mistake.

    The Tech-UVa game that year ended up being seen by the whole country. It was the late game on ABC and everyone else had finished their game…so they switched everyone over for the final five or six minutes.

    That was Tech’s day. Wasn’t it Scott Scisson who kicked the game-winning FG? UVa had rolled over everyone up to that point.

    I remember our game with them that year was over in about four minutes. They got the ball, ran right down the field in about three plays and scored. We got the ball, fumbled, they scored…we got the ball back and went three-and-out and punted…and they went right back down the field in three more plays and scored again.

  24. noah 07/03/2007 at 3:51 PM #

    Well…according to this:

    http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/national_championships/upi_poll.php?year=1990

    The final UPI poll of the year gave the #1 spot to Georgia Tech.

    And this:

    http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/national_championships/poll_results.php?year=1990

    The Final coaches poll of the year after the bowl game also gave it to Georgia Tech. But the Associated Press poll (the writers, not the coaches) gave it to Colorado.

  25. noah 07/03/2007 at 3:53 PM #

    Lemme try that again.

    http://tinyurl.com/2pgtoa

    That’s the final AP and coaches poll of 1990, after the bowl game.

    This is the final UPI poll…

    http://tinyurl.com/34etea

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