Sorry for pushing this interesting entry down a notch, but wanted to post this today (before it got too stale) after working on it last night. Don’t want to push to gameday because I’ll be traveling this afternoon and tomorrow.
- Cincinnati comes in Thursday night at 1-1 after collapsing against Fresno and pulling away from Indiana State in the second half. I always look for those ‘interesting nuggets’ where there are relationships to NC State. Not much related to the Bearcats, in part because their program has only recently taken huge steps into the national eye. I guess the most interesting thing is that Chuck Amato was lobbying for the head job in Cincinnati a few years ago upon his exit from NC State. As much as I appreciate what Coach Amato did for NC State, one can’t complain with their pick, eh? – Brian Kelly? …who was able to lead the previously dormant program to both the Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl in the last two years.
- A couple of related items/links of interest:
- WV Wolf sets the statistical table for you with this look at NC State Football by the numbers.
- TJFoose is leading a ‘pre-game’ look at Cincy on this thread on the SFN Message Boards.
- Special teams was a major concern before the season…and, Saturday left us reeling. On the bright side – we got two kickoffs into the end zone; that is two more than we got last year. But, in addition to allowing kick-off return for a touchdown (giving UCF their first points), WV Wolf pointed out that our punting vs UCF got worse as the game went on, including a 20 yarder in the 3rd quarter and a 14 yarder in the 4th. This can kill a team. The following is our punting average per quarter:
1st quarter: 40.5
2nd quarter: 37.03rd quarter: 34.0
4th quarter: 26.7
- I understand that some students might have gotten the ‘genius’ idea to try to get fans to support a ‘Black out’ for the Cincy game. Really? Please tell me the logic behind wanting to wear the primary color of the opponent team?! Evidently there also some push for a ‘red out’. Sheesh. Who can keep up?
- I’m concerned about this one, but I’ve got to have faith in the homefield advantage, right? IMHO, 24 points continues to be the magic number for Wolfpack…and, I am hoping the defense as evolved to a point where we can manage Cincy below that. I’m going NC State 30 and Cincinnati 24.
- I wouldn’t be a true Texans fan if I didn’t quickly throw out a shout out for what the boys did on Sunday and the optimism it has bred in Houston!! Former NC State linebacker, Frank Bush, is coordinating a defense that is coming into its own and hopefully can match the offense’s strengths. Of course, it all revolves around former Wolfpacker, Mario Williams who had a monster game on Sunday.
- I encourage you to click here for an interesting look back at Mario’s draft. Very interesting and worth some time.
Lastly, I’ve got a personal note for ‘internet junkies’ —
Last week, a longtime NC State buddy of mine called and made a reference to an email someone sent to him about what I was saying on Pack Pride’s message boards. I was pretty shocked since I think I’ve posted once in about a year on the Pack Pride message boards. Even though I’ve known this guy for 15 years – and he, like most everybody knew that my ‘handle’ is/was JB34 – he evidently thought that I was some guy named “Brakk†since my last name is “Brockâ€. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry? I guess this is what I get for being dumb enough to go on the radio to help SFN using my real name.
No harm no foul…until I was having breakfast with a Carolina friend on Tuesday morning who had also picked up the same assumption (evidently from some Carolina message board). Is this serious?
So, I went to Pack Pride’s message boards yesterday and see where this Brakk guy is a friggin machine. Posting all of the time. It’s interesting stuff, to say the least. But…it ain’t me. In fact…it appears that Brakk was posting and carrying on conversations while I was actually being interviewed on the radio last week!! GENIUS!!! LOL!! I may think a lot of my talents…but that is an entirely different stratosphere of multi-tasking!! A few other points about this now that I am getting fired up:
- In addition to having the needs of a wife and two young children under the age of five, I have spent 4 days & nights in New York in addition to trips to quick trips to Arizona, Florida, Raleigh and Atlanta all in the last 21 days. God, what I would give to have the time to eat, sleep, drink college sports and internet message boards!!
- Here is how this internet stuff works – you judge yourself by traffic. I obviously help contribute to the guys at SFN (where I have almost 600 posts on the blog)…not Pack Pride. The guys at SFN want traffic as well, you see. So, even if I were as connected as this Brakk guy…and if I did have that much time on my hands to not only talk to people but post on the internet…the last place I would post it would be to add value and drive traffic to Pack Pride (for a million reasons).
- Quite frankly, I’m not as interested in all of this Carolina stuff as many others. I was on the radio last week and was asked about this editorial that Alpha Wolf wrote (and to which I contributed). My primary thoughts about this scandal revolve around its integrity and consistency. If Holden Thorp, Dick Baddour and others in Chapel Hill want to expose themselves to the risks of NOT having independent investigators, then that is fine with me. I just can’t understand taking the career risk that they could potentially ‘close’ an investigation and then have something that you missed hit the public domain. Doesn’t make for a good career. That’s all.
- If for some reason you want to talk to or about me, then please feel free to send an email to [email protected] and they will forward it to me. Otherwise, I would ask that you consider being factually correct about anything you say about anyone on the internet or you run quite a few risks that you may not have considered.
