North Carolina State University Athletics
Football Preseason Diary, Day 13
8/19/2001 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 19, 2001
Well, the coaches and players should have plenty of film to look at now. We scrimmaged for over two hours this afternoon at Carter-Finley and as the coaches like to say, they were "getting after it." The team did a lot of situational work, spending time on red-zone offense and defense and of course, the always popular goalline drills. A good many of the younger guys got a lot of snaps and some of the more proven players did more watching.
My first observation is this: he might be big, but he can still catch. Willie Wright was asking me yesterday during the rain delay why I wrote on here that he is "huge." I told him it's because he IS huge! But at 242 pounds, he still caught some pretty tough balls today Bryan Peterson was attending a funeral and didn't scrimmage, but the younger players got some snaps. Sterling Hicks and Dovonte Edwards both had some good catches, while Chris Murray caught a 17-yard TD from Philip Rivers in red-zone work.
The defense was aggressive. Starting ends George Anderson and Corey Smith each had four tackles for loss, while George also had three sacks. And this has become so mundane, it's hardly worth writing about, but Terrence Holt blocked a field goal!
After the scrimmage, Coach Amato said that the focus now needs to be on consistency. The offense had a lot of penalties, typical for the first scrimmage. But as my daddy always says, if your offense is way ahead of your defense in the preseason, you're in big trouble! Since the defense is hanging in there pretty tough, I think that might mean good things for the 2001 season!
Tonight, we shoot headshots of the rookies for the game programs. Chris Murray says that he has a red suit with white pinstripes, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing that. Those guys were pretty hot and tired when they left the field a minute ago, so I'm not sure how pleasant they'll be smiling for the cameras!
School starts tomorrow, so all of our student-athletes are back in town. I'll meet with the men's basketball team tomorrow and am looking forward to seeing them all back together. Cross Country will get into full swing this week trying to win some more titles for Rollie Geiger, who already has more trophies than his house can hold!
