Dave from Carter-Finley

The 2012 recruiting cycle is in the books. If you want to check out the bios and videos of each NC State commit here is the GoPack Signing Day Central.

Another ho-hum recruiting class for the Pack that ranked 8th (Rivals), 9th (Scout), and 9th (ESPN) respectively in the ACC. Not too good if you plan on actually fulfilling the whole “Champions on the Football Field” part of the motto that we’ve been hearing from TOB since he arrived at State. I’ll go in-depth on my thoughts of the class later, but first here’s how TOB feels about it:

Excitement … Anticipation … Disappointment … Hope … Satisfaction … Relief. Those nouns describe the roller coaster of emotions that little kids go through leading up to and through what they call the best day of the year … Christmas. For college football coaches it’s called National Signing Day, which falls tomorrow.

It’s a little different in that most of the recruits have already verbally committed, but there’s always some last minute surprises that make the day interesting. Even though most of the classes are already set, I’m sure that most coaching staffs in the country still sit anxiously around the fax machines waiting for the National Letter of Intents to come in making it official.

Recruiting has become it’s own sport within college football. John Brandon of Grantland.com put it best, “Only a good winemaker can make good wine, but nobody can make good wine out of bad grapes.” DFCF’s translation, you can’t win if you don’t have good players. TOB recently sat down and chatted with college football recruiting guru Tom Lemming about his recruiting philosophies. Here’s the video:

TOB has never been a great recruiter, which listening to him talk is pretty understandable. He continues the “champions on the football field” mantra, but it’s hard to win championships when you’re finishing in the bottom half of your conference in the recruiting rankings year after year. I’ll discuss that in more detail and talk about the commits that I’m the most excited about tomorrow after TOB’s presser. In the meantime, here’s a good NC State Signing Day Snapshot by the guys over at ACC Sports Journal.

I hope everybody enjoyed the holidays. The holidays are always better for me when the Pack is in a bowl game and a bowl game win is the best so it was happy times in DFCF land. Best wishes to everybody in 2012. Before I move on here are my Belk Bowl thoughts and the final Pack the Caption of the 2011 season (photos by Ethan Hyman/N&O).

• State improved to 14-11-1 all-time in bowl games (has won 5 of past 6) and won bowl games in consecutive seasons for only the 4th time in school history.

• TOB now has a career 8-2 bowl record (2-1 at State).

• David Amerson added 2 more INTs to his already impressive season to set the ACC single-season INT record (13) surpassing UNC’s Dre Bly’s record set back in 1996. Amerson’s INT return for TD was the play of the game and the deciding score.

• Mike Glennon finished a pretty good season with 264 yards passing and 3 TDs earning himself Belk Bowl MVP honors.

• It was a Special Teams nightmare for the Pack … a botched punt (led to Louisville TD), allowed Louisville to convert a fake punt (led to Louisville TD), and allowed Louisville to recover an onside kick (State defense nullified). And we continue to have one assistant coach that’s dedicated solely to handling Special Teams … unbelievable! Hard to win a game after getting dominated like this on Special Teams, but we found a way to get it done.

• The key to the Pack’s season this year was the defense’s ability to force turnovers … 3 more in this game raised the season total to 39, good for 2nd best in the nation.

Hey Teddy ... it's the Boogeyman!!!

You complete me!

Interceptions: Easy as 1, 2, 3

Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake your booty

Guys, who pissed in the Gatorade cooler?

Also, ncsu01 does a great job of putting together highlight videos of NC State football games. Here’s his Belk Bowl highlight video:

If you follow me on Twitter you’ve already seen my thoughts from last Saturday’s open practice, but I wanted to post them here and add a few pictures from the News & Observer’s Ethan Hyman that go along with them.  Here ya go:

• Attendance at Saturday’s open practice: 200 by NCSU standards … 7,500+ by UNC standards.

• Tyler Brosius was in a red cross jersey. Still haven’t heard exactly what his injury is, but word is he should be ready for the Belk Bowl.

• Brian Taylor had a very awkward looking throwing motion.

• Best play of the day was a very nice catch & run by Tobais Palmer. The guy is a playmaker.

• Asa Watson showed better hands than I remember with a nice grab over a defender on a deep pass down the sideline.

• Niklas Sade’s range with no rush was barely 45 yds. Looking back at Sade’s misses on the season brings up questions as to why TOB even attempted field goals from 48 yds. (Georgia Tech), 48 yds. (UNC), and 51 yds. (FSU).

• Rashard Smith had a very nice INT on a slight under throw by Glennon down the middle of the field.

• Rodman Noel is a BIG safety. Looks like a LB back there. Position switch coming?

