How Sweet it Is! Saturday’s Football & Bytes

'07 Football General34

First, since we are talking about the college football schedule then you need to click here and bookmark!

Secondly, you can use this entry to serve as an open entry during the games on Saturday. But PLEASE limit your comments to the sharing of information and value-added conversations. Useless “thank yous” and short one-liners only serve to diminish the convenience of reading and interacting for our community.

Now…on to Saturday….

After the ACC’s year to forget, the conference’s week one schedule will – for the most part – play out on Saturday. You can click here for your ABC afternoon television coverage map.

Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007
The Irish Bowl, 6pm (ESPN360 -web only)
East Carolina at Virginia Tech, 12pm (ESPN)
Marshall at Miami, 12pm (ESPNU)
Connecticut at Duke, 2pm (ACC Select – web only)
Virginia at Wyoming, 2pm
Georgia Tech at Notre Dame, 3:30pm (NBC)
Wake Forest at Boston College, 3:30pm (ABC)
Villanova at Maryland, 6pm (ESPN360 – web only)
James Madison at North Carolina, 6pm (ESPN360 – web only)

Monday, Sept. 3, 2007
Florida State at Clemson, 8pm (ESPN)

Football Bytes:

* Mr O spelled out why you should pull for which teams in a previous entry that deserves to be brought to the top here.

In terms of who we should be pulling for this weekend in the two conference games, we want BC and Clemson to win.

BC plays Miami, GT and Va Tech in the Coastal while Wake gets Duke, UVa and UNC. So based on Wake having a the easiest possible, we need Wake to lose whenever possible. We play both BC and Wake on the road, so again no advantage in our head to head matchups therefore we should pull for BC based on Wake’s easy schedule.

Clemson plays GT, Va Tech and Duke. FSU gets Miami, Va Tech, and Duke. Schedule is pretty even, so we would probably prefer Clemson to win because we get Clemson at home and FSU on the road.

I don’t think I need to explain who we are pulling for in the JMU/UNC game.

* If you need some multimedia to help you feel like it is the 21st century then you can click here for Fox’s ACC Video Vault.

* Additionally, this link will provide a nice preview entry of some key games on Saturday from SMQ.

* Speaking of SMQ, this is the kind of analysis that absolutely rocks and is what differentiates blogs from the mainstream media. The conclusion is very similar to some of the analysis that Phil Steele provides:

But there’s a very good argument N.C. State was good enough to win three or four more games, be a very minor bowl team and possibly (not likely, but possibly) save Chuck Amato’s job. Very clearly, turnovers were the not-so-silent killer: the difference in the Wake Forest game, again, turned out to be the second quarter fumble- safety, Swank’s field goals and the blown two-point conversion; the final score at North Carolina was inflated by a late fumble return. Even with its yardage advantage, Akron doesn’t pull that upset without the benefit of those three turnovers.

* We didn’t run a whole lot of preseason football preview entries because they all started to blend together and look the same. Despite NC State’s selection as a ‘sleeper’ by a few well-respected pundits, the almost-unanimous prediction for the Wolfpack’s 2007 is a last place finish in the Atlantic Division. There were a couple of previews who boldly put the Pack in the 5th spot of the division; and this one got us to our highest placement of 4th!

* Even in the middle of ugly predictions the Wolfpack was able to get a little love:

Get ’em while they’re down, because starting in 2008, the Wolfpack should be headed straight toward the top of the division. The talent inherited by Tom O’Brien is a bit of a mismatch for his coaching style, but the refreshing stability and strict focus on the basics he brings is enough to improve upon last year’s fiasco by a few games. Unfortunately, it won’t be enough to climb out of the division cellar.

* If all of this football isn’t exciting enough for you then maybe Carolina football in particular will do it for you!!!

* If you haven’t checked the blog frequently the last week then we encourage you to spend some time on the front page surfing around. There are some good entries that have been made even better by some great conversations from the smartest set of fans around!

* If you want some more national ‘bytes’ to chew on then you will enjoy clicking here

* I want to find myself shouting out to App State with a big good luck vs Michigan…but the Mountaineers’ ECU-like fans recent telephone calls into WFNZ-610 AM in Charlotte have done nothing but turn my stomach. If you haven’t heard how ASU ‘should’ have beaten NC State last year (when the Wolfpack manhandled the line of scrimmage and dominated ASU despite our turnover problems) then you don’t know what you are missing.

