Spring Game Doesn’t Provide Much to Discuss

…but we’ll open this entry for people to make mountains out of molehills if they would like.

Evidently, it was a ‘thriller’. The statistics can be found here. And, some bullet points focusing on our QB situation can be found here.

The Charlotte Observer’s game story shares a little of the only information that I think is relevant from Saturday — what freshmen are playing key roles that we may see in the fall.

Before the final play of N.C. State’s spring game, coach Tom O’Brien told linebacker Audie Cole to put tight end George Bryan on his back at the line of scrimmage.

O’Brien got exactly what he wanted. Cole leveled Bryan. Quarterback Justin Burke scrambled, and Bryan got up and hustled to the end zone.

He leaped to catch a 30-yard pass in heavy traffic to give the Red team a 23-21 win over the White on Saturday in front of an estimated 15,000 fans at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Cole and Bryan, two redshirt freshmen, showed O’Brien they can make plays.

State had 15,000 on hand for the spring game. Wake Forest attracted an estimated 4,000 to their game and the media is talking about Wake’s transformation into a football school. Amazing.

Imagine if Lee Fowler had gotten his way and NC State would have kept Chuck Amato leaving all of us without the optimistic hope that Tom O’Brien has planted in all of us?

We’d all be scratching our heads AGAIN about how our (lack of) leadership continues to misunderstand the importance of coaching and leadership in college athletics. Unless, of course, they find a way to show us that Wake has stronger fan support and better facilities than NC State. Because, as we all ‘know’…facilities are what wins games.

For a related note about spring football we turn your attention to this entry from earlier in the week.

Lastly, please do not ignore the entry just before this one on the blog – link here.


About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

'08 Football

44 Responses to Spring Game Doesn’t Provide Much to Discuss

  1. Wolf-n-Atl 04/21/2008 at 11:35 AM #

    “For some reason the main web page address isn’t working… statefansnation.com just shows a blank screen. Just letting you guys know… Although, for some strange reason it works perfectly on internet explorer… just not showing up on Firefox.”

    Make sure you type “www” not just statefansnation.com – for some reason that causes an issue on some browsers.

  2. WolfpackCoach17 04/21/2008 at 1:11 PM #

    I was able to attend the game, and I figured I’d throw my two cents in for those that couldn’t make it.
    When I left the game, I felt like other than the last two minutes, it was a non-exciting game. But the more I thought about it, I think in football most exciting plays are the result of one team making a mistake and the other team capitalizing. In this situation of playing against ourselves, not having alot of big plays equated to not making a great deal of mistakes.
    Last year, I felt that we had alot of mistakes, interception returns for touchdowns, missed tackles turned into long gains, etc. It made for an exciting spring game, but ultimately it was a sign of a mistake-prone team.
    This year, after some reflection, I just think we played a fairly mistake free game. First there were no QB interceptions. There was only one fumble, and that was on a hook and ladder play that would have worked, except the pitch was bad. Needless to say, I doubt it’s a play we’ll see in the fall, but A+ for the creativity. Penalties were fairly low. Only one hold that I can recall, with a couple of procedure penalties, and false starts. We didn’t see any wide open wide receivers for long touchdowns, but that means that our defensive backs played well. You didn’t see any long runs, which meant that our linebackers and d-backs were in position and making tackles. You didn’t really see any sacks (maybe a couple). But that tells me that our offensive line was playing well. I have faith in our D-Line people, so if they were holding out Young, Cash, Holmes, and Kuhn, then that means that the O-Line must have played pretty well. O-Line is difficult to evaluate without a rewind button, and the chance to iso in on each player, but based on overall results, they must have been solid. Eugene had a nice 20+ yard TD run, but that play looked like there was a walk-on linebacker filling the wrong gap, so no major worries there. As far as special teams. I thought Czajkowski looked good at place kicker. His best attempt of the day was a 53 yard game tying attempt in the 4th quarter. It looked online, and came up just short. But it was a good effort in a pressure situation. The missed FG from in close was from Pierson the punter. Punting was mixed. Pierson and Ruiz will probably battle it out for the spot. In defense of the special teams TD, that punt was by a walk-on punter that was shanked, went about 25-30 yards, and rolled backwards like a good chip shot in golf. Throughout the day, punts were being fair caught, or caught and ran one or two strides before everyone stopped. I don’t know what the rules were, but no punt returner was hit all day. Therefore, I think 21 players on the field gave up on that play after it bounced two or three times. Technically it was a live ball, but based on the way that punts were being handled, I wouldn’t consider that a mental lapse. It was more of a situation where the guys didn’t understand the special rules applied to punts this day.

    Overall, there wasn’t much to ooh and awe over at the game, but the one thought that struck me walking out of Carter-Finley is that if I can walk out of Carter-Finley in the fall seven times with State having not thrown an interception, only had one holding call, zero traditional fumbles, and no glaring assignment mistakes that I can see with the untrained eye, then I think we are going to win a great number of those seven games.

