Tuesday Tidbits

NC STATE FOOTBALL

GoPack.com
Wolff Named ACC Defensive Back of the Week

Senior safety Earl Wolff was named the ACC Defensive Back of the Week after his performance in helping the Wolfpack come away with a 10-7 win at Connecticut.

GoPack.com
Carter-Finley Stadium Starts Digital Ticketing

Tickets will now be scanned upon entry in Carter-Finley Stadium. Fans are strongly encouraged to arrive to the stadium gates early as patrons and staff adjust to digital scanning at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Be sure to have your ticket out and ready when approaching the gates. Hold your barcode out at a convenient angle for scanning at the Carter-Finley Stadium gates.

Derek Medlin (WRALSportsfan.com)
Extra Point: Rough weekend for Triangle teams

Offensive line woes continue for Wolfpack
A win is a win is a win, as Joe Ovies pointed out in his Talking Points column, but good grief, NC State’s 10-7 escape job at UConn Saturday afternoon was ugly. NC State’s offense, a week removed from its stop-and-start 21-point output against Tennesee, was uninspired and unimaginative, barely totaling 10 points against the Huskies.
A quick peek at the box score makes the result look even worse than it did on television. The Wolfpack tallied just 12 first downs and averaged a putrid 1.3 yards per rush on 41 attempts. While that average was heavily impacted by Mike Glennon’s -23 yards (the result of six UConn sacks), even Mustafa Greene, NC State’s starter, could only muster 2.8 yards per rush and a long run of nine yards.
Although we’re only two weeks into a long season, it’s time to put NC State’s offensive line on the hot seat. The unit was hurt Saturday by Rob Crisp’s absence, but the loss of one player is no excuse for being awful. At some point, Tom O’Brien’s “history” with offensive line play has to actually become reality in Raleigh. Otherwise, a 6-year-old talking point needs to be adjusted, or even scrapped.

Luckily for NC State, the Wolfpack defense did come to play against the Huskies. Interceptions by Earl Wolff, David Amerson and Brandan Bishop proved to be the difference. Two consecutive home games against South Alabama and Citadel should help the Wolfpack gain some confidence and offensive rhythm. But a second straight head scratcher by Mike Glennon Co. certainly warrants some concern moving toward ACC play.

PackPride.com
Depth Chart: NC State vs. South Alabama

NOTABLE CHANGES
• Sophomore Tyson Chandler is listed as the starter at left tackle. He is backed up by true freshman Quincy McKinney.
• Sophomore Mustafa Greene is listed as the starter at tailback.
• Sophomore Bryan Underwood is now on the depth chart as a reserve wide receiver.

PackPride.com
O’Brien: “We Found A Way”

What can you tweak with Mike Glennon to get him on track?
“It’s three prong. It starts with the protection, it goes to the route running and being in the right spot at the right time and it goes to him and decision making and what he has to do. All three of those aspects have to get better if we’re going to get better throwing the football.

“He’s got to get rid of the ball on some occasions. It’s a combination of everything and it’s something we have to solve and we have to make it work this week.”

Mustafa is listed as the starter this week. How has he progressed in the first two weeks?
“First of all, Mustafa is not back to where he was a year ago. Not close to that, but he still has great vision, he puts his foot in the ground and goes toward the goal line. He can run with power and hit some guys. The more that he plays the more we can get him back to where he was a year ago.

“There still is no real separation except that he’s going to be the starter and the other kids are going to play. Somebody has to separate, I’m not going to play the rest of the year with three tailbacks.”

Andrew Skwara (accsports.com)
ACCSports.com Football Power Rankings, Sept. 10

6. North Carolina (1-1, 0-1)
The Tar Heels didn’t play poorly in a one-point loss at Wake Forest, especially considering running back Gio Bernard was missing with a knee injury. But their funky 4-2-5 defense appears to have some big holes in defending the passing game. The Tar Heels gave up 362 yards through the air, a scary number considering how many good quarterbacks are in this conference.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 5
Next Game: Saturday at Louisville, 3:30 pm

7. Virginia (2-0, 0-0)
Had former Penn State kicker Anthony Fera not been among the 10 players to transfer out this past offseason, the Cavaliers would undoubtedly be 1-1. Instead, shorthanded Penn State missed four field goals and had an extra point blocked in a 17-16 loss in Charlottesville that the Cavaliers had no business winning. If Mike London’s team puts together a similar effort in Atlanta last week, it will lose by an embarrassing margin.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 6
Next Game: Saturday at Georgia Tech, 3:30 pm

