So I’m packed and ready to go to Boston. Flight leaves tomorrow morning and I cannot wait. Never been up there before so that is why I’m heading up a few days early. Looking forward to hitting up some of the tourist spots and just enjoying the City.
I have been to away games at all of the ACC schools except the three new guys (Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College). I will be marking Boston College off that list this weekend and then Virginia Tech in November so only Miami will remain. Should have went down there two years ago when they were still playing in the Orange Bowl. Now I will get to enjoy a more than half empty Land Shark Stadium* when we go back down there in 2012. Yay me!
I love home games (they don’t call me Dave from Carter-Finley for nothing), but road games are a lot of fun. I could go on for days and days, but here’s a few stories. I have slept on the asphalt of a parking lot, by choice, using a concrete parking block as a pillow. I have also slept in a cramped Toyota with three guys in freezing temperatures because security kicked us out of a “warm and cozy” hospital emergency room. I once stole a kid’s thundersticks and popped them. Harsh you say? Those things are mega annoying and even more so when the Pack is losing. I have seen the car beside me on the interstate hit a deer and catch on fire. I have seen inflatable teams mascots in the tops of trees. Don’t ask, but I can confirm there were no drugs involved. I have even got into arguments with Walmart Carolina fans at several different ACC stadiums. Hopefully none of that stuff happens this trip.
I will be blogging from Boston so check back for stories of this road trip throughout the weekend. GO PACK!!!
*Edit 1/18/2010 – Land Shark Stadium has been renamed again, now it will be called Sun Life Stadium
Back on September 26th the Pack won a thriller over Pittsburgh to raise its record to 3-1. Hard to believe that was only two weeks ago. Everything seemed pretty good in Wolfpack Nation at the time. Then Tom O’Brien got to the postgame press conference and the first things he said were, “we’re just not a very good football team right now … and I have done a bad job coaching … just so they realize because they got a tendency to think that they’re pretty good and they’re not.”
Everybody knows TOB is a straight shooter, but when I heard this quote it really bothered me. I will admit that we made a lot of mistakes in the Pitt game, but we played a great second half (minus the bad snap) and came from behind to beat a very good Pitt team. What was the point of this harsh public criticism? What good could possibly come from it, especially with so many underclassmen on the 2-deep? If TOB wanted to keep the guys from getting a big head, it just seems to me that he could have gone about it a lot differently.
After the Duke game I was curious to hear what TOB had to say. He touched on a lot of things in his postgame interview, but didn’t really give his current assessment of the team. That made me really interested in the players’ thoughts since they often times regurgitate what TOB and the coaching staff says to them. When asked about rallying the team, Russell Wilson responded, “I don’t think it’s going to be too tough. We know we have a great team, we know that we have great players, and a good coaching staff.” So after getting significantly worse each of the past two weeks we have gone from being “not a very good” 3-1 football team to a “great” 3-3 football team. All we can do is hope that the second part of my favorite coachspeak phrase, “you’re never as good as you think and you’re never as bad as you think,” holds true like the first part has.
The Atlantic division of the ACC is a heap of mediocrity. I wanted to look at it a little further and see what the Pack’s chances are of finishing on top and representing the division in the ACC Championship Game. The current standings are in the chart below.
Maryland – Ralph Friedgen is a shell of his former self, literally (he lost over 100 lbs. since last year) and figuratively (his teams just aren’t as good as they used to be). Maryland has a good running game, but are no better than average everywhere else. Friedgen does still seem to always find a way to win a game or two that he shouldn’t, like last week’s win over Clemson.
Boston College – I’m just mystified by the Eagles 4-1 start. This is a team that before the season I thought would be lucky to win 4 games. First year head coach Frank Spaziani has done a remarkable job so far, but I’m not buying stock in BC. They are a well coached team and the two time reigning Atlantic division champs, but I just don’t see it in the cards again this year.
Wake Forest – Riley Skinner is a solid QB and Jim Grobe is a good coach. Even after winning the ACC in 2006 teams still sleep on Wake a little and they love that role. Their defense is not very good. They lost 4 starters to the NFL, but they absolutely cannot stop anybody. They are going to have to get much better on defense or depend on Skinner to win a bunch of shootouts.
Clemson – There is no denying that Clemson has the athletes to be a great team. Over the past 5 years or so they have consistently brought in top 15 recruiting classes. They have great fans and a good football tradition. Too bad they still don’t have a good coach. They got rid of Tommy Bowden because his teams underperformed and now they have much of the same in Dabo Swinney.
