North Carolina State University Athletics
Offense Erupts in win over William and Mary
9/12/1999 12:00:00 AM | Football
Quarterback Jamie Barnette returned to form by connecting on 17-22 passes for 237 yards and one touchdown as the Pack moved its record to 3-0 with a 38-9 romp over the tribe.
"I thought Jamie played an excellent game," said a pleased NC State coach Mike O'Cain. "He ran our offense well and was on the money with his throws. He really only made one or two bad throws all night."
Indeed Barnette was sharp early as NC State rushed out to a quick 17-0 lead in the opening period. But on a night when the offense got back into gear, it was the Wolfpack defense that set the tone right away when Senior cornerback Tony Scott picked off a Daron Pope pass on the third play of the game. From there, the NC State offense took advantage of a short field. A two-yard pass from Barnette to tight end Andy Vanderveer concluded a seven play, 31-yard drive to open the scoring.
"It was a great feeling for the offense to get off to a good start," said Barnette, who moved into sixth place on the ACC's all time passing yardage list. "We just wanted to come out here and be sharper than we've been."
Sharp doesn't begin to describe how accurate Barnette was in the first quarter. The Roxboro senior carved up the Tribe defense with laser like precision, hitting on 6-7 of throws for 124 yards.
"It was important that we got our passing game on track," said O'Cain. "We've been able to practice our running game in the first couple of games, but we really haven't been able to do anything with the passing game. That was an emphasis coming in. We stayed very basic, but the main thing we wanted to do was work on timing, getting set in the pocket and protection."
Following a 30-yard field goal by Kent Passingham, NC State made it 17-0 on a seven yard run by tailback Ray Robinson. Touchdown gallops by fullback Derek Roberts and Barnette pushed the Wolfpack out to a healthy 31-3 advantage at the half.
Another offensive star for NC State was wide receiver Koren Robinson, who flashed some of his potential by making five catches for 103 yards.
The big lead at intermission also allowed O'Cain to turn to some of his back-ups, including freshman quarterback Jatavis Sanders, who had a chance to take his first college snaps.
"It was good we were able to play a lot of players in the second half," said O'Cain. "We didn't look very good at times, but I really didn't expect us to." O'Cain also thought Sanders handled himself well while running the second team offense. "He handled the ball fairly well and made some nice crisp passes."
Sanders hit on just 2-7 pass attempts, but had a few long balls go off the finger tips of their intended targets. As a team, NC State piled up 451 yards of total offense-a far cry from the 134 yards it had averaged in the first two games.
Meanwhile, the NC State defense continued its fine play, holding William and Mary to three field goals. The Pack has now gone ten straight quarters without surrendering a touchdown.
"I'm very satisfied with the defenses effort," said linebacker Clayton White. "We were hoping we could shut them out, but you can't shut everybody out."
After falling behind early, three different William and Mary quarterbacks aired it out a total of 52 times. The Tribe could muster only 32 yards on the ground to go along with its 284 yards passing.
So, NC State's offense is now awake and the timing couldn't be better. There'll need to be a lot of wide eyes when the Pack travels down to Florida State next week.
