Friday Farrago

'11 Football ACC & Other College Football112

September 23, 2011

NC STATE FOOTBALL

ncsu helmet

J.P. GIGLIO (N&O)
Wolfpack deflated in Cincinnati loss

If it could go wrong for N.C. State on Thursday night, it did.

Cincinnati turned the national showcase game on ESPN against the Wolfpack into a national embarrassment with a 44-14 bludgeoning at Nippert Stadium.

N.C. State (2-2) was hoping for a bounce-back from a loss in its first game against a major Division I opponent this season. Instead it took a step back with a barrage of turnovers and mental miscues.
“Any time you lose like that, it’s an embarrassing loss,” senior linebacker Audie Cole said.

The stat to best sum up N.C. State’s performance? Minus-19 rushing yards, compared to 242 for the Bearcats (3-1).

J.P. GIGLIO (N&O)
Observations

N.C. State has major issues on defense but it clearly misses running back Mustafa Greene. The Wolfpack had minus-21 rushing yards in the first half of Thursday night’s game at Cincinnati.

Take away Mike Glennon’s negative yards for sacks, and Curtis Underwood (four carries, 3 yards) and James Washington (two carries, minus-1 yard) still could barely break positive yardage.

Akula Wolf (BackingthePack.com)
Cincinnati 44, NC State 14

Eventually Rece Davis had to bring up what he termed the “elephant in the room,” though the references to said elephant didn’t come nearly as often as I would have guessed beforehand. Let’s bear one thing in mind before this spirals out of control, because the Russell Wilson ordeal was the big news of the off-season and will be the overriding topic throughout the rest of 2011: you remember when Russell Wilson was here and we had a defense that was awful? NC State won a total of five games, two of which came against I-AA teams. We’re going to hear about how much Wilson could help this team, and I love him and I’m sure he could, but I’m not going to sleep tonight worrying about the quarterback position, and neither should you. Shit’s hitting the fan much harder in many other places.

GoPack.com
Pack Falls at Cincinnati 44-14

NC State entered tonight’s game with two red-shirt senior defensive linemen on the sidelines and a third defensive lineman back home in Raleigh. By halftime, one more was down (Brian Slay) and another was hobbled (A.J. Ferguson). Starting weakside linebacker Terrell Manning also missed tonight’s game after undergoing knee surgery on Monday.

Senior Audie Cole’s 15 tackles on the night marks a new single-game best for the linebacker.

Sophomore cornerback David Amerson picked off his fourth pass of the season in the second quarter tonight. He entered the contest leading the ACC and tied for second nationally with one per game and now has more picks than any other player in the FBS ranks.

TheWolfpacker.com
Cincinnati crushes Pack

Matt Carter (TheWolfpacker.com)
Quick Hits from NCSU’s loss at Cincinnati

That was bad

No way to beat around it or spin it. NC State got whooped on a nationally televised game. The Pack got spanked on the line of scrimmage, and no stat tells that better than the rushing yards. NC State ran for negative-26 yards net. The longest gain was a 12-yard scramble from redshirt junior quarterback Mike Glennon. NC State quarterbacks were sacked seven times. This was the first time that State had been held to negative yards since they were stopped for negative-13 yards against South Carolina in 1987.

For the Bearcats, that was the third lowest rushing total they ever allowed and the fewest since negative-34 yards against Wichita State in 1974. Cincinnati meanwhile rushed for 240 yards and gave up just one sack. NC State never once reached the red zone and allowed Cincinnati to convert 9 of 16 third downs, which has clearly emerged as a significant problem for the Pack this year.

TheWolfpacker.com
Cincinnati locker room report

On their first punt changing things:

“That was a big play. Even though we gave up the PI to give them the first down, still the field position was critical. I thought that was a big part of the game with Pat’s (O’Donnell) punt. Obviously we answered the call and we were very opportunistic again on defense which is great. I thought our defensive front did a great job of applying pressure and we knew we couldn’t let him sit back in the pocket, he is too good of a quarterback. We needed to disrupt their rhythm of their timing and their throw game and our defensive front did a good job.”

