North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Looks To Regroup
10/1/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 1, 2001
By Tony Haynes
As he walked slowly off the field at Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday, NC State guard William Brown wondered how it could have happened. How could a day like this, a game like this have taken such an unexpected turn? Playing in front of its rabid fans, the Wolfpack figured a memorable performance against archrival North Carolina was inevitable.
It didn't turn out that way. The Tar Heels took advantage of great field position and solid play by their defense to escape with a 17-9 win over the Pack.
"I'm still grieving over it," Brown said on Monday. "I'll grieve over it until we actually sit down and start looking at the Wake Forest game plan. We felt like after the game that not only was the outcome different than what we expected, but that we had let a lot of the fans down."
Brown and his teammates, however, may not want to feel bad for themselves much longer because their head coach as other ideas.
"If you have any other names of youngsters who feel that way let me know them now because I'll be able to address it very easily tonight," Wolfpack coach Chuck Amato told members of the media during his weekly press gathering on Monday afternoon. "When they start watching Wake Forest, I think they'll get their minds refocused. What a tremendous lesson you learn in athletics. You learn the real lesson in life: that everything isn't rosy and everything isn't always as it should be. We found that out three weeks ago (in the terrorist attack). Life has a lot of ups and a lot of downs. That's why I think a lot of people like to hire athletes because they have been around a lot of ups and downs."
NC State will certainly need to be "up" when it travels to Winston-Salem to meet a Wake Forest team that appears to be vastly improved under first-year coach Jim Grobe. Using a variation of Clemson's spread offense, the Deacons have shown an ability to chew up yards in bunches on the ground. Wake Forest (2-2, 0-2 ACC) is averaging 231 yards rushing per game, a figure that is No. 1 in the ACC and 11th nationally.
"They'll get in the shotgun and do the Clemson offense," Amato said. "It's a little different, it's not your traditional offense."
Amato will be eyeing the health of kicker/punter Austin Herbert, who was unable to handle the placekicking duties on Saturday after spraining his kicking ankle while walking down some steps to practice late last week.
"We'll know more today (Monday)," Amato said. "He felt better yesterday. Hopefully we'll have him, but we'll know more as the week progresses. It's a day-by-day thing and we may not know for sure until Saturday."