    With that said, here is my QB assessment:
    Burke was sharp, and probably won the day. Mostly with underneath stuff, but the TD pass he threw to Bowens was a nice throw towards the sideline, and the final play, was nice in the fact that he scrambled to create time, and put the ball in a position to be caught. Alot of QBs end up throwing a ball like that out of the end zone. (FWIW, Jeff Rieskamp, was a monster at defensive end on that last series, and put a lot of pressure on Burke. Good sign for a freshman) Beck was decent. He strung together some nice throws on one drive, missed some throws on another. Wilson’s day was a glass half empty/half full situation. On the plus side, he looks like he has a great arm. Tight spiral, and able to zip it a long way without looking like it takes much effort. Also, his scrambling was impressive, turning some potential sacks into five yard gains, and making some nice moves along the way. On the minus side, his accuracy wasn’t that great in this scrimmage, and he seemed to press a bit after a slow start. I’m sure that he desperately wanted to impress today, and a couple of three and outs made his first quarter short. When he came back in the 3rd and 4th quarters, he looked a bit more comfortable. He also handled the two minute drill effectively, leading to the go-ahead white score 21-17. My overall assessment is that noone won the job today, and noone stood out as a leader (compared to last year, Evans was clearly the best of the day). I actually feel like we have four quarterbacks that can be solid, but not spectacular. That’s not a horrible place to be in. In fact, many of the best teams out there, just have solid quarterbacks that don’t make mistakes. With that said, there was nothing on the field, that said that Glennon couldn’t come in and win the job if he is as good as he looked in the UnderArmour All star game.

  3. Sw0rdf1sh 04/21/2008 at 3:13 PM #

    I enjoyed the game and thought it was a good way to end the game. The only “snoozer” was the 3rd quarter, but there was plenty to watch and enjoy outside of that.

    I’m glad the turnout was as good as it was and look forward to it growing as we get better through the years.

    As much as I (we) wanted to RW to rip it up, he just didn’t have a great day, and some of his passes were dropped too. Burke did a great job and so did Beck….he just didn’t have a game winning drive or mad scrambles.

    Evans2 caught some good passes and I’m hoping to see more from Leonard.

    Oh, and my new seats are tucked right under the overhang so I can hopefully not bake like I did at the Clemson game last year!

  4. PackerInRussia 04/21/2008 at 3:16 PM #

    Go to this site and there are links to videos of two drives from the game–one that resulted in RW’s rushing touchdown (nice play) and the final drive of the game: http://ncstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=799286

    P.S. I couldn’t get SFN to work all day yesterday and this morning (my time) in Firefox or IE. I would just get a blank white page every time. It just all of a sudden started working tonight thankfully.

  5. Mike 04/21/2008 at 3:42 PM #

    RAWFS, count me in for the StateFans Golf.

  6. BoKnowsNCS71 04/21/2008 at 4:15 PM #

    Just let the EZU folks have their fantasies. Last year, as I recall, we were supposed to come in third in the ACC in basketball. Personally, I don’t know why the EZU folks are so optimistic. Won’t they be breaking in a new quarterback? But if they do well, more the better as Skip skips up to the more higher paying BCS jobs.

    As for us, we have several new QB options and some older ones with experience — so player injuries at that position should not hurt us unless they all go down like the “stable of talented running backs” that we were so lucky to have last year.

    I think it will be a tough year with a tough schedule but this team will be better prepared than last year’s.

    I don’t see a bowl game for us — but if the team does pull off some close wins or upsets and is playing well at the end of the season — you never know. What matters is that the program is back on track and will improve.

  7. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 04/21/2008 at 4:48 PM #

    “so player injuries at that position should not hurt us unless they all go down like the “stable of talented running backs” that we were so lucky to have last year.”

    I’ve been hearing about State’s great running backs for 6-8 years now and they all have been average at best, except for Eugene who seems to be the best back the Pack has had in a decade. Of course, I heard nothing about Eugene until he played.

  8. BoKnowsNCS71 04/21/2008 at 5:33 PM #

    I saw Eugene in last years Red-White game and he broke some huge plays. Problem is he fumbled at the end. He has that under control.

    I think we had some better than average runners who had problems with a wake Offensive Line and weak Offensive coaching. But i agree that performance was sketchy. One week great rushing and the next week you would see average. I would have to blam that on good scouting for our OL weaknesses and closing the holes.

  9. wolfpackdawg 04/21/2008 at 7:42 PM #

    I was there and what stuck out to me was while Burke played well, his arm strength is lacking. I think Russell is raw and can only get better. Hopefully his decision making skills are good.

    Worried about the O-line.

  10. ruffles31 04/21/2008 at 9:04 PM #

    I went on Saturday as well. When I go to these games, I look specifically for two things:

    1. No injuries.
    2. I don’t want to see one side of the ball dominate the other side. When that happens, one side of the ball will have a very frustrating year. For example, see dominating offense in 2003 and dominating defense in 2004.