8. N.C. State (1-1, 0-0)
It was far from pretty, but the Wolfpack still managed to come up with a 10-7 triumph at Connecticut, avoiding a 0-2 start in the process. Give the defense, which forced four turnovers, kudos for a gutsy performance. But Mike Glennon was sacked six times and the Wolfpack run game continues to struggle.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 8
Next Game: Saturday vs South Alabama, 6 pm

9. Miami (1-1, 1-0)
Opening up with that win at Boston College doesn’t look nearly as good after the way the Hurricanes were dominated by Kansas State. The Canes gave up 52 points and lost by 39. Keep in mind, they didn’t lose any game by more than eight points last year.
Last Week’s Ranking: No. 7
Next Game: Saturday vs Bethune-Cookman, noon

Tommy Hicks (Press-Register)
South Alabama’s Jones looks for improvement heading to N.C. State

Jones said he doesn’t like to make excuses, but he feels part of the trouble the offense experienced against the Colonels was not having had a chance to see any video tape of Nicholls State from this season prior to the game. The Colonels’ scheduled season-opener was postponed, making the game against the Jags their first of the season.

“Not having any film to watch on those games made it pretty difficult on us,” he said. “We were just having to kind of shoot in the dark with them. But the bottom line is, once we got the ball into the red zone we just didn’t punch the ball into the end zone.”

Should that trend continue this week, when the Jags head to Raleigh, N.C., to face the Wolfpack in a 5 p.m. CDT game, it will create a big problem, even if the defense is playing well.

“One thing, you look at them on defense and they are much better up front,” Jones said of the team that beat USA 35-13 last year in the Jags’ first-ever game against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent . “They’ve got some good lineman on defense and they are very athletic. That’s the thing that jumps off the tape at you defensively. Offensively, their quarterback (Mike) Glennon does a great job throwing the football. He’s 6-6 and has a great arm and will be playing in the NFL one day. He’s a very efficient passer.”

N.C. State is 1-1, as are the Jags. The Wolfpack lost their first game of the season against Tennessee but defeated UConn on the road 10-7 on Saturday.(ep)

Rubin Grant (The Birmingham News)
South Alabama receiving ‘blood money’ for next two games

For the next two weeks, the South Alabama Jaguars will be collecting some “blood money.”

That’s how South Alabama football coach Joey Jones described the Jaguars’Â’ upcoming road trips to North Carolina State on Saturday and to Mississippi State the following Saturday, and also a visit to Tennessee in 2013.

Jones termed it that way while responding to a question Sunday night at the Over the Mountain Touchdown Club, where he was the guest speaker at the Hilton Hotel Perimeter Park South.

“I read an article recently called ‘‘Blood Money,’Â’ and that’s a good analogy,” Jones said of the major Division I football schools giving smaller D-I schools a fat paycheck to come to their place to play. “You have to take a beating in those games.”

But Jones added that’s the price young college football programs have to pay in order to build their programs.

“One of the benefits is the money,” Jones said. “We’ll get $980,000 for going to Tennessee.

“Another benefit is recruiting. We’re going to play North Carolina State, Mississippi State and Hawaii and that helps you recruit players for your program.”

The expected beating isn’t one of the benefits.

Matt Scalici (al.com)
Q&A with South Alabama head coach Joey Jones

Q: When you began formulating a plan for building a program from scratch at South Alabama, were there any examples you used as models for how to go about the task of building a new Division I program?

A: We looked at FIU and FAU and what they’ve done to get off the ground. They also ended up joining the Sun Belt so I felt they were good models for us. When you look at it, they both went through struggling times, and that’s going to happen when you start a new program, there will be bumps in the road. But at the end of the day, when you study those programs, they did a lot of things right.

We learned a lot from them. When we first started, we tried to get a lot of older players in on the roster, junior college guys and transfers. One thing I also learned from Howard Schnellenberger from FAU was not to sign too many players in one class. If we have gone three years and signed all our allotted scholarships, we’d have no scholarships left by the time we got to Division I.

I’ve been building a program and now my challenge is to build a team. Some of these guys probably aren’t Division I players because when we signed them, they were the best guys available. We are slowly but surely building a full team of Division I players and now that we play a Division I schedule, it’s a lot easier to attract that level of player.

Tommy Hicks (Press-Register)
South Alabama’s Metheny looking forward to N.C. State game

Ross Metheny’s playing time came along at just the right time for the transfer from Virginia. It appears South Alabama s No. 2 quarterback, who led the Jaguars’ offense on several possessions in the 9-3 win over Nicholls State, will also get playing time this week when USA visits North Carolina State.

