Dave from Carter-Finley

I’m very proud of NC State for recognizing and celebrating Military Appreciation Day!!  Here’s a video of how that went Saturday:

Thanks so much to all our servicemen and women!!

Finally … game week is here!!!  I don’t know why, but the offseason has seemed extraordinarily long this year.  It’s time to start talking games, depth chart, injuries, tailgating menus, and everything else.  TOB had his first weekly presser this week to talk Liberty.  I won’t bore you by rehashing that so go over to GoPack to get all the info and quotes.  Here’s the depth chart (courtesy of The Wolfpacker):

A few quick thoughts … It’s nice getting Duran Christophe back so quickly after his surgery for a torn knee meniscus.  No sooner than getting good news like that, though, we find out Sterling Lucas will be out the entire season with a knee injury.  James Washington will get the first shot at stepping in for Mustafa Greene while his out with his foot injury.  Other than that there weren’t many surprises.  The biggest surprise will be if the depth chart looks the exact same next week for Wake and then again the following week for South Alabama and so on.

I’m ready to get out to Carter-Finley and start tailgating now.  Saturday can’t get here soon enough.  Here’s a video to tide you over until then.  Go Pack!

The new home unis were unveiled last week and by now I’m sure everybody’s seen them.  For all the hype that the Official NC State Football Twitter account tried to build up I was starting to expect gold plated unis.  Of course that’s not what we got.

The unis are the new Adidas TechFit compression style that’s more lightweight and all that.  The look of the new unis was a lot similar to last years’ with the differences being “State” across the chest and TV numbers added on the top of the shoulders.  Here’s a cool video that shows off the new threads and even includes some comments from J.R. Sweezy and T.J. Graham.

I would like it if we got back to using the red jersey and white pants combination more for our home games.  That is our traditional home uni and definitely my favorite color combo that we wear.  I do worry about that, though, because the monochrome red on red combo was worn for 5 games last year (Cincinnati, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Wake Forest, and West Virginia) compared to just 2 games (Western Carolina and Boston College) for the red on white combo.

The team will unveil the away unis at the Meet the Pack Day on August 13 as well as a much anticipated alternate uni.  I’ve heard that this alternate uni is all black and will be worn with a red helmet, but there are other rumors out there that it is all black with pink numbers for breast cancer awareness.  Either way, I don’t like the idea of wearing black so hopefully they’re both wrong.  It is believed that this alternate uni will be worn for the Central Michigan home game on October 8th.

GoPack posted a great article that goes through the history of NC State football unis and includes a photo gallery.  Check it out here.

If NCAA Football 12 hitting the stores today doesn’t get you excited for the upcoming NC State football season, then this video surely will.  One word:  badass.

It gives me goosebumps every time I watch it.  I may not need to post anything else until the season starts.

As the countdown to the 2011 season approaches 50 days I’m starting to get very antsy.  The players are starting to report to campus.  Practice starts in exactly 3 weeks.  Man, I’m starting to get excited.  What better way to help hold me over than the newest installment from EA Sports, NCAA Football 12, which hits stores today.  I buy this every year just because, but if you want to read a review here you go.  One of the new things they added was school traditions.  Here’s the stadium intro video for NC State, complete with Fury and Russell Wilson, but no fireworks.  I guess I’ll let them slide on that.

If anybody’s interested in starting a PS3 online dynasty, hit me up in the comments.  The one stipulation is that I get to be NC State.  Also, if you’re looking for an NC State NCAA Football 12 wallpaper, here are some downloads [1920x1080] [1280x960] [1280x800] [1024x768] [800x600].  Okay, now I’m off to lead NC State to back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back national championships.

I’m not a huge fan of South Park because a lot of their stuff is just too over the top for me.  This week’s episode was much of the same, but it hit a topic close to home.  They put their crosshairs directly on the NCAA for their affinity to making up rules as they go and the whole paying student athletes thing.  Of course they took a few shots at EA Sports along the way too.  Here are some of the best quotes:

“I don’t make the rules ma’am.  I just think them up and write them down.”

“Benefits to players is detrementalized to their well being.”

“Stu-dent ath-o-leets.  Oh, that is brilliant sir.”

“I ain’t arguing. If they got paid, how would we make all our money?”

“A $300 thousand building, but we’d buy ourselves $1 million goodwill with the public…  It’s like moral teflon.”

For a preview of the episode see the video below.  To watch the whole episode go here.

I have a lot of issues with the way the NCAA is run.  There’s always either a clear double standard or total lack of common sense in their decision making (see here and here and here and here for just a few recent examples … and all NC State fans remember the whole Tremain Hall eligibility debacle).  Kinda like the U.S. government [insert rimshot here].  Of course, I am of the mindset that college athletes should not be paid.  Yeah college athletic departments are big money businesses, but it just feels wrong to me.  And I am a former college athlete so I know all about the time drain that collegiate sports entail.  I’ve been there done that and made it through fine.  Don’t see why the young’uns these days can’t do the same.

Plus the whole Title IX thing makes it unfeasible anyway.  Oh, Title IX how I loathe thee.  That’s a topic for another day.

I love it when I’m watching the news (or any random TV show for that matter) and someone gives an NC State shoutout.  Well last night my college roomie Matt Jordan filled in on the ‘WBTV News on WJZY’ telecast here in Charlotte to provide the weather forecast and he didn’t let me down (see “Go State!” at the 2:03 mark).  While the NC State shoutout was my favorite part, Matt absolutely killed the entire segment even while dealing with a faulty remote.  Very impressive!  Check out the video and see for yourself.

Matt is also responsible for the new DFCF logo that you’ve seen around the site on on Twitter for a while now.  If you remember, back on Sept. 2, 2010 I put a few shameless pleas out there and one of them was for a “kickass logo.”  Just a few days later, Sept. 10, 2010 to be exact, I was down in Orlando for the UCF game and standing in line to ride Test Track at Epcot when I got an email from Matt with the original logo design.  Over the next few months I requested a few revisions and I talked to some lawyer buddies about trademark/copyright issues.  [Here's where I enter my disclaimer... DFCF is not, nor do I purport to be, affiliated or associated with NCSU, the NCSU athletic department, etc. etc. etc. in any way, shape or form.]  I finally got a revision that I was 100% pleased with, well after I made a few final tweeks myself, and started using the logo (see final design below) at the end of January 2011.  I should have given public props to Matt much sooner, but better late than never.  Thanks Matt!!!

NC State alum Zach Galifianakis and the boys (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) are back in The Hangover Part II.  It’s set to hit the theaters Memorial Day weekend (May 26 to be exact) so mark your calendars.  The original one is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I even dressed up this past Halloween as Galifianakis’ character Alan Garner.

Alan Garner, Baby Carlos, & Snooki

I love all the references to “The Wolfpack” so I’m still holding out hope that Zach will work a NC State shirt somewhere into the movie.  Here’s the trailer.

Ever wondered about some of the obscure NCAA rules? Well thanks to this nifty interactive quiz below (courtesy of the Charlotte Observer) you can try to navigate through the gray areas. Some rules are common sense while others are questionable at best. The quiz gives you different questions so take it several times to get them all. Heck you could make it real fun by taking it one time from a NC State player’s perspective to see how squeaky clean you could be and then taking it again from a UNC player’s perspective to see how many violations you could commit. Very interesting stuff. Enjoy!

I will never ever get tired of watching Jimmy V’s ESPY speech from 1993.  In honor of Jimmy V and since it’s Jimmy V Week on ESPN here it is.  It gets me emotional every time so take a little time to watch it and think about donating to The V Foundation.