Tim Sullivan (TheWolfpacker.com)
Cincinnati dominates NCSU, 44-14

A career day for wide receiver T.J. Graham was spoiled when his seven catches for 176 yards was not enough production for NC State to avoid a 44-14 loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats.

“I don’t look at the numbers at all,” said Graham. “I’d rather win. I’d rather catch zero balls, make a couple blocks, and win the game. I had a couple drops and I had a fumble that was recovered by the defense, so I didn’t have a very good day.”

Packpride.com
BOX SCORE: Cincinnati 44, NC State 14

Associated Press
Pack Falls To Bearcats, 44-14

About 1.21 Jigawatts

Class of '98, Mechanical Engineer, State fan since arriving on campus and it's been a painful ride ever since. I live by the Law of NC State Fandom, "For every Elation there is an equal and opposite Frustration."

'11 Football ACC & Other College Football

112 Responses to Friday Farrago

  1. LifeLongWolf 09/23/2011 at 8:28 AM #

    @BJD: HA! I agree with DRW. I pride myself on a realistic pessimism based on years of having my hopes and dreams crushed, but you have me beat by a mile!

  2. wolfpack95 09/23/2011 at 8:46 AM #

    Our strength and conditioning is horrid.
    No team in the country has endured more injuries than ours during TOB’s tenure.
    Player development, where is it? Because I certainly can’t see any progress.
    Coaching? Abhorrent. I HAVE seen better coached high school teams.

    We have three more possible wins this year: UVA, BC & Central Michigan. That’s it. This team is most likely another losing effort.

    Simply pathetic.

  3. tuckerdorm1983 09/23/2011 at 8:46 AM #

    the sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar on tomorrow,
    tomorrow, tomorrow, your only a day a away

  4. gotohe11carolina 09/23/2011 at 8:51 AM #

    We need to face it guys, TOB is HWSNBN in football.

  5. hammerpack 09/23/2011 at 8:53 AM #

    This just in…we suck.

  6. hammerpack 09/23/2011 at 8:53 AM #

    We probably won’t win another game either.

  7. johnwolfpack2003 09/23/2011 at 8:57 AM #

    ^^^^
    http://youtu.be/Yop62wQH498
    She’s even wearing red and white.

  8. GoldenChain 09/23/2011 at 9:00 AM #

    Gawd I love being a Pack-fan!
    This is the reason I chided those suggesting applying to the SEC; I prefer to live my embarrassment in seclusion in front of 40 or 50,000 people rather than to tens of millions on national TV every week! No amount of money can compensate for what I (we) suffered last night.

  9. Wulfpack 09/23/2011 at 9:05 AM #

    I just wante something new – something to get excited about. I’m tired of this vanilla approach to football. Look around the country – everyone is mixing it up on offense. We’re stuck in a time warp, and the good players are choosing to go elsewhere.

    It is abundantly clear to me RW masked a lot of our problems. Glennon has some skills, but he’s slow and zones in on one guy far too often. He’s going to throw a ton of pics this year. He also has no escapability in the pocket – just a sitting duck. Not pinning the loss on him by any means, but he’s not the savior.

    Time for a change. Butch Jones would be a good first look. Love the way he coaches. Cincy is headed in the right direction. We clearly aren’t. The tables have totally turned in 1 year. We suck.

  10. NCStatePride 09/23/2011 at 9:06 AM #

    Bad news, GC… we were the only east coast game on TV on a Thursday night. Trust me, I know exactly how it would feel to be in the SEC right now…

    I’ve already told my boss to shut-the-hell-up and not talk about the game. Ha.

