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Game Thread (2004) Game Three: @ NCState - 9/18/04 (W, 3-0)

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NC State is ready for OSU after its impressive win over Richmond.

Published: Sep 5, 2004
Modified: Sep 5, 2004 6:31 AM
Blemishes hard to find in Pack win



Chuck Amato, sporting red shoes, and his team get ready to take the field at Carter-Finley.
Staff Photo by Chris Seward

By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer

RALEIGH -- There's no doubt about it, this is a terrible situation for Chuck Amato. It's awful, just miserable.

Here the N.C. State football coach has two weeks to get his team ready for a colossal game against Ohio State, and he has absolutely nothing to fuss about.

Amato and his staff of assistant coaches could pour through the game films from Saturday's 42-0 opening-season win over Richmond until oranges grow wild in Alaska, and they still would be hard-pressed to find an area of pressing concern.

State never gave the Division I-AA Spiders the slightest chance to spin a dream, much less a web.

The passing game was good. The running game was good. The kicking, the defense, the blocking, the this, the that -- all good. The crowd was big and loud and the weather perfect. Nothing bad, nothing ugly.

Name something and the Wolfpack aced it.

New quarterback starter Jay Davis completed 16 of his 22 passes in the first half for 168 yards and two touchdowns. Freshman running backs Darrell Blackman and Bobby Washington played like seniors, leaving injured T.A. McLendon with little more to do than shake hands, pat backs and look fast.

Unless Reggie Davis had not fumbled the kickoff to start the second half, State would have been turnover free.

The much awaited return of offensive tackle Chris Colmer went off without incident.

"I was just a little nervous at the start, but it went away," Colmer said. "I'll always be nervous before a game. But it was a lot of fun. I thought we played up to our capability most of the time. We didn't score but seven points in the second half, so that could use some improvement."

Marcus Stone relieved Davis in the second half and promptly completed eight of 10 passes, but the play-calling was scaled back for in the name of mercy.

"I got my feet wet," Stone said. "I definitely played more than I thought. I'm glad Jay did what he was supposed to. We roomed together last night and I asked if he would get us up quick, so I could get in a couple ticks. He did it, too."

About the only nits that Amato could pick immediately after the game were penalties. State was zapped 10 times, once more than the Spiders.

But among some golfers, there's this strange superstition that if you birdie the first hole, you're in for a rotten round. Amato would rather read a book than mess around with golf, but maybe that piece of twisted logic will give him something to work with.

Maybe the coach can storm into the locker room Monday, put up a nasty face and snort something like, "You guys were entirely too sharp for your own good, and there's no excuse for it!"

More likely, however, Amato will stick to the simple stuff. He can explain to his players that Richmond and Ohio State have less in common than a football and a fire truck -- that as far as the Buckeyes are concerned, Wolfpack football ceased to exist at precisely the moment Philip Rivers' eligibility expired.

Folks in Carter-Finley on Saturday know better, of course. The Pack's players know better, too. The impact of Rivers' departure will hit at some point, very possibly against the Buckeyes.

But as helpless as Richmond looked, much of State's impressive work was for real. This will be a good football team.

That doesn't change the fact that the schedule is brutal -- beginning now -- and that a day or two of malfunction are inevitable. At some point down the road, the machine-like operation we saw on Saturday night will remind Amato of a pee-wee flag team bent on self-destruction.

But on a day when Clemson needed every favorable officiating call in the book to fend off Wake Forest and when North Carolina got scared witless by William & Mary, State won by 42 in a shutout without its top runner and with its starting quarterback sitting out the final 30 minutes.

What's a coach to do?


Columnist Caulton Tudor can be reached at 829-8946 or ctudor-newsobserver.com
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Impressive Win
 
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From the OSU side of it this could easily work against NCSU.

Think about this; they scrimmage all summer/fall, play a DII school, take another week off and then have to play OSU. Its tough to be ready for that big of a jump in opponents talent level with that set up. If I were an NCSU fan(that lived through the Richmond party) I would be legitimately concerned about this.

As always it will be pretty simple from our side. Stop the run and make the new QB beat us by driving a long field. Don't help them with TO's and continue to play excellent special teams and we will be in a position to win.

The real question mark, as we have been saying all off season, is how well the young players react to their first serious road test. If we don't help them, I think we beat NCSU no matter where or when we play them.
 
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Our favorite recruit Derek Morris may not play against OSU this year. Come on Derrik, suck it up man.

Derek's Status Against OSU in the Air

Sep 5, 2004
Morris Status Unknown for Ohio State
By James Henderson
Pack Pride

Raleigh, NC -- Wolfpack Head Coach Chuck Amato spoke briefly with the media today and had an update on the injury to offensive tackle Derek Morris.



Amato said Derek Morris has been classified with a grade 2 ankle sprain and his status for the upcoming game against Ohio State is unknown.