• Was hoping to see Mustafa Greene out there to see how he’s progressing but he did not participate in practice at all. Haven’t heard any injury updates on him either.

• It’s always fun watching Terrell Manning’s enthusiasm playing football … even in a practice setting.

• A shout out to a few walk-ons that stood out: #24 Josh Stanley (Fr. from Leesville Road) had a very nice diving INT in the end zone & #66 Isaac Swindell (Jr. from SW Guilford) was impressive in the OL/DL drills.

Per the official NC State press release … “NC State has accepted a bid to play Big East Co-Champion Louisville in the 2011 Belk Bowl at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on December 27. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. and the game will be televised by ESPN.”

For somebody that lives in Charlotte (so even home games are a road trip), I’m excited that I get a game in my city. I’ll have more on all the bowl stuff later. For now I’m trying to plan sleeping arrangements and parties for my Raleigh friends that are staying with me. This matchup isn’t going to be one of the marque bowl games, but that’s not going to stop my crew from having a big ol’ time. Go Pack!

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for the NC State football team, after it’s embarrassing showing at Boston College that will likely cost it a bowl trip, T.J. Graham went and talked to the media after practice on Monday.

When I first read his quotes I thought it was an evil April Fools prank. Surely he didn’t say these things, right? I read them again and again and again, getting angrier with each time. I still couldn’t believe it so I tracked down the audio and sure as shit the quotes I read did come straight out of T.J.’s mouth. As a proud NC State alumnus, former athlete, LTR holder, and somebody that has spent a lot of time and money supporting this team (35 straight games and counting) it was a huge slap in the face. Un-****ing-believable!

If this is what our football program has come to, let’s just skip the last 2 games and show TOB the door right now. I waited a few days to write this post in hopes that I would cool off and not go postal on T.J. and this football team, but it’s obvious I’m still pretty fired up about it. Too bad our team only shows that particular emotion when they’re playing UNC. What a load of crap!

Here are the quotes in all their disgrace (click here to listen to the audio):

“We watched film and clearly energy was a factor. We’re energized by the crowd, there wasn’t very much crowd there. We feel like we go into a hostile environment, the more people yell, rant, cheer and boo us that energizes us. There wasn’t very much of that Saturday. It was their senior day and they came out with the fire and intensity to beat us.”

“We didn’t really match the intensity that they brought, it was frustrating in that sense that we couldn’t get over that hump. If you see us last week against UNC you can kind of tell that we play better at home, we’re a lot more energized and it was our rival so we had a lot of intensity. We just didn’t apply that to this week, clearly.”

“The new age of people, a new age of players, we get energized by different things, whether it be your uniform, music, crowd, stadium, opponent so it’s kind of hard for a lot of us to get energized when it’s a small crowd, same opponent, nothing fancy uniform wise, no new music or something. It’s got to be something different to kind of give you that edge. With UNC, we had something to fight for, it was five in a row so that was something new, something different, and it’s your rival game.”

“We’re down, but that’s when we play our best, when our backs are against the wall and stuff like that. We’re not a front-running type team. We like to be in a hole, it’s kind of fun. You’ve noticed for the past couple of years we’ve made it tough on ourselves somehow. We always come out.”

The most mind-boggling part about this is that T.J. is a Senior and team leader. If he can’t get energized for the last few games of his football career, then what the hell are us schmucks going to the games for? And what is “kind of fun” about losing to a terrible Boston College team, finishing the season .500 (or below), and not going to a bowl? Damn, we must have totally different ideas of what’s fun.

Ok. End rant. I feel so much better now. Not really.

In typical TOB fashion, the Pack lost on the road against an inferior opponent just a week after a huge upset win in a rivalry game. TOB continues to struggle mightily against the ACC Atlantic Division with a 5-18 overall record that includes an atrocious 0-13 record on the road. The only thing more mind-boggling is that there are still State fans that think TOB is a good coach and the right one for our program. Barf!

The Pack defense was on it’s heels a little on the opening drive of the game letting BC march right down the field for a touchdown, but after that they put the clamps down. The Eagles only had the ball for 11:52 in the 2nd half and was bottled up to the tune of -2 total yards of offense. There’s not much more you can ask your defense to do. The defense was bad early in the season, but has improved dramatically as it’s allowed 14 points or less in 3 of the 4 games since the bye.

The Pack offense, on the other hand, struggled for the 4th game in a row. Over the 4 games we’ve averaged a very anemic 267 yards and 11 points (taking away the defensive touchdown at Virginia). The offense hasn’t been that good all year either as it’s currently 100th in the nation in yards per game (331.7) and 83rd in points per game (24.3). The offensive line is still mediocre at best, Glennon has hit a wall in the past few games, and the play calling has been overly predictable and conservative.

