North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Leads ECU Start to Finish, Wins 34-20
10/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Updated: 9:27 p.m., to include coaches' and players' quotes.
BY TIM PEELER
First-year head coach Tom O’Brien emphasized basics, honed his team’s fundamentals and told his players to forget about all the disappointments of the first six games of the year.
And Saturday evening, he lauded his team for being 1-0, after a 34-20 victory over the Pirates at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in which the Wolfpack never trailed. Junior quarterback Daniel Evans threw three touchdown passes and the Wolfpack defense stood strong in the second half, recording five sacks and holding the Pirates to just 72 rushing yards.
“I am really happy for these kids,” O’Brien said after watching his team score the game’s final 13 points. “They finally played four quarters. That was the challenge: to come in and play four solid quarters of football. I am still not happy with the turnovers. But if we eliminate that, we have a chance.
“We are 1-0. That’s how we are looking at the season right now.”
By that view the Wolfpack (2-5 overall) is even in the turnover battle after losing a fumble and interception and gaining a fumble and interception. The keys were that O’Brien’s team turned its two turnovers into 14 points while the Pirates (4-4 overall) turned theirs into 10 points and that the game’s final turnover a batted ball interception by defensive tackle DeMario Pressley ended ECU’s hopes of a comeback and set up the Wolfpack’s final score of the game.
“The thing we talked about that we haven’t been doing is forcing turnovers,” O’Brien said. “We forced some tonight. That really helped this football team.”
East Carolina coach Skip Holtz, son of former NC State head coach Lou Holtz, praised the Wolfpack's play throughout the game.
"They protected the ball and there is no doubt they have a lot of talent and they corrected a lot of mistakes they've been making in the first half of the season," Holtz said. "It's about doing what they have to do to win the game."
Evans, making his third start of the season, was consistently good all night long. He completed 29 of 44 passes for 335 yards and three touchdowns, as the Wolfpack scored its most points scoring 38 against Wofford in the Pack's first win of the season.
The junior from Raleigh’s Broughton High School finished off the game by leading the Wolfpack on a time-eating drive that ended with Steven Hauschka’s 21-yard field goal with 2:50 remaining, his second of the game. Hauschka now has eight field goals this season without a miss.
“Daniel is so smooth and poised,” senior wide receiver John Dunlap said. “He has been like that ever since I’ve known him. He is a very smart quarterback. He makes all the right reads. A lot of people lost confidence in him, but we never did.”
Points came in two quick spurts in the first half. The Wolfpack grabbed a 21-0 lead less than three minutes into the second quarter, thanks to a pair of Evans touchdown passes and its first blocked punt of the O’Brien era. But the Pirates answered, thanks to a pair of NC State turnovers and a 10-point scoring spurt in the final 23 seconds of the half.
The Wolfpack struck first behind four consecutive plays from scrimmage near the end of the first quarter, initially taking the highly partisan crowd of 43,527, the fourth most in Dowdy-Ficklen history, out of the contest.
Redshirt freshman Darrell Davis made the first two plays, first by recovering a fumble by teammate Jamelle Eugene as the Wolfpack drove into
On
On State’s next play from scrimmage, Evans hit Dunlap for a 21-yard touchdown with 1:09 remaining in the first quarter, State’s second touchdown in just 11 ticks of the clock.
Things were seemingly rolling as the teams headed into the second quarter, especially after cornerback Jimmie Sutton III blocked Matt Dodge’s punt and NC State’s J.C. Neal picked the ball up and returned it 20 yards for a touchdown, giving his team a 21-0 lead with 12:54 remaining before halftime.
But the Pirates answered, thanks to a couple of Wolfpack mistakes. First,
Late in the half, the Wolfpack drove to the ECU 25-yard-line before stalling. O’Brien sent out his field goal unit, but instead of attempting the kick, placekicker Steven Hauschka tried to run for the first down. He was tackled for a loss of three, and the Pirates took over with 1:12 remaining in the half.
Pirate quarterback Rob Kass drove his team down for its second score of the day, thanks to a 18-yard touchdown reception by Jamar Bryant with 23 seconds to play, cutting State’s lead to 21-14.
On the ensuing kickoff, Wolfpack sophomore Donald Bowens fumbled the ball away on the return, giving the Pirates one more opportunity to score before intermission. Johnson got the ball to the 30-yard line with an 11-yard gain, setting up a 47-yard field goal by placekicker Ben Hartman, with the wind at this back. The kick was good, cutting the Wolfpack’s halftime lead to 21-17.
“I didn’t feel bad at all at halftime,” O’Brien said. “I thought that we had played well and were doing well. We challenged this football team at halftime. We gave up the field goal in the third quarter and the thing didn’t get away from us when it could have.”
The Pirates cut that lead down to one point with 5:13 remaining in the third quarter when Hartman hit a 29-yard field goal.
Late in the third quarter, Evans hit a tight end Marcus Stone on a 36-yard pass that helped the Wolfpack cross mid-field, but the play was virtually negated by a personal-foul penalty on offensive tackle Jake Vermiglio, a true freshman making the first start of his career in place of Julian Williams. Vermiglio was ejected from the contest on the play and replaced by regular guard Kalani Heppe, who switched positions. Fifth-year senior Yomi Ojo filled in at guard for Heppe.
The Wolfpack continued the drive, which ended with a 41-yard Hauschka field goal that pushed the lead to 24-20.
“We were chipping away and chipping away and we finally got that tree down,” said
The Wolfpack returns home next weekend to play
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
