State Places 3 in Pro Bowl

Alums General NCS Football18

Three former NC State players have been named to this year’s NFL Pro Bowl. Torry Holt, Philip Rivers and Adrian Wilson all were distinguished witht he honor.

* This marks Holt’s 6th Pro Bowl. We encourage you to click here.

* Rivers joins Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer in the AFC, therefore placing ahead of Tom Brady in the voting. ESPN’s John Clayton says that the selection (along with tow others) vindicates Chargers’ GM AJ Smith. (Link)

* Interestingly, all three of these players were recruited to NC State by Mike O’Cain’s coaching staff.

* If for some reason you need a little reminder about Adrian Wilson then you need to watch the video below. Additionally, we encourage you to click here.

You can click here for expanded Pro Bowl Coverage.

‘wolfpacksports’ on Pack Pride’s Message Boards concluded that 22 of this year’s Pro Bowl players played college football in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Boston College (0)
Clemson (2)- Miller, Dawkins
Duke (0)
Florida State (2)- Bouldin, Jones
Georgia Tech (0)
Miami (6)- Hester, Gore, Shockey, A. Johnson, Wayne, Reed
Maryland (2)- Merriman, Jenkins
UNC (4)- Saturday, Parker, Peppers, Crumpler
NC State (3)- Holt, Rivers, Wilson
Virginia (2)- R. Barber, T. Barber
Virginia Tech (1)- Hall
Wake Forest (0)

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Alums General NCS Football

18 Responses to State Places 3 in Pro Bowl

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 12/20/2006 at 8:30 AM #

    Too bad no Jerricho Cotchery. Next year maybe.

  2. highonlowe 12/20/2006 at 9:28 AM #

    Great news!
    (I thought the kool-aid drinkers would vote Vince Young in over Rivers)

  3. packpigskinfan23 12/20/2006 at 9:52 AM #

    ok so… Parker dosnt count for UNC cause he got almost NO time there…

    so NCState vs UNC is equaled out…

  4. Mr O 12/20/2006 at 10:12 AM #

    MOC had either gotten lucky or started to figure out recruiting in his last two classes.

    He also signed Krob, B. Williams, L. Fisher, Corey Fisher(is that the name of the DL that made the NFL?), the big OT that played for the Cardinals briefly, RayRob who never made the Cowboys but was a heck of a college player, and Willie Wright(same story as RayRob). Dantonio Burnette, Clayton White, Edrick Smith(though he got hurt) all were good LBs too.

  5. Mr O 12/20/2006 at 10:13 AM #

    Some of those guys I just mentioned weren’t in his last two classes, but I was just adding some names of some of the stronger players he signed in his last several years.

  6. highonlowe 12/20/2006 at 10:25 AM #

    I’m fairly sure he recruited Lamont Reid too, who briefly started for the Cards last year (cut this year)

  7. GAWolf 12/20/2006 at 11:35 AM #

    I thought it was made clear that without Dick Portee Rivers doesn’t come to NC State. Due to the connection between Portee and Rivers, can he really be credited to either O’Cain or Amato? As in… if Portee is in say Chapel Hill and talks the coach into offering a scholarship to play QB as opposed to TE… Rivers goes to UNC over NC State. I understand Portee was a part of O’Cain’s staff technically so O’Cain should get some credit for that, but to be quite honest O’Cain had just as little to do with Rivers being in Raleigh as Amato did…. assuming what I’ve heard is true.

    (Goat)

    SFN: Totally incorrect. It was JOE PATE…NOT Dick Portee…that had a long term, family relationship with Rivers and who was responsible for landing Rivers and Jerricho Cotchery (in addition to names like Edrick Smith, Dantonio Burnette, Devonte Edwards and others.

    Not a lot was made of it at the time — but Pate was forced off the staff and into an administrative role by Amato. We thought that it was a tremendous mistake at the time and if you look at Chuck’s performance (and the performance of the special teams) after Pate’s transition you will see a direct negative correllation.

  8. GAWolf 12/20/2006 at 11:39 AM #

    Another question… Wilson took it upon himself to get the recognition he’s deserved for several seasons now. The big pick for the long score opened a lot of eyes of those who had previously overlooked him. Do you think he gets into the Pro Bowl this year without that highlight reel play? (Not asking does he deserve it… but rather do you think he gets enough notice to make it?)