Ross Metheny’s playing time came along at just the right time for the transfer from Virginia. It appears South Alabama’ s No. 2 quarterback, who led the Jaguars’ offense on several possessions in the 9-3 win over Nicholls State, will also get playing time this week when USA visits North Carolina State.

Tommy Hicks (Press-Register)
South Alabama’s Jones says remark was made in jest

MULTIMEDIA/PODCASTS

GoPack.com
Weekly Tom O’Brien TV Show

In this week’s episode head football coach Tom O’Brien breaks down the Connecticut game with host Tony Haynes. Mark Thomas visits with running backs/tight ends coach Des Kitchings and previews the Wolfpack’s next game against the South Alabama Jaguars.

WRALSportsfan.com
NC State focused on protection in home opener

After giving up six saks last week, NC State is focused on protecting Mike Glennon in their home opener this week against South Alabama.

WRALSportsfan.com
Allen: Glennon should be mad at us

NCSU Offensive guard Zach Allen says the offensive line understands it has to play better and protect the QB.

WRALSportsfan.com
O’Brien: We have to protect Glennon

Tom O’Brien talks about why his team gave up six sacks against UCONN and what they need to do to fix it.

NC STATE BASKETBALL

Joe Giglio (N&O)
Schedule analysis: N.C. State

Bottom line: N.C. State made the NCAA tournament last season on the strength of its nonconference schedule. There won’t be as many big games outside the ACC this season, but the schedule is loaded with RPI-helpers and experienced tournament teams.

The ACC schedule will be tougher, with two games each against Duke and FSU (after only one last season) but it’s also spread out more evenly.

Last year, N.C. State went through lulls with seemingly meaningless games (BC-GT-Wake) and then had a Duke-FSU-UNC stretch. This year, the games that will be of interest — Duke, UNC, FSU — have more space to them which should add up to a better rhythm to the season.

UNC FALLOUT

Dan Kane (N&O)
Top UNC fundraiser resigns amid questions

Matt Kupec, a star quarterback for UNC-Chapel Hill who later returned to become its chief fundraiser, resigned Sunday after an internal investigation showed he and university fundraiser Tami Hansbrough appear to have taken personal trips at the university’s expense, Chancellor Holden Thorp said Monday.

Thorp said Kupec, the vice chancellor for university advancement, offered his resignation Sunday night after Thorp told Kupec a review of his travel with Tami Hansbrough, the divorced mother of former UNC star basketball player Tyler Hansbrough, showed trips that did not appear to be university related. Thorp said those trips appear to have included destinations where her other son, Ben Hansbrough, then a star basketball player at Notre Dame, was playing, but Thorp did not say how many.

[snip]

The personnel changes and internal investigation involving the mother of one of UNC’s most popular basketball players come amid a yearlong academic fraud investigation that also has ties to athletics. But Thorp said he did not see the fundraising controversy as being an athletics concern.

Hansbrough on leave

Thorp said Tami Hansbrough, a major gifts officer who earns $95,000 annually, has been placed on administrative leave as that investigation continues. Kupec declined to be interviewed Monday night but released a statement confirming the resignation. He did not provide details but thanked the university for his time there. Hansbrough could not be reached.

The personnel changes give another twist to Hansbrough’s unusual work history at UNC-Chapel Hill. She was originally hired on Dec. 8, 2008, as a fundraiser for the foundation that serves UNC-CH’s dental school.

At the time, her son Tyler, a senior, was beginning his final season on the basketball team, a season that would bring the university a national championship. Tyler Hansbrough was named an All-America and now plays in the NBA.

Thorp confirmed that a dental foundation audit later found that during that championship run, Tami Hansbrough had been traveling to cities in which Tyler Hansbrough was playing basketball. But Thorp said those foundation-paid trips were legitimate because she was raising money for the university, and UNC fans traveling to those games would have been good candidates to make donations.

Laura Keeley (N&O)
NCAA faces time pressure if they want to investigate Lance Thomas, Duke

If the NCAA intends to investigate whether or not Lance Thomas received any extra benefits that allowed him to purchase nearly $100,000 in jewelry, the organization better start soon.

Duke must receive a notice of allegations from the NCAA with the charges and what bylaws the enforcement staff feels were broken before the organization’s four-year statute of limitations expires. There are exceptions, including cases involving current student-athletes, a lack of institutional control or a pattern of violations that predates the statute of limitations, but it does not appear that any of those will apply, according to NCAA compliance expert John Infante.

“It doesn’t look like any of those are present, at least based on the facts right now,” said Infante, a former assistant director of compliance at Colorado State who now writes a blog on compliance issues. “So the NCAA would need to do this within the coming year or so.”