Morris will wear a boot on his ankle for a couple of days and be re-evaluated.

He suffered the ankle injury late in the first quarter and did not return against Richmond.
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N.C. State scares me very much. If not for an emotional close call this week I'd predict an N.C. State win. I think this game against Marshall will be a huge pivot point in the season. Here comes that magic again.

OSU- 27
NC State- 24
 
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im actually less scared of NC State now. this game was a wake up call. remember marshalls terrible O line after the Troy game? yeah....didnt look too terrible this week.

we know we need to work on turnovers. i think we will be ready.
 
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Unfortunately, NCState also saw just how to bait our young QB. They saw his tunnel vision (although I think that might be debatable). They'll be ready. Our receivers will have to be at their best this coming week. I think that IF they give JZ good throwing options on each play, they will reduce the Pack's ability to focus on Holmes, and their ability to mask their coverages. I think that as long as we can keep our playbok open, and not pare it down to the simple basics, we can keep the defense from focusing on our strengths--or if they do, we can hurt them badly.


I worry about Zwick staring down his receiver. I'm hoping that Santonio was just the #1 option, and that he was open. If this keeps up, however, I fear that we'll see either 1. a LOT of INT's, or 2. #4 being carried off the field one of these days. We've got 3 WR's with blazing speed, and one solid possession guy (or at least the makings of one). Add to that a FB with good hands out of the backfield, and 2 solid TE's. Diversity should not be a problem for this offense.

I think part of our late-game lethargy against the greenies this week was simply Tress trying to assert the power run game. He knew he could move the ball through the air, but if we don't develop the run, we WILL be hurting later in the season. Essentially, the second half was a practice session, trying to give the players more reps on a weak point in their game. I think that's what happens every year in these early close games. I don't know if it helps or not, but I can't believe there's no reason for why he does things this way. I'll continue to put my trust in tress, but dammit, I'll probably be dead before I hit 50 (assuming no changes in coaching).
 
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Oh, I'm sure they will. I think I've just about convinced myself that this was all just a product of a confluence of circumstances. I'm probably coming across much more negative than I really am. Considering the amount of inexperience on the field, I'm nothing if not optimistic for the future. Especially if Boeckman keeps nipping at the heels of the older two, we culd be looking at a good 5 years of solid QB play from the guys currently on the roster, not even considering those currently in the recruiting pipeline.


We'll be OK--and the sooner we address our weak points, the more OK we'll be.
 
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BuckeyeNation27 said:
we got things to work on.
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1. TO's
2. Running Game
3. Punt coverage
4. Punt returns

We fix those and we get back to the essence of Tresselball. Win the field position battle and make teams execute flawless 80 yd drives while your oprtunistic offense plays on a shorter field with the best FG kicker in the country.

Defensively we just need to make the neccessary adjustments to tighten up the run D. The worst thing that could have happend to NCSU was Marshall running for 150 on us, it won't happen two weeks in a row.

If we can do that, we make this new non-Phillip Rivers QB beat us consistently over a long field. If he can do that then more power to him because no one else has been able to.
 
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VprHis said:
I worry about Zwick staring down his receiver. I'm hoping that Santonio was just the #1 option, and that he was open. If this keeps up, however, I fear that we'll see either 1. a LOT of INT's, or 2. #4 being carried off the field one of these days. We've got 3 WR's with blazing speed, and one solid possession guy (or at least the makings of one). Add to that a FB with good hands out of the backfield, and 2 solid TE's. Diversity should not be a problem for this offense.
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From where I saw sitting at the game it looked like Holmes was just always open. If the #1 guy is open, you throw the ball. I saw a few times he wasn't open, and instead of forcing it you could see Zwick start to look to other options. He made some mistakes late, and I think he learned that you don't need to try to win a game all on one pass. Zwick was just trying to make too much happen late in the game. I'm glad he did though, because now he can improve on that. Holmes caught 10 passes...the 2 big ones were blown coverages that Zwick saw, read perfectly, and threw perfectly. The other 8 were just because the #1 guy was open. Last week they went to Hamby and Bam a lot. This week it's Holmes. Next week it could be Hall. Whoever is getting open is getting the ball. And Justin is trusting his instincts and when he sees it he throws it and throws it well. He looked quite good for his 2nd game, and I think he is growing into being a solid Ohio State QB very nicely.
 
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You gotta love this (from NC State's injury report):

T.A. McLendon, TB - Questionable, Hamstring strain

lol Let the head games begin. Questionable, my ass. Short of "T.A. McLendon, TB - Missing left leg", he's playing.

That should be our #1 concern. Marshall was able to move the ball on the ground with backs who I submit are not at TA's talent level, or even close. The Fox injury looms here because of his excellent run support. Youboty has bulked up a bit, but we are definitely going to be missing DF.

Has Whitner ever taken reps at corner since being at tOSU?
 
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