* Lastly, if you absolutely HAVE to have links to other ACC and NC State football previews then an organized list of URL’s to various previews follows:

Phil Steele – NC State

Fox Sports – NC State

Fox Sports – ACC

SI – ACC

SMQ – ACC

Fay Obs – ACC

Maizenbrew – ACC

Pack Pride

ESPN 1

ESPN 2

SI – NC State

ACCNow – NC State

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'07 Football General

34 Responses to How Sweet it Is! Saturday’s Football & Bytes

  1. tractor57 08/31/2007 at 7:17 PM #

    As always I turn the SFN for some good insights and intelligent conversation.
    Thanks for the site you have provided.
    Tractor57
    NW NC

  2. choppack1 08/31/2007 at 7:30 PM #

    That Sunday morning QB blog is pretty cool. I do have one problem w/ their analysis – they act as if TO’s are totally or at least somewhat happenstance. While there’s a grain of truth to that, I find it telling that we stunk in TO margin the last 3 years and were good before that – when guess what – our team was good.

    TO’s aren’t just dumb luck. BC usually did well in TO margin – BC usually won. The 2 close games we won (the only 2 close games we won) – we won or tied in TO margin.

    I really don’t know how to address protecting the ball – it seems like it should be so obvious. However, for some reason, you tend to find successful coaches have teams that do a good job of it. Coaches who don’t do so well or who suddenly lose their “magic” – struggle in this area.

    Show me a team who loses the TO battle and almost w/out exception, I’ll show you a team that loses. Show me a team who wins the TO battle, and I’ll show you a team that usually wins more than it loses w/a few exceptions.

    I wish we could what auto racing did w/ the IROC(?) series – when the drivers were given equal cars and just raced. Granted part of the area where Chuck excelled – assessing and securing talent and motivating that talent, getting that talent to battle almost every Saturday – is an important part of coaching. However, when it came to the day to day details and the little things that teams do to win games – he struggled.

  3. BJD95 08/31/2007 at 8:46 PM #

    Cuse with a first quarter quick kick (it went 65 yards). Freaking love it. Over the past 2 years, the quick kick would have likely been our best offensive play.

  4. BJD95 08/31/2007 at 10:08 PM #

    Here’s some VERY good news for next week and the future – every single ESPN and ESPN2 broadcast this week (even last Thursday night’s Tulsa/ULL game!) is slated to be broadcast in HD.

    On the downside, the Big Ten Network has made ESPN Gameplan a much less desirable purchase. I am just going to buy it for the weeks there is a really top-notch ABC regional game that we won’t get (during a time I won’t be at C-F).

  5. kevirose 08/31/2007 at 11:34 PM #

    I’ve been lurking around here for a year or so and rarely post, but as a lifelong State fan, who grew up in Raleigh, and had to get the heck out of dodge, ending up in Boone for college, I gotta comment on the moron ASU fans that call into WFNZ… About 50% of ASU grad seem to end up in Charlotte. And the ones that call in to FNZ are about 1% of that. Those guys are morons, just playing to whatever journalist (forget his name) that Packer has on in the evening… the guy that went to App.

    Truth is, the pack crushed App in that game, but had so many errors, that the game score was close.

    Now, had that game taken place in week 10, rather than week 1, I’m not so sure the outcome would have been the same. Go Pack tomorrow. Go Mountaineers tomorrow! Would love two wins, but will take one!

  6. PurplePeopleEaters 08/31/2007 at 11:39 PM #

    Does anyone know what lengths i would have to go to see the game this tomorrow? Is 360 free or is it on like a pay per view or monthly basis or anything…

  7. PackerInRussia 09/01/2007 at 7:14 AM #

    PPE,
    ESPN360 is free as long as your internet provider supports it. You can go to this link and it should tell if you your internet provider carries ESPN360 (for example, there is a little yellow box at the top of the page telling me that my internet provider does not carry ESPN360): http://broadband.espn.go.com/espn360/index_nonaff

  8. Wxwolf 09/01/2007 at 8:02 AM #

    Courtesy of Section Six, here is a link describing how to register with Verizon to get a username that lets you view ESPN360 programming. I tried it last night, and it worked perfectly:

    http://www.funkeemunkeeland.com/2007/08/31/for-those-of-you-that-want-to-watch-the-ucf-vs-nc-state-game/

  9. Mr O 09/01/2007 at 8:43 AM #

    Getting tired of the Va Tech coverage already and it is only 8:23. I have always wondered why we have been ridiculed for the tragedy that happened at an NC State football game a few years ago. Maybe we should have built a monument for the two kids that were killed?

