North Carolina State University Athletics
Tony Haynes: Wolfpack, Tigers Take Detour
11/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C. The weekend of October 7th seems like it was here just yesterday. Time has flown by, right? The football teams at NC State and Clemson, however, would beg to differ.
Late Thursday night October 5, the Wolfpack was riding high following a satisfying 24-20 victory over
Two days later, Clemson and its faithful were having the same discussion after an amazing comeback at
Once all the results were in that weekend, Clemson and NC State, it seemed, were on a collision course for a November 11th meeting that would have major implications in the divisional race.
But a not so funny thing happened on the road to
When the Wolfpack and Tigers face off in their game of destiny Saturday in Death Valley, there will be no discussions about
NC State, in fact, hasn’t tasted victory since that magical night in October. A four-game losing streak has dropped the Wolfpack to 3-6 overall and 2-4 in league play. Clemson (7-3, 4-3), once ranked as high as 10th following a dominating win over Georgia Tech, is also in retreat, victimized by Virginia Tech and Maryland in back-to-back weeks.
“Its parity and the league we’re in,” said NC State head coach Chuck Amato. “Every team in this league is capable of winning in any given week and then the next week they’re capable of not winning. It may be something here to stay, I don’t know.”
All six of the Wolfpack’s ACC games have been decided by eight points or less, including narrow victories over
But as much as anything else, the Wolfpack has come up short in the four losses because it just hasn’t made timely plays in the fourth quarter as it did against B.C. and FSU.
“We’ve got to stop the penalties,” Amato said. “It’s tough enough to stop somebody defensively without giving them 40 or 45 yards without snapping the football. You can’t do that. That’s 40 or 45 yards of hidden offense. The same thing applies on offense. It’s tough enough to make 10 yards for a first down, let alone 15 or 20 for a first down.”
Clemson had only one penalty in its 13-12 loss to
Clemson’s red zone deficiencies are recent. After scoring more than 50 points in four of their first seven games, the Tigers looked unstoppable. They then proved they could push around a good defense when they rolled up 321 yards rushing in a 31-7 thrashing of Georgia Tech on October 21. Since then, however, the once mighty Tigers have looked more like pussy cats on offense, going seven consecutive quarters without a single touchdown against Virginia Tech and
“When you win six straight and then lose two, it takes you by surprise because when you get rolling you think you can win them all,” said Tigers coach Tommy Bowden. “You look at our game against Georgia Tech where we were so dominant; obviously, we weren’t that good and Georgia Tech wasn’t that bad. If you look at our Virginia Tech game with us, Virginia Tech wasn’t that good and we weren’t that bad. Some of it has to do with parity in the conference and not so much that we played that bad. I don’t want to take anything away from Virginia Tech and
Clemson still leads the ACC in total offense and rushing offense, but in the last few weeks, the Tigers once potent rushing attack has been contained by a pair of defenses that did whatever was necessary to load up the box and stop the run.
“We had been productive against eight and nine-man fronts, but it was against inferior personnel,” Bowden said. “Since we faced talent similar to ours in Virginia Tech and
When Clemson and NC State last met one year ago, the Tigers didn’t encounter nearly as much resistance. Even with first round draft picks Mario Williams and Manny Lawson on the field, the Wolfpack was manhandled, giving up 489 yards in a 31-10 loss to Clemson in
“All the memories of last year’s Clemson game are bad,” said Wolfpack middle linebacker Patrick Lowery. “That’s probably the one game last year where we got beat pretty bad. It wasn’t penalties or dropped balls or anything like that. They were just better than us by a lot that day. They ran the ball well and their running back is back and they have another one who’s just as good. They’re going to rotate those guys in and try to make life tough on us.”
Between them, Davis and freshman C.J. Spiller have combined to rush for 1,686 yards in 10 games. Both average 6.3 yards per carry. The holes have been, for the most part, plentiful thanks to a veteran offensive line that may be the ACC’s best.
“I think the biggest thing about them is that they’ve been playing together for a long time,” Lowery said. “Those guys have been playing together for awhile and it shows up on film.”
The Clemson defense features end Gaines Adams, who leads the ACC in sacks with 10.5 this season.
Against Adams and company, the Wolfpack will have to protect quarterback Daniel Evans at least as well as it did against Georgia Tech last week. Evans, who threw for a career-high 270 yards last Saturday, was sacked only once despite throwing 53 passes.
The noise inside the 83,000 seat Memorial Stadium is also usually a factor. And for an NC State team that has gotten itself in trouble with numerous false start penalties over the last three games, staying set and communicating amidst the
“It will be a real big challenge,” said Wolfpack wide receiver/kick returner Darrell Blackman, who returned a kick off 95 yards for a touchdown last week. “We went in there my freshman year and it was so loud. We’re just going have to communicate with each other and go in there with a lot of focus so we don’t jump offside and things like that.”
This will mark the third Saturday in four weeks that the Wolfpack has played on the road. NC State is 0-3 in road games this season. NC State’s current four-game losing streak is its longest since the 1997 season. The Pack hasn’t dropped five in a row since 1995.