  11. ncsu1987 09/23/2011 at 9:11 AM #

    Really tired of the injury excuses. There’s a tendency to say “coaches have no control over injuries” and just give them a blanket pass. But four games into the fifth season, we need answers:

    1) Why does NC State consistently continue to have an “unusual” number of injuries every year? Is it conditioning (or lack thereof)? Is it coaching? Ex: our defense is REALLY bad. I’m not a football expert, but when even I can see that players are consistently out of position, it’s bad. Does being out of position and constantly having to attempt direction change contribute to injury probability/severity?

    2) And when we have these injuries, why do we plunge from mediocre to “Oh Dear God”? Here, all I can think of is recruiting, recruiting, recruiting…

    Defensive coaching and recruiting.

  12. SMD 09/23/2011 at 9:14 AM #

    BJD is merely stating what the data shows. I did some rough adding of the numbers. I am 42 years old and have had season tickets every year since I was 8, in 1977. So I’ve got 34 years of Wolfpack football under my belt.

    In that span of 34 years, we’ve won 7 or more games in 13 seasons, and have won 9 or more games (not including the bowl) a whopping 3 times. (91, 92 and 02)

    What’s the old quote from AZ Cardinals Coach Dennis Green? “We are who we thought we were.”

  13. JeremyH 09/23/2011 at 9:17 AM #

    The defensive injuries I guess I can understand, but it doesn’t reflect good recruiting if you lose one running back to injury, that you have no running game.

  14. GoldenChain 09/23/2011 at 9:18 AM #

    SMD, the problem is that too many think we’re more than who we are.

    Part of the issue with RBs is the fact we have no OLmen, that’s also why we allow so many sacks (i.e. thus TOs).

    Every season we have a ton of injuries before the ball is teed for the 1st game…why is that?

  15. nuclearwolf07 09/23/2011 at 9:21 AM #

    Wish I had job security like Archer. Laying an egg season after season and still getting to make the calls? Sign me up.

  16. nuclearwolf07 09/23/2011 at 9:21 AM #

    Wish I had job security like Archer. Laying an egg season after season and still getting to make the calls? Sign me up.

  17. ryebread 09/23/2011 at 9:22 AM #

    Quick Thoughts?
    – I figured we’d lose. I didn’t think we’d get destroyed.
    – Our OL is horrible. They’ve been horrible every year under TOB. We’re in year 5 and these are his players. This was supposed to be his strength. This is the single most telling thing to me that something is seriously wrong.
    – We’re so one dimensional on offense because we create zero push on the ground. We also line up a light back behind it that needs space to operate. This is a woefully bad combination. I can’t blame Bible for throwing when we can barely rush to the line of scrimmage.
    – I’m pleasantly surprised by Glennon, our young kicking game, Graham and the Underwoods. The rest of this season has been a train wreck so far.
    – The defense is just atrocious. Archer should have never been hired from day 1 and I don’t expect TOB to make a change. We’ll have him until TOB retires. At the same time, I wonder what the heck Tenuta is doing (besides calling blitzes every single play and delayed blitzes on 3rd and long).
    – We had virtually zero margin of error last night and had 5-6 major mistakes in the first couple of offensive and defensive series. Our team wasn’t ready to play.
    – Our recruiting is awful and it shows on the field. For those asking, I think we were dead last in the ACC this past season. That means it isn’t getting better any time soon regardless of who is coaching.
    – Our strength and conditioning looks terrible. Compare and contrast a 4th year player in Callestros with a 4th year player in Glennon. Do the same for the RBs. One team looked like football players and the other did not. I’ve said this from season number two and think this has had a huge factor on all the injuries we’ve seen.
    – TOB got blasted again. He’s had as many bad losses in his tenure here as MOC. For all that we slam Amato for, I think he only had about five games that he lost by more than 13 points. We might have 5 this season alone.
    – Someone made a HWSNBN comparison with TOB. I WISH that TOB were as good as HWSNBN. I thought we hired HWSNBN and was a little upset, but if that were the case we’d be going 7-5 to 8-4 every season, going 3-1 non conference (loss to the only good team) and around 4-4 to 5-3 in conference and losing our bowl game. I wish we’d had that type of “success.” We’re in year 5 and despite playing some extremely weak teams in the non-conference, TOB’s record is exactly .500. It feels to me like we’ve hired Dennis Erickson.
    – The smartest thing LF ever did was lifetime rights. If it weren’t for that, we’d be looking at a lot of empty seats this season.
    – TOB’s NC State teams have been horrible in September and this season is no different. We look like we’re in desperate need of the bye week and a chance to regroup.
    – Unless the kids get healthy and things improve drastically, this is going to get really ugly. As of right now, I only see about 3 more winnable games on the schedule (BC, CMU and possibly UVA). End up with a losing season and I think that TOB retires.
    – Finally, watching the basketball search and knowing how “even a great coach like TOB can’t win at NC State,” I am not looking forward to a football coaching search.