  10. CaptainCraptacular 09/01/2007 at 8:54 AM #

    Wxwolf

    You are my hero. ::bows:: thank you thank you thank you

  11. BJD95 09/01/2007 at 9:31 AM #

    Amen, Mr O. Amen. I made the same point at a familay gathering last weekend. Lone gunmen at a football game – NC State tailgating is shameful and out of control. Lone gunman on the VT campus – VT is all of a sudden “America’s team”. I had a lot of sympathy for the VT community at the time (and still do), but this is getting ridiculous.

    Glad it’s not just me having that reaction.

  12. RochesterRedWolf 09/01/2007 at 9:37 AM #

    Here’s a link of Wakefield on Football Friday (FF) on Wral, TJ Graham has a nice catch for a TD in traffic, ala Dunlap Corner Catch.
    http://www.wral.com/sports/video/1767592/

    Tobias Palmer TD run
    http://www.wral.com/sports/video/1767633/

    This was last week but it was a great game by Tobias Palmer
    http://www.wral.com/sports/video/1742123/

  13. branjawn 09/01/2007 at 9:45 AM #

    I live in upstate NY, no ESPN 360 up here… wait? what’s that? it worked!! Thanks Wxwolf! I can’t believe it, really. Sweet!!!!!!!!!! ~The Struttin Wolf

  14. vtpackfan 09/01/2007 at 10:14 AM #

    I just tried it branjawn and it said it was unable to process at this time. WTF?

  15. vtpackfan 09/01/2007 at 10:28 AM #

    My bad, screwed by the ancient wisdom of Bellsouth.

  16. RochesterRedWolf 09/01/2007 at 10:55 AM #

    branjawn, i live in Rochester, NY, where are you at? btw, i get espn360 via Frontier DSL.

  17. beowolf 09/01/2007 at 10:58 AM #

    Dammit, BJD, that nailed it.

    Lone gunmen at a football game – NC State tailgating is shameful and out of control. Lone gunman on the VT campus – VT is all of a sudden “America’s team”.

  18. crackdog 09/01/2007 at 11:09 AM #

    The sad thing is that the gunman incident at State was much more controllable- add a few more cops patrolling the trinity fairgrounds lot, just to look out for trouble, and this probably could have been prevented. That lot had been the source of most incidents at State games for at least half a decade. It was bad when I got to State in 97, and worse when I graduated (the second time) in 03.

  19. noah 09/01/2007 at 12:03 PM #

    The incident at VT was a horrible tragedy. So…why would I want to relive it??

    My god….MOVE ON. It’s like this 9/11 memorial service that’s going to be in Raleigh this year. Why on earth would I want to relive one of the most frightening days of my life? Does anyone honestly think that ANYONE has forgotten that day???

    We need the Marshall football coach to grab a bullhorn and get up on a pedestal.

    “The funerals stop today.”

  20. PurplePeopleEaters 09/01/2007 at 12:12 PM #

    PackerinRussia,

    Thanks for the help. I figured out how to get 360 and if all goes well i’ll be watching the game tonight.

  21. Pack92 09/01/2007 at 12:28 PM #

    Guys, is anyone else having trouble getting the Verizon link to work? I registered no problem but 360 is not wanting to load. I have the pirates of TWC in Greensboro for my provider and just wondered if they are blocking it somehow.

  22. McPete 09/01/2007 at 12:51 PM #

    I had no problems, other than needing a plug-in for the video player. This is pretty sweet. The Wofford game in a couple of weeks will also be on Espn360. And if you can’t watch live, it looks like you can replay it later.

  23. noah 09/01/2007 at 1:16 PM #

    I imagine that ESPN360 is going to close this hole by the Wofford game.

    App State and Michigan tied at 14. ECU with the lead over VPI (who looks awful).

  24. PurplePeopleEaters 09/01/2007 at 1:32 PM #

    Try using internet explorer instead of firefox. If that doesnt fix it then its something on your end.

  25. GAWolf 09/01/2007 at 3:08 PM #

    App doint this year what they came close to doing to us. And honestly, they whipped out butts up and down the field last year but somehow we won.

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