North Carolina State University Athletics
Clemson Downs Wolfpack in Football, 42-20
9/22/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Updated: 6:05, 9/22/2007, to add quotes, statistics
BY TIM PEELER
“We got beat in all phases of the game,” O’Brien said after the contest. “We couldn’t get off the field on defense and we couldn’t stay on the field on offense. We knew coming in that we had to do well at the line of scrimmage and they dominated us at the line. That was the story of the game.
“We are not a very good football team right now. It’s pretty obvious after today. They could have done whatever they wanted to today. We couldn’t stop them.”
The Tigers (4-0 overall, 2-0 ACC), behind the churning legs of tailbacks James Davis and C.J. Spiller, set a record for the most yards of total offense against NC State with 608, surpassing the total of 567 yards they had at Carter-Finley Stadium in 2001. Both Davis (166) and Spiller (114) gained more than 100 yards rushing against the Wolfpack and had two touchdowns apiece.
It was the fourth-most yards ever given up by an NC State defense, and the second-most yards Clemson has ever gained in a road game. The only time it has had more in a road contest was in 1903, when John Heisman was Clemson’s head coach.
“It’s hard to have any positives when you get beat like this,” O’Brien said. “We have a lot of work to do. We have to go back, look at the tape, get back to the practice field and work to get better.”
Still, even on a day when Wolfpack starting quarterback Harrison Beck was lost to a knee injury in the first quarter, the game wasn’t completely devoid of excitement for the Wolfpack.
Senior return specialist/wide receiver Darrell Blackman, the ACC”s all-time leader in kickoff return average, scored two touchdowns, the first on a school-record 99-yard kickoff return in the first quarter and the second on a 9-yard pass from replacement quarterback Daniel Evans in the fourth quarter.
Blackman began the game by breaking free on the game’s opening kickoff, until he was run out of bounds by Clemson kicker Mark Buchholz to save a touchdown. On his second return, just after the Tigers scored the first of their four touchdowns on the day, nobody could keep Blackman from getting to the end zone.
He told a couple of members of the Wolfpack wrestling team, who were on the field to be recognized for winning the ACC wrestling title, that he would try to run one back for them. Thanks to a hole-opening block in the middle of the field by Pat Bedics, Blackman found an open lane, raced down the sideline and own a stiffarm-jousting match with pursuring tackler Jacoby Ford, fending him off for 15 yards as he raced into the end zone.
“I was determined to get to the end zone,” Blackman said. “Jacoby Ford is a world-class sprinter, but after I got that far down there, I didn’t want to let him bring me down. I just had to do everything I could do to fight my way into the end zone. That was the only thing I could think of.”
The 99-yard return for a touchdown was the longest in school history, breaking Howard Turner’s 61-year-old record of 98 yards, which was also set against Clemson in a 14-7 victory Oct. 5, 1946, during the coach Beattie Feathers era of Wolfpack football.
Blackman also paired with Evans to score again in the fourth quarter on a 9-yard pass. Evans completed 16 of his 25 passes for 123 yards on the day after relieving Beck, whose injury was not believed to be serious, O’Brien said.
“I don’t think it is anything permanent or long-term,” said O’Brien, whose team returns home next week to play
O’Brien and his players were discouraged by their performance against the Tigers. Clemson out-rushed the Wolfpack 340 to 55 and had 406 more yards in total offense. Clemson rolled up more than 500 yards through the first three quarters and may have won by a bigger margin had they not been forced to attempt three field goals.
“It was kind of embarrassing,” said senior linebacker Ernest Jones. “I was looking that the scoreboard at the end of the first quarter and saw they already had 17 points. I was thinking that these guys could have 68 points by the end of the game. We had to step it up. We did slow them down some after that, but it wasn’t enough.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