  18. wingatewolf 09/23/2011 at 9:26 AM #

    A few months ago, I had a chance to visit with a guy that played under O’Brien at UVA. I won’t name names but this guy was a great player and is well respected at UVA. I asked him what he thought of TOB and would he take NCSU to the next level. He told me that TOB was a great X’s and O’s guy but did NOT think he is a good head coach. He said he never was that impressed with him.

    This concerns me when we see a flat, out of shape football team. Yes injuries occur but why so many under TOB? We have gotten slower as a team and for all the talk of the “magnificent” O-line success at BC why doesn’t that translate into it in year 5.

    I always will be with a Pack fan and will always want any coach we have to succeed. It just became too apparent to me last night that not only will we be a 4-8 football team this year but we will most likely never hit 9 wins again under TOB. The recruiting the last 2 years is weak and I don’t see it getting better this year.

  19. BladenWolf 09/23/2011 at 9:33 AM #

    I was one of those that predicted a 5-6 record this year. I was foolishly over confident it seems. We might win the Central Michigan game for a 3-8 finish. UNX will beat us soundly at Carter Finley this year and that game will open a lot of eyes about the state of Wolfpack Football.
    I think the injury bug excuse is not working anymore either. I realize we had depleted ranks last night, but all teams go through injuries as part of football, but others seem to be able to handle it because of better conditioning or either hand off to competent backups. We have neither option.
    We tackle at the shoulders instead of hitting the hips and driving through the man. We are out of position constantly or don’t converge on the ballcarrier when we should. Basics. That comes from coaching and TOB needs to either get it done or DY needs to pull the plug. I’ve supported TOB in the past, but he can’t win on the road, his coaching staff has big problems he has not been quick to correct, and he doesn’t adjust well when the other team has figured us out. We “just keep chopping wood”. Uh oh…
    Given his reputation of developing big NFL OLinemen…where are they? Our OL looked like swiss cheese last night. Wilson was able to scramble and make teams pay, but if Glennon doesn’t have a pocket, he is a (slow) sitting duck. TOB has had enough time and should have our program in much better shape than it is in. If this season continues on it’s current trajectory, it may well be his last one.

  20. CPT_Pack 09/23/2011 at 9:34 AM #

    Yes, Archer needs to go, but am I the only one that sees horrible play calling by Dana Bible? How many times can we run it up the middle?
    On another note, I agree with HungWolf, Glennon will need to get experience in seeing the entire field and not keying in on one receiver. The defense can read him like a book.
    I guess in practice, if your playing against our offense, the defense feels pretty confident. Our O-line can hardly (actually usually don’t) keep the pocket open for Glennon.
    As much as I like TOB’s team discipline, he doesn’t seem to be getting done after all this time. We really need a recruiter, and we’re definitely going to be bringing in good players with games like last night.

  21. NelsonHall97 09/23/2011 at 9:39 AM #

    TOB & Company are class acts on and off the field. That is a tremendous asset to State. However, he also gets paid to put an exciting product on the field and to at least win more games than he loses. Hell, we have a cupcake or two every year, so we should be over 50% in the win colunm. Guess what…we won’t be there by end of the season. That is not getting done. His supposed strengths are his current weaknesses in his 5th year of running the program (now with his players). Time to look elsewhere.