  9. colapack 12/20/2006 at 12:11 PM #

    Amato still gets credit for Rivers in the main street media. Look at the bizarre opening comment in this article…

    http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/16277470.htm

  10. WP 01 12/20/2006 at 12:24 PM #

    GAWolf….do you mean Joe Pate instead of Dick Portee (I could be dead wrong on this one). Just thought it was Joe Pate that sealed the deal on Philip.

  11. statered 12/20/2006 at 1:09 PM #

    O, are you trying to rehabilitate MOC? Sure he got more than his fair share of diamonds in the rough but overall our talent was severly lacking, especially along the d line.

    I would much rather be aggravated that our talent has a hard time producing up to expetations rather than being resigned to the fact that we are going to get rolled because we are weak. The man handling that MOC teams took from ECU and Miami were probably the two biggest humiliations state football has endured. Recruiting some nice players will never mitigate that for me.

  12. GAWolf 12/20/2006 at 1:28 PM #

    Sorry guys… I guess I meant Joe Pate. Thanks for the correction. I knew I had heard a story that one of the assistants should be given most if not all of the credit for landing Rivers.

  13. BoKnowsNCS71 12/20/2006 at 2:02 PM #

    Colapack — you can read that two ways. Chuck is not really getting the credit for recrutiing Rivers — that process started way before his hiring.

    Chuck’s first call as the new coach was to Phillip Rivers because he wanted to make sure that all the work of his predecessors in getting Rivers to come to NCS did not fail. So Amato never recruited Rivers — only made sure PR was still coming. (Maybe he sweetened the deal with Norm Chow but that might be a stretch.)

    It’s revisionist history to look at TOC’s recruits and say “Well if we had not fired him, he/we would have had 3-4 awesome years.” But then we would have had no Norm Chow, no reggie Herring, and others. Even Sheridan had a great (first) season with Tom Reed’s recruits.

    The interesting thing to see will be what TOB does with CTC’s recruits. Everyone says there is a lot of talent on the team — if TOB does well does that mean CTC gets the credit? Or does TOB get credit (like Sheridan) for making the best of what he inherits.

    Still in all — good fodder for the blog boards.

  14. Woof Wolf 12/20/2006 at 2:20 PM #

    According to theacc.com The ACC leads all conferences with 22 selections. The Pac-10 was second with 14 players and the SEC was third with 11. The Big Ten had 9 players, followed by the Big 12 with 8, the Mountain West 5, BIG EAST 2, Mid-American 2, Sun Belt 2 and Western Athletic 2.

    They also report that Miami led all schools nationally with 6 selections. UNC was second with 4 and N C State tied for third with Georgia Oklahoma, and USC (the one in LA) wth 3 selection.

    Not too shabby for a Basketball Conference.

  15. packbackr04 12/20/2006 at 2:42 PM #

    woof^^^ especially not bad considering that “we” the fans have our expectations way too high in raleigh. i bet if you count the collective national championships(or bcs bowl games) of the teams who had 3 players selected for the pro bowl this year, we would be the only team to not yet reach a bcs game. but hey that is way to much to ask from our athletic department. lets be reasonable, 6-5 is ALL we should expect in raliegh right. this is what we have been force fed for years. to just accept to be mediocre.

  16. packbackr04 12/20/2006 at 2:45 PM #

    ^^^ if your stats above are right, then we are difinitely the only team with 3 players in the pro bowl this year with no bcs bid for their college ever. UGA OKLA AND USC have all been in bcs games (several of them). dont know exactly the point i am trying to make but…… yall know what im saying

  17. highstick 12/20/2006 at 6:42 PM #

    Colapack,

    I sent Joe Person an email about the article and to quote “I didn’t say he recruited him, I said he was the first person he called to make sure he was still going to be with the Wolfpack”.

    My take is that that “lead in” was the first thing that came to mind and “facts don’t matter, just the story”!

  18. emanncsu 02/26/2007 at 11:35 PM #

    A little off topic, but did you see this clip of Adrian Wilson’s 66″ vertical:
    http://healthbolt.net/2007/02/26/video-66-vertical-jump/
    Amazing!

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