That’s my somber thoughts from the game. I just want to forget about it so this week’s Pack the Caption is an abbreviated version (photos by Stephan Savoia/AP):

The Force, this one has not.

What excuse can I come up with for this one?

During the post-game singing of the alma mater a few fans up in Section 9 lowered the UNC flag to half mast (link to video). Here’s a picture of it in all its glory.

With all the smack talk coming from the Tar Heels (coaches, players, and even former players) leading up to the game, this was a perfect way to signify the way we dominated not only the game, but the whole rivalry week. I’m sure all Everett Withers was trying to do was get his players fired up for the rivalry, but his choice of words proved to be a huge miscalculation and his plan backfired big time.

TOB even used the Withers audio in his pregame speech to the team and boy did it work. A week after looking very lackluster, our team came out for this game with more intensity, focus, and motivation than we’ve seen all season. For all of TOB’s shortcomings, and he has plenty, it sure is nice that he understands the hatred in this rivalry and gets the absolute best effort out of his team for this game. This year a huge assist goes to Withers. Should TOB send him the game ball? [burn]

“We talked about it (Withers’ comments). We’re like the farmers and they’re the educated people, I guess. Whatever. We won and the farmers will be happy on Monday going to work.” — Audie Cole

 

“I give all the credit to them for firing us up for this game.” — Terrell Manning

 

“It showed us he (TOB) has our back and has the university’s back. He took it personal and added some fire for us. It was out character for him, so we really understood how much it meant to him.” — Mike Glennon

 

“This was a great win. It’s a great win for this football team. Kids in that locker room and even coaches on this coaching staff have never lost to North Carolina. But all we did today was tie the record (five straight wins over North Carolina). Next year, we get to go try and set it.” — TOB

Also, I heard from somebody that was around Randy Woodson at the game Saturday that the chancellors did not exchange apologies as was reported. Woodson accepted an apology from Holden Thorp, but did not issue any aplogies back since he didn’t have a reason to. Kudos Randy!

With rivalry week now over, my lingering question is … if you have to come out and declare yourself the “flagship” school of the state, is that really the case? I’ll tell you this, there was one team/university that acted like a flagship school this past week … and it wasn’t the one that wears that pansy ass blue.

Go Pack!!! Go to Hell Carolina!!!

I’ll have plenty of things to say about yesterday’s State-UNC rivalry game, but it’ll have to wait a little bit longer as I’m still celebrating #5 in a row. All week I was worried I’d have to take down my favorite part of the site, the counter at the top right of the page. Well it’s still there … and at 1,814 days and counting. Man it feels so good.  For now, enjoy these two pictures of the jumbotron yesterday. Love it!

Saturday we unveiled the much talked about black alternate unis.  There were a lot of crazy rumors out there, but this was the only place that had it all right [patting self on back].  See for yourself:  here, here, & here.

I have to say I hate black unis for any school that doesn’t have black as a school color.  We’re the “red and white from State” so that definitely includes NC State. I’m only 30, but I guess that makes me old.  All the young kids love that kind of stuff so that’s why seemingly every school in the country does it, but I’m not a fan.

I really don’t have a problem with the Breast Cancer Awareness concept either, but the execution of it was very poorly done.  If you’re going to do pink for breast cancer, then go all pink.  The red helmets and black pants with red/white stripes matched with the black jerseys with pink numbers just looked half-assed to me.  A white helmet with pink decals matched with a plain black pant (or even our standard white pants) and the black jersey with pink numbers would have been a better execution of the Breast Cancer Awareness pink theme.

I haven’t been able to confirm this, but having black pants with red/white stripes makes me think that there is another black jersey with red numbers that we could see later.  If that’s not the case then these pants will surely become alternate pants giving us six total color combinations.

The red helmet will become an alternate helmet that we could see the team wear again at any time.  I hope it’s a road only alternate helmet, though, because I think it would look way better with the white jersey than with the red jersey.  I have to say I absolutely love the red helmet.  The triple stripe looks so sharp that I wish we would make our white helmets the same.  My only beef is that the block “S” should have the normal black accents so it’s easier to see.

I also really liked the red and white triple stripe on the pants.  I think our regular uniforms look a little plain and would look better with similar stripes on them. That ain’t happening, though, because I remember TOB making comments about striped pants being crazy.  Of course, I can’t believe he approved this black uni so maybe his tune is changing.  We shall see.

I am curious what my readers thought about the unis, so please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

[Edit:  Since these unis were completely paid for by Adidas, we should auction off the black & pink jerseys with all proceeds going to the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.  That will not be the case, though, as I have heard is we will keep the jerseys and use them in the Kay Yow Spring Game.]