North Carolina State University Athletics
Wilson, Defense Lead Football to 21-17 Win Over Wake
11/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Editor’s note: More than $17,000 in cash and 3,100 new, unwrapped toys were collected during Saturday’s NC State-Wake Forest game for the Coca-Cola Wolfpack Football Toys for Tots Drive. The cash exceeds the total collected at last year’s NC State-UNC game and the number of new toys collected more than doubled last year’s tally. “This drive is something headed in the right direction,” Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien said after the game. I would also have to say our football team is headed in the right direction right now.”
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. He threw, he ran, he even threw a key block to spring his team from the shadow of his own goal line: red-shirt freshman quarterback Russell Wilson did a little bit of everything Saturday afternoon and evening to lead NC State to a 21-17 victory over Wake Forest.
Staking his claim as the ACC’s most capable quarterback in front of 56,174 rain-dampened fans at Carter-Finley Stadium, Wilson directed NC State on three masterful touchdown drives, throwing an 11-yard touchdown pass to tight end George Bryan and running four yards for another score in the first half.
In the fourth quarter, Wilson led his team on a go-ahead touchdown drive, throwing his second touchdown pass of the day to a Wolfpack tight end, this time on an eight-yard pass to senior Anthony Hill with 10:17 remaining in the game.
The play capped an 11-play, 69-yard drive, immediately after Wake Forest took its first lead of the game on a 24-yard Shane Popham field goal late in the third quarter.
The Wolfpack defense again came up big on several occasions, including on the Deacons’ final drive, as it stopped the Deacons on fourth-and-six from the NC State 26-yard line. Senior defensive tackle Alan-Michael Cash chased down Wake Forest quarterback Riley Skinner behind the line of scrimmage, forcing Skinner to fumble the ball out of bounds and turning the ball over to the Wolfpack.
Wilson ended the game by twice taking a knee, giving the Wolfpack its second straight victory and its fifh win in six tries against an in-state opponent in Tom O’Brien’s two years as NC State’s head coach. The Wolfpack plays its final road game of the season next week when it travels to Chapel Hill to play North Carolina at Kenan Stadium. Kickoff is slated for noon.
Wilson threw multiple touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive game, the most by an NC State quarterback since Philip Rivers had five consecutive games with multiple touchdown passes in 2003.
“Wow, that kid is coming leaps and bounds,” said senior running back Andre Brown. “What I love about him is that his decision-making is so right at the appropriate time. He’s going to be scary. I am glad I am playing with him my senior year, but I wish we had come in together.”
For the game, Wilson was 16 of 33 for 152 yards. He did not throw an interception and is now only four attempts away from Jamie Barnette's school-record 179 passes without an interception. He was also the Wolfpack’s top rusher in the game, scrambling 14 times for 69 rushing yards.
“Wake Forest is a big man-to-man defense team and when you run man-to-man, you are running down the field and chasing a lot,” O’Brien said. “When they are running around down field, there is a lot of room underneath, which Russell is able to find. He is able to make one guy miss and that makes him even better.”
The Wolfpack (4-6 overall, 2-4 ACC) led most of the game, save for a brief time following its only turnover of the game.
A second half shower created wet conditions that led to Wilson fumbling the ball away on his own 13-yard line. Wake Forest cornerback Alphonso Smith knocked the ball out of Wilson’s hands from behind and it was recovered by Deacon defensive end Matt Robinson.
The Wolfpack defense, thanks to another big backfield hit by sophomore linebacker Nate Irving on third down, managed to hold the Deacons to just three points following the fumble to take a 17-14 lead going into the fourth quarter.
“I couldn’t wait to get back out on the field after that fumble,” Wilson said. “When you fumble the ball, everything is on your shoulders. The defense had been playing so hard, I didn’t want to let anyone down, the offense, the defense, the special teams, our coaches or our fans.
“I knew we could definitely score.”
The defense had twice stopped Deacon potential scoring drives, in the first quarter on Jeremy Gray’s second interception of the season and on the opening drive of the second half by stuffing the Demon Deacons on fourth down at the 17-yard line.
Last week at Duke, the Wolfpack defense stopped the Blue Devils on all four tries on fourth down. On the play against the Deacons, defensive end Willie Young met R.J. Pendergrass in the backfield and got some help from linebacker Nate Irving for a three-yard loss.
Later in the third quarter, the Deacons (6-4, 4-3) were again driving into Wolfpack territory when Irving sacked Skinner for an eight-yard loss, back to the 50-yard line to end a scoring threat.
For O’Brien, this was the fifth consecutive improved performance by his team, coming off a 41-10 loss to South Florida.
“We have played extremely hard from the Boston College game on,” O’Brien said. “We weren’t good enough to win those three games, but we are starting to get a little better as the year goes on and things are getting a little interesting now.
“One of the things that has helped is that we have gotten guys healthy. We got Anthony Hill back. We got Jamelle Eugene back to run with Andre Brown. And then there was the development of those two guys from defense, John Bedics and Ted Larsen. All those things help.”
In the first half, Wake Forest’s D.J. Boldin answered Wilson’s heroics, throwing a 64-yard touchdown pass on an end-around play and catching a seven-yard game-tying pass with 4.5 seconds remaining in the first half.
The Deacons drove the length of the field in 86 seconds to tie the game 14-14 at intermission.
But Wilson was the star of the first half for the Wolfpack, helping the offense convert its first six third-down attempts. The Pack offense, which had the ball nearly twice as long as the Deacons in the first half, was 8-for-11 on third-down conversions in the first half.
With the game tied 7-7, