Another Pathetic Performance

General NCS Football20

I had hoped my first entry to SFN would be on a happier occasion, but such was not to be. After State’s abysmal performance Saturday night, there is not a lot to be happy about. However, anyone who was truly surprised by State’s performance hasn’t been paying close attention over the last two seasons. How many times have we’ve seen:
– INT’s turned into seven points for the opposition;
– The RB’s tackled in the backfield;
– State’s QB’s harassed and sacked over and over again;
– Short passes thrown in a different zip code than the receiver;
– A weak secondary exposed anytime the defensive line doesn’t dominate the line of scrimmage;
– The opposing team’s tight ends or running backs wide open in the secondary?

Last night’s game was similar to the performances witnessed against UNC, Clemson, Wake Forest, and even Georgia Tech. I truly don’t know what happened in the FSU game, but at least that victory leaves State with a chance at a bowl game. Maryland sits at 5-4 with games left against BC and State. State sits at 4-5 with games left against Mid Tenn and Maryland. There is a pretty good chance that Maryland and State will both enter the last game of the season at 5-5, with the winner becoming bowl eligible.

Even poorer than State’s “offensiveâ€? play (which applies on several levels), are the “analysesâ€? offered on internet message boards. Seeming to come from devotees of Tony Robbins, The Power of Positive Thinking, and Magical Crystals are lines like: “The offensive line needs to play with more attitude.â€? That’s right, attitude is more important than talent, strength, technique and coaching (both teaching and game-day schemes). Does anyone have Tony Robbins’ course?

Another “insight� often spouted before last night was “State needed to commit to running the football earlier�. “Commitment�….I don’t understand why State’s coaches didn’t think of it sooner. When State plays chiefly man-to-man pass coverage, the coaches are too stubborn or hard-headed. But on offense, they are supposed to “commit� to running the football. As we saw last night, it takes a lot more than just commitment to be a successful rushing team (40 rushes for 59 yards). Anyone want to explain to me how this commitment thing is supposed to work?

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

General NCS Football

20 Responses to Another Pathetic Performance

  1. Mike 11/13/2005 at 11:44 PM #

    Pathetic is right. This was certainly not the team against FSU, but more like Clemson and UNC. No attitude at all. We rad numerous times in this blog about AB, and what were the coaches waiting for to put him in. Well, now we see. He had nothing either – hard to run when the defense is in your face all night. All the comparisons to Herschel Walker……..Walker could not have done anything against them either. As it was, we could not run it, we could not pass it. BC loaded up everyone on the line because they knew we were not going to beat them deep. Made it pretty easy to stop us. Also, not that it mattered, but with a few minutes left, we had 4th and 17 and we throw a pass for 4 yards! Guess it helped the completion percentage.

  2. Class of '74 11/14/2005 at 6:40 AM #

    It is painfully obvious this is a bad football team made up of a few talented individuals. Given that scenario, the only winning formula would be to have outstanding coaching to overcome our deficiencies. Sadly enough we do not have that either.

  3. BJD95 11/14/2005 at 9:11 AM #

    Hey, that was VaWolf, not me. But as usual, I do agree with his take on things.

    Saturday night is exactly why you don’t make too much out of ONE good win, especially when it happens to be the ONE team Amato has regularly shown he can handle. If Amato could magically become a longtime assistant with the other 10 conference foes, maybe he would morph into a good coach overall? After watching Clemson woodshed the Noles Saturday afternoon, our “good” win lost quite a bit of its luster, too.

    NC State has a poor football team. Period. And the CEO of Wolfpack football should be held accountable for such.

    November 26, Carter-Finley Stadium…witness the BATTLE FOR BOISE! Only one will survive!

  4. newswolf 11/14/2005 at 9:27 AM #

    “Even poorer than State’s “offensiveâ€? play (which applies on several levels), are the “analysesâ€? offered on internet message boards.”

    Why would you expect any different?

  5. Rick 11/14/2005 at 10:13 AM #

    That was a frustrating game.
    TJ Williams gets alot of accolade but in my experience he always seems to drop the “big play” ball (ie the big first down or the touchdown). That dropped pass was the turning point iMO. Of course, that is pure speculation because we stunk up the place after the first 5 min.

  6. Jeff 11/14/2005 at 10:24 AM #

    ^ Great point….Just another example of a different kind of mental breakdown. Bryan Clark dropped a TD pass against FSU. Didn’t TJ drop another TD pass earlier this year? Against VPI?

  7. Sam M '92 11/14/2005 at 10:25 AM #

    Aren’t we already out of the running for a bowl game? I thought that the Eastern Kentucky win would not count towards bowl eligibility, so even if we beat Middle Tennessee and Maryland, we’d only have 5 wins for bowl purposes. Am I missing something?

  8. Trout 11/14/2005 at 10:34 AM #

    Eastern Kentucky would count for bowl purposes.

  9. Mr. O 11/14/2005 at 10:39 AM #

    I had a great time up there. Thankfully there are a lot of things to enjoy in Boston so the game was only a minor part of this trip.

    As far as the game:

    1. The lower level seats at BC are very low to the field. I had seats in the NC State section, so I had a terrible view of almost every important series except for BCs first TD. The people in front of me stood the whole game.