NC State – It’s hard for me to take off my red colored shades and look subjectively at the Wolfpack, but I’ll try. The main problem so far has been special teams. Yeah the defense has struggled, but they have been put in a lot of difficult situations due to the special teams giving up big returns. When the opposing team starts at the 40 yard line every drive the defense doesn’t have much room for mistakes. The special teams have made it tough on the offense as well. Russell Wilson is one of the most dynamic players in the ACC, but even he can only do so much when he starts inside his 15 yard line so often. TOB has the tools in place. It’s up to him to find the right pieces and make it happen.
Florida State – The turmoil at Florida State is just sad. I’ve always been a big fan of Bobby Bowden, but it’s hard to be successful when some of your assistants and a big group of your fans are against you. They still have the best athletes of any of the teams in the Atlantic division, but I’m not sure you can expect much out of them the rest of the season. They will have games where they look like world beaters and then games where they look like a high school team.
This division is absolutely wide open. There is not a really good football team that stands out above the rest so I still think any team could win it. It’s been 30 years … let me repeat that … 30 long, agonizing, painful years since the Wolfpack won its last ACC football championship (1979 to be exact). The chance is there for this team to step up its play and make it to the ACC championship game. All I want for Christmas is for 60 minutes in Tampa for a shot at ending that streak. GO PACK!!!
I wanted to put together some more videos from last week’s game, but I just haven’t had the time. You know, that whole job thing. It’s probably a good thing I have a job that keeps me busy, because if it wasn’t for that I’d spend way too much time writing entries for this blog. Some people might say I have a problem. Maybe I do, but that’s not the point. The other thing I wanted to look at was Russell’s throwaways.
Seems like it happened 10 times last week (probably not quite that many). I don’t mind him throwing the ball away, but on several of these he scrambled around for 5 seconds or more before throwing it away. He could have tucked the ball and got 3-4 yards easy, if not a lot more. Wake was spying him a lot with the LBs, but chunking it in the first row of the stands does nothing but give us 2nd or 3rd and longs. TOB in his weekly press conference is still harping on Russell staying in the pocket and not running as much. I flat out don’t like this.
The thing that makes him so tough to defend is his scrambling. Yeah, we don’t want him getting injured, but he has gotten a lot better this year at running out of bounds and sliding to avoid taking nasty hits. We really need his dynamic playmaking ability. I say … Run Russell! Run!
There are a lot of songs that when I hear them they make me think of NC State. They’re either past intro songs, budding traditions, celebratory songs played after wins, or the dear to our hearts fight songs and alma mater. Most are from football, but a couple are from basketball and I had to throw in one from baseball too. Anyway, here is my “kick donkey” tailgating playlist (DWTS reference just for Mrs. DFCF).
NC State Marching Band – Fight Song
WCW Mayhem – Wolfpac Theme
Drowning Pool – Bodies
P.O.D. – Boom
Guns ‘n Roses – Welcome to the Jungle
Disturbed – Meaning of Life
NC State Marching Band – Red and White
Bruce Channel – Hey! Baby
The Sugarhill Gang – Apache
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
NC State Marching Band – Alma Mater
Bruce Robison – See You Around
Metallica – Of Wolf and Man (edited per T-Bone’s request)
Tank Tyler – Welcome to the Carter (I forgot about this one)
Duran Duran – Hungry Like The Wolf (another one I forgot)
I’m sure I have overlooked a few. Let me know what songs make you think of NC State.
So the video is a little crude. I am far from a video editing guru, but this will work for now. Maybe Mrs. DFCF can get me into a video editing class at SPCC and find a way to waive the tuition. Crossing fingers.
I’m far from a college football coach too, but some things are pretty obvious when looking at the video. When running out of shotgun we: 1. always run right & 2. never block the LE. If we were running out of the Wildcat formation this might work, but the hesitation required to make the handoff gives the LE time to crash down and make a play almost every time. What makes it worse is that Vermiglio fails to block anybody down field so we would be better off keeping him at the line and at least holding up the LE. We do run play action passes out of this formation, but it doesn’t hold the LE from crashing because we block differently. If we are dead set on leaving the LE unblocked, then the only way to slow him down is to call some designed fakes and let Russell run the ball back at his vacated area. I think we did this one time against Wake.
