NC State vs South Carolina Game Thread & Special Spy Pictures from Columbia

'09 Football20

We want to thank our spies in Columbia, South Carolina who were kind enough to send us this never before seen picture of the South Carolina Gamecocks’ bus rolling towards Raleigh. Thanks so much (to our Clemson friends!)

usc-bus-leaving-for-raleigh

I find it interesting that the Wolfpack started the week a -3.5 point favorite and saw that line extend all the way to -5.5 points prior to currently settling in at -5 points. Let’s hope that those folks know what they are talking about!

As always, feel free to discuss the game here while it is in progress; but we have also opened an entry on our new Message Boards for game discussion.

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'09 Football

20 Responses to NC State vs South Carolina Game Thread & Special Spy Pictures from Columbia

  1. packbackr04 09/03/2009 at 3:09 PM #

    is the game a white out tonight?

  2. StateFans 09/03/2009 at 3:11 PM #

    ^ For the students

  3. Alpha Wolf 09/03/2009 at 3:13 PM #

    ^ White outs and the like are done so often now, it seems kind of de rigeur. Wish we were doing another card thing. That would look great on national TV.

  4. StateFans 09/03/2009 at 3:18 PM #

    USC will most definitely be the team wearing more white tonight. So, I didn’t quite understand the rationale behind our students doing a ‘white out’.

  5. Texpack 09/03/2009 at 3:25 PM #

    Growing up in South Carolina always made this game and the Klempson game the two biggest of the year for me. Now that I have a couple of “SEC is the greatest” co-workers, this has again become a very big game. If we are able to move the chains and garner 35 minutes in time of possession, we should win going away.

  6. Rick 09/03/2009 at 3:50 PM #

    I am hoping Baker plays well and does not get hurt again.

  7. highstick 09/03/2009 at 5:12 PM #

    I hope Clempson falls on it’s face again, and again, and again and finally gets caught cheating, again!!

  8. Broccoman 09/03/2009 at 7:00 PM #

    UCF-caliber start.

  9. CStanley 09/03/2009 at 7:05 PM #

    Nice call Rick.

    Dammit.

  10. CStanley 09/03/2009 at 7:18 PM #

    Man, we look really shaky right now.

  11. VaWolf82 09/03/2009 at 7:30 PM #

    There’s alot more traffic in the game thread in the forums. I recommend that you go there to share your comments.

  12. BSIE80 09/03/2009 at 9:59 PM #

    Fire TOB now.
    we suck.

  13. WolftownVA81 09/03/2009 at 10:02 PM #

    Nothing positive to say…….I’m going to bed.

  14. PoppaJohn 09/03/2009 at 10:13 PM #

    Very poor showing. Poor fundementals, outcoached … totally outclassed.
    If I didn’t know better I’d think they were the basketball team.

  15. FunPack 09/03/2009 at 10:28 PM #

    Well. That was remarkably bad. The only thing worse than our receivers was our offensive line. The O line never looked particularly good, but once Vermiglio went out it was like a Chinese fire drill in the backfield with SC defenders running wild every which way. I probably shouldn’t single out certain players, since none of them distinguished themselves, but Barbee was scary bad. And Wallace was definitely in over his head. The replacement left tackle (fortunately I’ve already gone blank on his name) rivaled Barbee for slowest feet ever on a Div 1A player. If this group doesn’t improve dramatically we are in for a long no-fun season. We may need to think about playing the younger guys who will be needed next year. They might f-k up a lot, but at least they’d do it at a faster speed than the current line can muster.

    Defense wasn’t great but they didn’t embarrass themselves. Meh.

  16. packk 09/03/2009 at 10:39 PM #

    Fun Pack – you said it all. I did not expect our defense to show up more than the offense tonight. Maybe all the hype was bad karma. I don’t know. I was so excited for football – starting in May – despite me telling myself that I should not get my hopes up. Was it nerves on Wilson’s part or does our o-line suck that bad. Meh is right.

  17. statemech2010 09/03/2009 at 10:45 PM #

    Well guys, this is my 4th season as a student. Forget it. I’m done. I just want my degree and I’m going to get the hell out of here.