    I have not even thought about what coaches are out there who could take our program up a notch. I know BJD does’t think anyone can win at State, and I’m not really convinced one way or the other yet. I bet Skip Holtz could do well here as long as ND doesn’t want to change coaches.

  22. rtpack24 09/23/2011 at 9:43 AM #

    Injuries are part of football. In year 5 we should be two deep at every position. I watched a poorly coached team on both sides of the ball last night. I will say I am impressed with the freshman punter and kicker. If we do not have major improvement this week, GT is going to light up our scoreboard.

  23. Wolfacct 09/23/2011 at 9:44 AM #

    After watching last night’s performance by our O-Line, serious consideration should be given to red-shirting Mustafa this season. No running back could be successful behind that line.

  24. TruthBKnown Returns 09/23/2011 at 9:45 AM #

    No excuses. This was about as bad and ugly as it gets. Now we (ok, *I*) know we’re really bad. I don’t even care to analyze it because there’s not really a need to.

    We were bad, and if the ball could take a bad bounce, it did. But even if the ball had bounced “right” we were still going to lose quite easily.

    Here were a few “bad bounces” that I’d like to highlight. Note that I’m not making excuses for the loss. It’s just easier to focus on the “bad luck” than the bad play and bad coaching right now, while the wounds are still fresh.

    1) We forced a fumble on a great defensive play. Couldn’t recover it. Next play went for 20-30 yards on a pass. Just our luck.

    2) A would-be interception landed in one of our defenders’ hands. If he catches in stride, and he should have, he’s likely gone for a TD.

    3) A punt was tantalizingly close to being blocked. It rolled forward and ended up being a 76 yard punt.

    4) We stopped them on 3rd and 5. It would have been a FG attempt. But a stupid defender continues rampaging through the line and nails the QB well after the ball was thrown. Late hit. Personal foul. First down. Next play (I think?) was a touchdown.

    This was all in the first half. I didn’t watch the second half. I kept tabs on it. If we got back into the game, I would have rewound it and watched it. It was too ugly for me to waste my time watching it.

    Again, this bad luck is NOT why we lost. Not even close. These things just made the ugliness all the more complete. We had chances to get back in the game, but didn’t capitalize. And once we were out of the game, nothing we could do was going to help. It was over in the first quarter.

    Our offense is unimaginative and vanilla. Dana Bible probably should be replaced at the end of the season (sorry coach, I know you beat a deadly disease, but we need someone that can do a better job with the offensive play calling. It is truly… offensive.

    Our defense speaks for itself. I know we have injuries to several key starters, but in TOB’s fifth season, it should NOT be this bad. Even with a few injuries. Mike Archer needs to be fired TODAY (only since he was apparently not fired LAST NIGHT after the game). He has put nothing but bad defenses on the field since he arrived, and well, throughout his career.

    I say TOB saves his job for another day on TWO conditions:

    1) Mike Archer is fired midseason (first choice), or at worst case, at season’s end. Tenuta should be the DC.

    2) Dana Bible is replaced at season’s end. I say that only because if we fired him right now, who would replace him for the rest of the season? Plus, the top priority should be firing Archer right now. And I don’t think we can take firing BOTH of the top coordinators midseason.

  25. JasonP 09/23/2011 at 9:46 AM #

    I hope DY sees the complete disinterest this team is clearly showing on the field. TOB was younger when he revitalized BC and got them to be a decent program. He’s old now and unlike an old Lou Holtz at SC, has no fire or passion for the game. That won’t change with a new DC.

    Recruits pick up on that as well, as you can tell by the recent results he’s had. We might be able to beat unc (not expecting to, but it’s possible), and unfortunately that will take away from whatever momentum there might be for a coaching change. Too many good, young coaches out there to remain static with this guy. DY needs to show she’s committed to consistent, winning football.

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