Dave from Carter-Finley

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:

Spring Practice is winding down and the two of three scrimmages are in the books.  TOB has always been super selective with releasing scrimmage stats and that trend has continued this Spring.  The few stats that have been released don’t really tell us much.  I’m sure that’s how TOB likes it, but with it just being Spring Practice it seems a little petty.  It would be nice for the football program to be a little more transparent during the Spring, but I digress.  Here are the combined released stats from both scrimmages:

Passing
Mike Glennon 24-36 (66.7%), 231 yards, 0 TDs, 2 INTs
Tyler Brosius 16-33 (48.5%), 114 yards, 0 TDs, 3 INTs

Rushing
Mustafa Greene 12 car, 71 yards (5.9 ypc), 1 TD
James Washington 18 car, 30 yards (1.7 ypc), 0 TD
Brandon Barnes 18 car, 31 yards (1.7 ypc), 0 TD
Tony Creecy 13 car, 40 yards (3.1 ypc), 1 TD

Receiving
Tobais Palmer 8 rec, 58 yards
T.J. Graham 4 rec, 78 yards
Taylor Gentry 4 rec, 21 yards
George Bryan 2 rec, 8 yards
Mustafa Greene 1 rec, 10 yards

Defense
Markus Kuhn 11 tackles, 3.5 TFL
Rickey Dowdy 9 tackles, 2 TFL
J.R. Sweezy 5 tackles, 2.5 TFL
Brandan Bishop 5 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 INT, 1 PBU
David Amerson 5 tackles, 1 INT, 1 PBU
A.J. Ferguson 4 tackles, 2 sacks
Earl Wolff 3 tackles, 1 FF, 1 FR
Rashard Smith 1 INT

Let’s not read too much into Spring stats because guys are being rotated around and the coaches are working on a lot of new stuff.  That being said, the two guys that really stick out to me are Mustafa Greene and Markus Kuhn.  With Mike Glennon taking over the reigns of the offense we’re gonna need to run the ball better this season to come anywhere close to matching last season’s productivity.  Knowing that, several of the offensive linemen have come out and stated that their goal for the 2011 season is to block for a 1,000 yard rusher, so seeing Mustafa’s 5.9 yards per carry makes me think that could be a possibility.  Of course, today it was released that Mustafa has a foot injury that will require surgery and keep him out of practice until the Fall, so let’s just hope it doesn’t have any lingering effects into the season.

On defense, we should be fine in the back seven so the play of our defensive line will be key.  We lost a lot of depth and experience on the defensive line from last year’s team so we need several guys to step up.  One of those guys has to be Markus Kuhn.  He was an integral player for the Pack defense as a true Freshman back in 2007, but has been very very quiet in the three years since (he did redshirt in 2009).  Kuhn’s 11 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss show that he still has the talent to be a force on the defensive line.  Combined with Sweezy, he could give us a very formidable duo inside.

The final scrimmage of the Spring, the Kay Yow Spring Game, is set for this Saturday.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get a crowd of 25,000+ to show up.  Of course we could always pull a UNC and just lie about how many people show up.  Pathetic!  Anyway, there will be more than just the Spring Game going on Saturday at Carter-Finley.  The Wolfpack Club is sponsoring a BBQ Bowl, there will be a free Embers concert, and I will be hosting the DFCF 30th Birthday Tailgate Bash.  Sounds like a lot of fun.  See you there!

You don’t win a game 48-7 by doing to many things wrong so all the grades are going to be good, but since it was the first game of the season and against a Division 1 FCS team I’m going to grade more strict than normal.  I’m not giving anybody an A+ and I’m docking the defense a whole letter for Western’s first drive of the game where they marched right down the field with little resistance to take a 7-0 lead.

Also since the game was a blowout and I missed a good portion of the second half, these grades are based mostly on my observations from the first half.  Feel free to critique my grades in the comments (if you don’t see the comment box you can click on the post title or where it says comment at the bottom of the post and it should appear).  Class is now in session.

Quarterback - Grade: A

Russell Wilson looked like Russell Wilson.  He didn’t show any signs of rust and looked real quick the few times he left the pocket to scramble.  A couple times he tried to force the home run throw down the field when he had a receiver wide open in the middle, but that’s splitting hairs.