  18. ChiefJoJo 09/03/2009 at 11:08 PM #

    I’m disappointed in the offense and especially the OL. Russell didn’t have much time to throw, and when he did, too many drops at key times. Certainly SC has a great defense and that had a lot to do with our lack of offensive production. The only defenses we play this year that might be on par or better are FSU and VT, so this game will help us.

    The defense really hung in there and kept it close. You really can’t ask too much more from them, considering they really were put in some tough spots and only gave up the 7 pts only after Baker’s opening fumble inside the 15 (which was a momentum killer).

    What was up with the no call on the obvious Cash holding (1st half?) and the ridiculous no call on the Rashard Smith punt return? Maybe the worst non-facemask call I’ve ever seen.

    Big plays we didn’t make that could have made a big difference:
    *Wilson’s 1st half deep pass to TJ, should have led him to the right, not left where the DB could make a play on it; if he led him to the right, we would have completed it for 50 yards at least.
    *lineman down field penalty in the 2nd qtr (I think) where we were inside our own 15 or so and Russell completed it to the 40 to Spencer. That was a drive killer.
    * the 4Q drop by Jay Smith in the end zone. He wasn’t wide open, but should have come up with it.

    I have pretty good seats, so I had a good view of the players and action. Despite us having our chances to win, SC is probably a slightly better team. They have a bit more team speed and are much more physical overall than we are. We can still have a very good season, but if we can’t score a TD on SC, I don’t think winning the division is a strong possibility.

  19. SaccoV 09/03/2009 at 11:08 PM #

    The frustration level is understandably high tonight, given the overall performance. A few things to highlight from my perspective:

    1) Offensive play calling was horrible. My understanding going into this season was our offensive line was good enough to have a manageable running game. That never surfaced. And considering that South Carolina had an “inexperienced” defensive line, NC State has three capable running backs, why did a run-first mentality not prevail, even after halftime?

    2) Defense played very well considering their circumstances. Their second time on the field they were down at their own 20 (basically). The defense was helped by some mistakes on South Carolina, but held when they needed to. Only giving up 7 points when at least three drives began on your defensive half of the field, that’s pretty good. There is still much room for improvement, most notably tackling … which leads to the next point.

    3) Tackling was the worst I’ve seen in years. This is not something that should be lost on college-level players. When good tackles were made, gains were nullified. It appeared to me that Alan-Michael Cash was one of the few defenders who tackled the ball carrier when he put his hands on him.

    4) Speed (or lack thereof). I am horribly disappointed with State’s appearance in the speed category. I was never under the assumption that State was some speedy bunch waiting to break out … I just didn’t expect that almost everything State did on both sides of the ball was slow. I agree (for once) with the ESPN crew, the disparity of speed was so wide, that you really can’t tell if State was just playing with tar on their shoes or South Carolina is really that much faster.

    5) (and final one I promise) I thought Chuck Amato had left. This team played like a Chuck Amato team. Mistakes, penalties, dropped passes, missed assignments, etc. My father, my brother and I all noticed that this team hasn’t looked this inept since RedShoes. The bottom line is, everyone wanted to step up in this game on a national stage. They didn’t, and not only did the players NOT step up, the coaching staff also appeared to miss key moments where momentum could have been shifted. Many of us will be talking about the non-call on the facemask. It was clearly horrible. Here’s the real story. We had the ball on their side of the 50 despite not getting the call. We couldn’t even get into field goal range.

    Final analysis:
    When you make the mistakes that State made, you aren’t going to win. I fully expect State to bounce back from this and give a much better showing over the next two weeks, because even most of the blind folks I know could see their performance was underwhelming.

    Postscript: I’ve never hated Tony Haynes more in my life. It sounded to me like Russell was getting pissed with Tony’s ridiculous interview.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. south carolina vs nc state | Latest News | Hot News | Recent News - 09/03/2009

    7hyCKy Thanks-a-mundo for the article.Really looking forward to read more. Cool.

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