The video is only the first half of the game, so the sample size is small, but still this is an obvious trend. If we line up with the RB to the right of Russell then you can just flip everything (run left, RE unblocked) and it still holds pretty true. We had more success running the ball on plays were we lined up under center with a FB lead blocker. Just some of my observations.
For those of you who were worried I might drive my car into oncoming traffic after the game, you can sleep easy tonight. I’m writing this entry safe and fully intact from my recliner with my cat Ashes at my feet.
I’m a guy that usually blares music and really gets into my singing when I’m driving alone. That definitely wasn’t the case on my ride home from Winston-Salem tonight. I rode the whole way in dead silence and replayed the game over and over in my head. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years, but I still take loses very hard. I just hope the players take them as hard as I do.
I’m glad I had fun at Oktoberfest last night, because watching that game today was anything but. More penalties, sloppy execution, and just overall bad football. The special teams still have a long way to go and the defensive secondary was absolutely shredded.
I was way off on my preview earlier in the week. Wake didn’t even try to establish a running game. They saw a super soft secondary on film and just exploited it all day. Riley Skinner did a good job of scrambling to keep plays alive and finding wide open recievers. Great gameplan by the Wake coaches with all the quick crossing routes and bubble screens. If we continue to play 10 yards off the receivers and don’t get better at tackling this is the gameplan that we will see for the rest of the season.
With as bad as we played I still thought we were going to win the game after we held Wake to a field goal with just under 5 minutes left. Every Pack fan in the stadium just knew that Russell Wilson was going to work his magic and drive us down the field to pull out a 31-30 victory. It wasn’t meant to be today. Russell’s streak without an interception also came to an end on a throw that was absolutely gift wrapped for the defensive back.
I still can’t figure out what it is about BB&T Field, but the Deacs have just owned us there over the last decade plus. With this loss, TOB is now winless in both season openers and ACC openers in his 3 year tenure at State. That trend is very troubling. Let’s all hope the trend of getting better as the season goes along and playing our best football down the streatch also continues because we are going to need it.
Now time for me to pull out the hard liquor and stay up all night watching the tape of this game so I can get it out of my system. The quicker I can forget about this one, the better. I need a hug. Anybody?
Coming to you from Winston-Salem it’s DFCF Tailgating Live. Trying to copy the SNL intro, but i don’t think it worked that well. I’ll have to work on a more catchy intro for next week.
Anyway, we set up the tailgating spot right beside Lawrence Joel Coliseum. Our tailgating crowd is a little smaller than usual, but I see a lot of red here in the parking lot.
Absolutely perfect day for football. No cloud in the sky, not too hot, and a nice breeze. I live for Saturdays like this in the fall.
My bro had a chance to stop by a little while ago. It was nice to get to tailgate with him. Can’t wait til he graduates and can join me for every game.
The sight of the day is easily this State student wearing only a little red speedo, some cowboy boots, and a white hat. He just did some poses for the crowd. I’ve seen some interesting outfits at State football games before, but this tops the cake. I’ll try to get a picture.
I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my days, but none more so than what happened after the last game we played at Wake Forest in 2007. Let’s just say talking junk to a 6′-4″ 294 lb. RS Senior OG in the tunnel that goes under Deacon Blvd. is not a good idea. I did not instigate the ruckus, but I had to take up for a buddy and somehow I ended up between my buddy and the Wake lineman. Thank God there was a cop just outside the tunnel that heard the commotion and came and broke it up or my beautiful face would not be so beautiful anymore.
There have been some other good tailgating memories from past Wake games. Once we decorated the small tree behind our tailgating spot with all our empty bear cans. It was a magnificent sight. And then on our way into the stadium my good buddy, I’m pretty sure it was Andrew, decorated the pavement in front of our tailgating spot with his lunch. Not so magnificent.
Then another time we were tailgating right outside of Lawrence Joel Coliseum and my buddies were practicing their WWE wrestling moves between the small monuments that line the sidewalks there. Still can’t figure out how somebody didn’t break an arm doing that. I scraped my hands and ripped a small hole in my jeans and I was just the ref. Mr. Gibson has video of this somewhere. Good times, great oldies!
So there’s been a lot of fun had tailgating in Winston-Salem, but the games have flat out stunk. I’ve seen 1 win in 5 trips. Here’s to Russell Wilson and Co. giving me some good memories from the actual game and most importantly a victory to bring home this year. GO PACK!