Running Backs – Grade: B

Dean Haynes looked alright for somebody that started fall camp as a defensive back.  Most of the day, however, our running backs found the yards harder to come by than they should have been.  They did do a pretty good job at two things that are going to be critical to our success this year:  picking up the blitz and taking care of the ball.

Receivers – Grade: A

There were a few drops, but the receivers picked up right where they left off last year as a team strength.  T.J. Graham was the star with 2 touchdowns and Owen Spencer had another of his patented big plays.

Offensive Line – Grade: B-

The pass blocking was mostly good, but this unit still struggled to open up holes for the running game.  Jake Vermiglio was suspended for the game so highly touted true freshman Rob Crisp made his debut and more than held his own.  This unit has a lot of potential going forward, but against an undersized WCU defensive line they didn’t dominate like they should have.

Defensive Line – Grade: B

With J.R. Sweezy and Markus Kuhn missing the game due to suspension they were slightly undermanned, but this unit was solid.  They had some gap control problems early on as WCU broke a couple long runs, but they did a decent job at rushing the passer.

Linebackers – Grade: B

Terrell Manning was all over the field making plays.  If you blinked he looked like ’08 Nate Irving out there.  After one game I would say that Manning looked far and away like our best player on defense.  As for Irving, it was good to see him back on the field at Carter-Finley but he was a non-factor in the game.  Audie Cole was largely invisible too.

Defensive Backs – Grade: B-

They still play like the young, inexperienced unit that they are which was most evident on WCU’s first drive.  They still gave big cushions on the outside and seemed to get confused at times in coverage.  It’s hard to get an accurate feel from this game on whether or not this unit has improved from last year, but I’m inclined to say it has.

Special Teams – Grade: A

Kickoff coverage was vastly improved from last year which is a great sign heading forward.  The punt coverage team wasn’t needed much, but when called upon they recovered a fumble that set up our first touchdown and killed the Catamounts’ hopes of pulling off the upset.  Josh Czajkowski made both field goals and was a little better on the hang time and depth of his kickoffs.

Coaching – Grade: A

We started off the season with a win for the first time in the TOB era and didn’t show too much of our playbook or new blitz packages in the process.

I hope everybody had a great Easter.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather.  I’m still coming down off a Reese’s Pieces Eggs high.  That’s my absolute favorite candy and I hoard as many bags as I can get my hands on.  Last year my stash lasted almost til Christmas.  Okay, enough about my Reese’s Pieces Eggs addiction let’s move on to another one of my addictions … NC State football.  Too bad this one doesn’t satisfy the appetite quite like the candy does.

So last Saturday the Pack had their first Spring Scrimmage.  TOB never releases all the stats, which still doesn’t make any sense, but he’s addicted to control like I am to those Reese’s Pieces Eggs so why should we expect anything different.  From the stats he did release one thing is very obvious.

Our offensive line, which has always been the strength of TOB coached teams, still has a long way to go.  Our RBs had 35 carries for 97 yards which is a 2.77 yard per carry average.  Not very good at all.  Then you see the defensive stats.  Just four players (Nate Irving, Terrell Manning, Markus Kuhn, and Darryl Cato-Bishop) combined for 11 tackles for loss and 5 sacks.  Now we do play two hand touch on the QBs during the Spring, but even so those are very troubling stats.  Still a long time before we play meaningful games, but the O-line has to step up big time if we want to play in a bowl game.

If you haven’t listened to TOB’s interview on the Solid Verbal podcast here’s the link again.  If you don’t want to listen to TOB I don’t blame you since it was more of the same coach speak that we’re used to, but you definitely need to listen to the Solid Verbal’s follow up podcast to the TOB interview (from the 33:18 to 34:45 mark).  That’s where yours truly made his podcast debut.  I wasn’t interviewed or anything, but they did read my email that I sent in the week before the TOB interview.  Of course, Ty and Dan used it to take an unnecessary shot at Chuck Amato, but they did give me a pretty nice shout out so I’ll take it.