    On the first drive, was the pass interference call a good or bad call on the 3rd down play at about BC’s 20 yard line? It was a quick play, but it looked like our DBs play on the BC player was very close to the arrival of the football. The football was either thrown high or behind the receiver, so it was tough to tell on the timing and it could have been uncatchable anyways. It looked like a very borderline call.

    Any thoughts from people who saw TV replays?

    Also, did the RB clear the goal line on 3rd down? It appeared it was at least arguable, but again we had a terrible view from that end zone.

    After sitting in the end zone for the first time in a while, then I have no idea why people would ever buy LTR seats in the either of our end zones as opposed to the upper level sideline seats.

    2. Our D played pretty well, but unfortunately we gave up 3 huge plays. Our coverage didn’t seem too bad on one of the plays, but each of the 2 long passes were absolutely perfect throws. They would have been tough to stop with great coverage. The short pass that ended up with the long run was unfortunately bad tackling.

    3. We have major offensive problems. Our QB has a strong arm, but Stone was running for his life most of the game. As soon as we got down, we had no chance.

    Overall thoughts on the BC experience:

    It ended up only being about 40 degrees Saturday night, so it wasn’t too bad. The stadium seemed pretty old, nothing fancy but a good atmoshphere overall. They had one parking lot beside the practice field that was lit for tailgating. It seemed like a good atmoshphere, but it didn’t hold many cars. Lots of flag poles and it was packed with people. There are probably more lots, but not many close to the stadium. They have luxury boxes all the way around the stadium. On one side, the luxury boxes have a view of the football stadium on one side and the hockey/basketball arena on the other side.

    I took the B train to campus. It has about 30 stops coming from the Boston area. Most of the trip is above ground, so the trains have to stop at traffic lights. Basically, it is a long, crowded trip. The D train is the way to go, but I didn’t figure that out until I got to the game. It has only about 8-10 stops on the way back to Boston. I thought it would have a long walk from the stadium, but it is only about 10 minutes further.

    BC is a dry campus, so if you want anything other than coffee then don’t get to this area early. You have to get off the train either at Harvard Ave, which isn’t that close, or one stop prior to BC. At the stop before BC there was an Applebees and two other local bar/restaurants. I didn’t bother getting to this area very early. The one place I went to was nothing special, so I was glad that I spent more of that day doing other things as opposed to going to the BC area early.

    We had a good crowd, not huge numbers, but it appeared that the “regulars” that make these types of trips were there. This is an away trip that I will likely make again. Public transportation will get you anywhere you need to go quickly. A 3 day pass was $18 and that was the only cost of transportation the whole weekend. You can take the train from the airport. I stayed about 3 stops outside of Boston, so I wasn’t even in the prime area.

    People were friendly, lots of places to see, the seafood and italian food were great.

  10. Trout 11/14/2005 at 10:45 AM #

    “Any thoughts from people who saw TV replays?”

    TV play-by-play guy said it wasnt a catchable ball. Color guy said “well, you still cant hit the receiver.” I thought it was a bad call. I dont think it made a difference in the game though.

  11. TVP 11/14/2005 at 10:47 AM #

    ^Pass interference call was very bogus. Ball was uncatchable and it seemed the DB wasn’t early, anyway.

    It’s hard to get too upset about it given the way we were totally dominated from that point forward.

    We all know the O line was terrible, but I was very disappointed in the play of the defense as well. They let Blackmon get loose for three big plays. Despite his hype, he hadn’t done much for them this year.

  12. Class of '74 11/14/2005 at 11:03 AM #

    I have heard so much whining about calls or lack of, dropped passes and even pregame watering the field but come on now. We just got whoopped big time. This is a bad team period. A flash of hope once in a while but still a very poor team!!!

  13. Mr. O 11/14/2005 at 11:48 AM #

    Not whining about calls in the least. Just asking a question about a key play early in the game. BC has video boards at both ends of the field. I had a bad angle on the one at my end and the one at the other end was two far away to see. I was just interested in whether it was a good call or bad call. Also, the RB landed at the 1/2 yard line on 3rd down, but the refs signaled a TD. He may have crossed the goalline though.

    A loss is a loss, so there is no moral victory for me. It has been a very disappointing year for me personally. I was going to make the 6 hour drive this weekend to see the MTSU game and the basketball game, but I seriously doubt I will make that trip now.

  14. Mr. O 11/14/2005 at 11:52 AM #

    Also, this is the only college football stadium I have ever been to and may ever go to that gives pro and college hockey scores during the game.

  15. Jeff 11/14/2005 at 1:39 PM #

    What was the deal with the water on the field? Did it rain there?

  16. Alpha Wolf 11/14/2005 at 2:08 PM #

    ^^ College hockey is a very big deal in the northeast. Not surprised by that at all.

  17. bl 11/14/2005 at 3:04 PM #

    We have one good win and four bad losses. Maybe something needs to happen at the top?

  18. Mr. O 11/14/2005 at 3:15 PM #

    There were some puddles on the pathway around the reservoir on the way to the game outside of the stadium. However, it never rained that I saw in the Boston area.

  19. Class of '74 11/14/2005 at 3:27 PM #

    No rain guys. BC irrigated the field for some unknown reason. Apparently artificial turf needs irrigation in Boston.

  20. Jeff 11/14/2005 at 5:30 PM #

    What a high school move.

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