    This year I also was interested in our kicking game (Cjzakowski didn’t look that bad) and I wanted to see how Wilson would play.

    Overall, I wasn’t depressed nor overly excited. 6-6 is doable.

  11. GoldenChain 04/22/2008 at 7:50 AM #

    The important question is whether or not they had more than one concession stand opened this year!

  12. Noah 04/22/2008 at 7:54 AM #

    The OL is definitely a concern at this point. I understand that Crouch and Julian Williams have impressed and solidified their positions. Everyone else…maybe not so much.

  13. choppack1 04/22/2008 at 8:13 AM #

    I’ll take this opportunity to bash our sports marketing folks…

    Here’s a hint, when you put all fans on one side of the field, put the photographers and the camera men on the opposite side. When you do this, instead of looking like the game was played in front of a totally empty stadium, the stadium looks full. I live in Winston, so I get hear about all the excitement about Wake football. You have 5 times as many people at our game, but the news guy doing the highlights sees nothing but bleachers. Good job guys keep up the great work!

    As for the game itself, judging from the #s, the QB play was totally opposite of what it’s been every time I saw scrimmage #s. Burke did play great – and showed great poise. However, he got some breaks early – and I think that helped his confidence. OTOH, Wilson didn’t get these breaks early and playing against the 1st team d, wasn’t impressive until the final drive. Beck played good, but I’m still not sold on his consistency. (Nor am I sold on Burke’s whose #s from scrimmages the last 2 years always seem to be subpar.)

    The D did a good job of forcing the QBs to check down to their secondary receivers – not a lot of stuff was open deep.

  14. Ismael 04/22/2008 at 9:51 AM #

    what i had read about Crouch was the massive amount of ‘baby-fat’ he lost, did anyone else see that?

    The thing i liked best though were TOB’s comments about the team all spring: they know what they are doing now after a year and they are doing it faster. The players even sound like they are having a lot more fun. Also read some great quotes from George Bryan yesterday about how guys don’t think about the depth chart and how red-shirting was great for him. It sounds like TOB has instilled in these guys that early playing time isn’t always what you want. G.Bryan mentioned about having to play to D-1 (ACC) speed and he needed the extra year to get that.

    I think that we saw the “dead wood” being culled from last years team and as we continue to see it, you’re gonna see kids with different attitudes play football at NC State for years to come, God willing. As we make predictions, let’s remember to keep it realistic and we’ll all be alot happier. Go State!

  15. PackerInRussia 04/22/2008 at 1:04 PM #

    choppack, they do that every year. Either they have a really good reason or they aren’t very smart. Want to start a poll to see what most people on this site think is the reason?

  16. choppack1 04/22/2008 at 2:51 PM #

    I think putting the fans on one side is a good idea. I think filming it from the same side is stupid.

    It’s the largest spring football game in North Carolina, you’d think that we’d want folks to know about it…

  17. spudwebb 04/22/2008 at 3:34 PM #

    I enjoyed watching the game, it was a lot more entertaining football than LY, and while there were a lot of flaws there was a lot more to feel good about. Wilson at least gives us some chances outside the pocket, IMO Burke benefitted from a lack of secondary depth. If anyone back there goes down we are in deep kimshe.

    The O line is clearly better then LY, which was no major accomplishment, but we are a still a year away there. LBs looked okay, receivers looked good and Bryan is a ballplayer.

    The lack of INTs was somewhat encouraging, it seemed like it was equal parts improved decision making and bad secondary play. The last play was great from an offensive perspective, but scary from a defensive perspective.

    We definitely got the right coach for the job. They are light years ahead of last year, and we still didn’t have our best offensive weapons in the mix.

  18. inhoc... 04/22/2008 at 6:22 PM #

    does anyone know why geron james was on the sideline in street clothes? he was not on the injury list. maybe academic trouble? daniel evans also told me that his shoulder injury was a result from LAST YEARS spring game. he played the whole year with a torn ligament!

  19. Bynum State Fan 04/24/2008 at 3:42 PM #

    At least we will be better than our in-state Rivals. Wait, Wake Forest will be good. I’m talking about Duke & UNC. At least we have a chance at a bowl other than the toilet. We need to get some hard-working players into our system here at NC State. Our recruiting needs to go after the Shockeys, Pac-Man Jones’, Terrell Owens, OJ Simpsons, and Brian Uhrlackers. Those type guys could propel our football program into what it used to be. We are no where near what we SHOULD be at this moment in time. NC State breeds good recruits based on the name alone. It’s up to coaches to mess it up. And that is what they have been doing. This has to stop. I say fire any athletic director that doesn’t have marginal to good success over any 4-5 year term. It’s time to play hardball with some of these folks. NC State should be no place where we pay premium money for mediocre results. That is what we are now. We consider .500 to be good and we reward coaches & directors for those type of results. No where else on earth would you get that. Do businessess pay CEO’s for mediocracy? No. Why should we?

Leave a Reply