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. DirtyCap 09/23/2011 at 3:42 PM #

    Long Time Reader, First Time Poster:

    Is it possible to finally get Bill Cowher, and I mean make a serious play for him? If not, can we at least bring back Norm Chow and give him a Head Coaching job that he deserves?

  2. runwiththepack 09/23/2011 at 3:49 PM #

    Adam Gold on 99.9:

    “If you make a list of all the things that are keeping Tom O’B awake at night, Glennon is not on that list. The O-line, the….”

    Later:
    “Wilson pushed out of NCSU for the highly popular Mike Glennon”. hahaha. get it?

  3. Bellyfullasoul 09/23/2011 at 3:53 PM #

    In my opinion this season was lost when O’Brien decided that “his” team did not need their leader even when their leader wanted to come back and play football. Russell Wilson was the leader of this team for the past 3 years and “his” team looked to him and relied on him in the clutch. That being said, Glennon is a great QB too, just doesn’t have the leadership skills. This team is lackluster in their effort and obviously lackluster in their preparation when I see defensive players huffing for a breather with hands on their hips after one series. EVERYTHING is not working here. I think without Wilson it would’ve looked alot like this last year. Wilson was covering up a lot holes in our system that are glaring this season. Thanks a lot TOB…..Go Badgers! Our season is over.

  4. JasonP 09/23/2011 at 4:16 PM #

    ryebread – when I talk about a coach with passion, it doesn’t necessarily mean fiery or brash. Plenty of head coach’s out there who are passionate about the game, about teaching and developing players, and just enjoy what they do. I don’t think TOB fits into any of those categories. He looks like he’s cruisin’ to me. Going to collect that check and sail into retirement at the beach. If you watched Cincy’s sidelines last night, their HC is passionate (and I’m not endorsing him as our next HC), and is involved in getting his players motivated. No need for red shoes or fancy shades – just a desire to get the most out of your team. We don’t have that right now as you saw at the end of the WF game, and at half time yesterday evening when TOB shrugged his shoulders about 3 times during his little q&a before heading to the locker room.

  5. Tuffy2 09/23/2011 at 6:00 PM #

    I will state this again like I have in the past but, TOB is just looking forward to his beach house.

    As far as Glennon, yes he is only played 4 games but he will not develop under this coaching staff. He looks to the WR he is going to throw to the entire time he has the ball in his hands. He relies on his strong arm too much and that combination will cause INT. You can talk about the OL all you want and they should not be given a pass on the situation but, as long as the coaching staff thinks all is ok with MG and there is nothing to fix there then maybe they all need to move to the beach real soon.

  6. ryebread 09/23/2011 at 6:01 PM #

    JasonP: Maybe you’re right. I don’t know how much passion TOB has. His demeanor has been identical for the 8+ years that I’ve seen him coach at NC State and at BC. When he first arrived, fans said he was a cool Marine who didn’t get flustered and that was a sign of great leadership. Now he’s an old man who is in cruise control and who doesn’t have enough passion for the game.

    I think it’s the nature of fans. If it’s not working, find the things we don’t like and pine for the opposite. We did the same with Amato.

    The bottom line is winning. He’s had losing seasons 3 out of 4 years and he appears to be on his way to a 4th in 5 years. Fans can only be expected to be patient for so long.

    The other problem is expectations. TOB has been a master of minimizing expectations in the preseason and offseason. Unfortunately, he didn’t do that this year — if anything he encouraged them.

    He also made a “do or die” type decision with respect to Wilson. When he ran him off, he was standing behind Glennon and stating that the product around Glennon was good enough that his inexperience wasn’t really going to matter. That meant that the defense, special teams and rest of the offense were going to be good enough to overcome the fact that we had an inexperienced QB. If it worked out, then that was great, but if we stumbled, there would be people screaming. For the record, I don’t think RW would have won that game last night. I don’t think we’re losing because of Glennon. I do think we’d have kept it a lot closer.

    That doesn’t matter though. TOB made a polarizing decision by not handling it well and lost a huge percentage of the fanbase over it. I’ll admit that he lost me right there. I’m still pulling for NC State as always, but I’ve got no love lost for TOB and have given up on giving him the benefit of the doubt (which we’ve been asked to do a LOT given all the blow out losses in his tenure).

    With a rocky start, more are coming off the bandwagon. Eventually more fans will potentially be off the bandwagon than on, and a coach is in trouble. It doesn’t matter why the fans get off the bandwagon, or even if they are right in their reasoning. All that matters is that they’re off. If this season turns into the train wreck that it appears we are heading for, then I think it will be TOB’s last. In year 5, that’s the nature of things.

  7. mak4dpak 09/23/2011 at 8:24 PM #

    On National TV, and we sucked! MG, RW, didn’t matter, we were gonna lose regardless. Defense was horrific! Archer is a joke, and really beginning to second guess our HC. And to think we could have had Paul Johnson, and who do we have to thank for that. Good ole Foulup(Fowler). At least we are rid of him. But TOB will need to go too, if he can not accept that some of his staff are clearly out of their league. Namely Archer/Bible. Can he not fire these losers. Change is needed now. And guess who is coming to town, that same Paul Johnson we passed over for the excitable TOB. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG season!

  8. MISTA WOLF 09/23/2011 at 9:52 PM #

    A F’N MEN BELLY. Well said.

  9. Pack1998 09/23/2011 at 10:00 PM #

    We are not a good football team. Obvious.

    I really like TOB, but it is damn hard to support him in year 5 with losses like Wake and Cincy.

    Defense makes me the most disappointed – even with the injuries it should be better.

    I think we win 6 games total — (Central Michigan, UVA, UNC, BC) — that is enough to appease people. TOB to get rid of Archer in the offseason (if we lose to Central Michigan he’ll have to fire him mid-seaon). Next year the team could win 8-9 games. Unless TOB catches fire with a defense he’ll never win the ACC.

    And . . .You ain’t getting rid of TOB this year, that is not a decision on the table. He won 9 games last year and had a ton of injuries this season on defense with a 2-2 record. He’d have to only win 3 or 4 games to get fired and I still think it is tough . . and we’re NC State, we ain’t ‘Bama. We don’t even play ‘Bama.

  10. Par Shooter 09/24/2011 at 8:58 AM #

    The TOB era is unofficially over at NC State. After a 70 point drubbing by GT and a loss to Central Michigan I think it’s possible that it will be made official during the bye week. He’s a dead man walking at this point – it’s just when and not if. What is so ironic is that he made the QB decision as much about next year as this year but he’ll never see next year.

  11. packalum44 09/24/2011 at 10:08 AM #

    Go after Skip Holtz, and pray, just pray, that he has no other options and his father doesn’t talk him out of it.

  12. MickQ 09/24/2011 at 11:15 AM #

    It is obvious that Phillip Rivers and Russell Wilson ran the teams they had, both on and off the field. They were the leaders, not TOB. Time for a change. It is tough to be a Wolfpack fan year after year.

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