North Carolina State University Athletics
Annabelle's Preseason Diary
8/19/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 19, 2003
I can't believe today is the last day of fall camp (and the last day of the diary!). Classes start tomorrow and the Pack will begin to settle down into their regular season practice schedule. Fittingly, the last day of camp was a long one, with a kicking scrimmage in the morning and a regular scrimmage in the afternoon that left the offense and defense dissatisfied.
Coach Amato was most displeased with the number of penalties, particularly on the offense this afternoon. There was some back-and-forth banter between the offensive sideline and defensive sideline early in the scrimmage ("Freddie! Freddie!" yelled Philip Rivers over and over while Freddie Aughtry-Lindsay ignored him). In the second part, the mood was much more serious.
Rivers had another strong afternoon, completing 13-of-20 passes for 143 yards and a seven-yard touchdown thrown to tight end Avery Gibson. Ten different players caught passes this afternoon, with Richard Washington leading the way with four grabs. A 30-yard touchdown throw to Sterling Hicks was called back with a yellow flag.
With T.A. McLendon sitting out due to an injury, runners Cotra Jackson and Reggie Davis had big days. Cotra gained 127 yards on 11 carries and scored on a 60-yard run. He also made big third-down plays this afternoon and had another 39-yard run called back due to a penalty. Reggie had 185 yards on 12 carries, including a 70-yard run. He also looked tough in short-yardage situations.
On defense, Greg Golden picked off two passes, and Roger Pollard led the way with six tackles.
One of the reasons that the penalities piled up could be that several offensive linemen are out with injuries. Chris Colmer, Brandon Sanders, Derek Morris and Brian Archis did not scrimmage today and Kalani Heppe left with an injury. Hopefully they'll be back in action soon.
The scrimmage ended around 8:00 p.m. and after running gassers, the team had about 45 minutes to shower, get dressed, eat dinner and then be in the auditorium for a 9:00 meeting. Now you can see why they're so eager for classes to start.
And just for good measure, it did rain for part of the scrimmage!
That's it for the preseason diary - I consider this to be the season now. Hopefully, I'll be writing the bowl diary in early January this year!
