North Carolina State University Athletics
Louisville hands Pack football 29-10 defeat
9/29/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
“It was a discouraging loss for our football team,” Wolfpack head coach Tom O’Brien said.
Junior quarterback Daniel Evans came off the bench to replace injured Harrison Beck and immediately led State to its first touchdown of the day, cutting
The Wolfpack (1-4 overall) quickly got the ball back, but the offense stalled again and
But State could not mount an offensive threat until late in the fourth quarter, allowing the Cardinals to score on consecutive possessions to seal the lead. The latter score was set up when the Wolfpack committed its third fumble and fifth turnover of the game.
“The fumbles are hard to deal with, because we have momentum going a couple of times, getting into the scoring zone,” O’Brien said. “We had a penalty that moved us back and then the quarterback got hit and fumbled the ball away. That was a couple of tough series in there that we didn’t put points on the board that really could have turned this football game around.
“There is no excuse for fumbling the football. We will go back on the practice field and work hard at it and make sure we cover it and hope to stop fumbling the ball.”
Said junior tailback Andre Brown: “Turnovers killed us, and most of them were mine. Fumbling the ball away twice didn’t help us any.”
But, unlike last week’s 42-20 loss to Clemson, O’Brien found something positive in his team’s performance against the Cardinals, despite giving up 498 yards in total offense and the multiple turnovers. The Wolfpack offense amassed 334 yards and moved the ball well at times against the Cardinals. Brown ran for 92 yards in the contest and both Beck (17-28, 181 yards) and Evans (7-11, 68) consistently found their intended targets.
“We played hard and we gave ourselves a chance to win,” O’Brien said. “You can’t give up the rushing yards (251) that we gave up missing tackles. Offensively, we didn’t take advantage of our opportunities. We worked and worked and worked and then we turn over the football. You have to be able to score in those situations.”
The first turnover came after the Wolfpack drove as far as the
NC State’s three first-half turnovers allowed the Cardinals to keep possession of the ball nearly 22 minutes in the first half, compared to just 7 for the Wolfpack.
State’s only score of the first half came on a 42-yard Matt Hauschka field goal with 47 seconds remaining.
The Wolfpack seemed to be better off early in the second half. On third and 10 on
Beck led the Wolfpack down to the
On the play, Beck suffered a collarbone injury and Evans, as he did last week against Clemson, replaced Beck under center. Evans handed the ball off to Andre Brown and Jamelle Eugene on three consecutive plays, then threw a 2-yard pass to fullback Ced Hickman with 5:01 remaining in the third quarter to pull the Wolfpack within six points.
“We got into a situation where we had it less than a touchdown going into the fourth quarter against a good football team,” O’Brien said. “We liked the position we were in.”
But the Cardinals (3-2 overall) quickly scored twice in the final period to seal the victory.
The X-rays Beck had taken on his shoulder after the game were negative. His status for next Saturday’s game against
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
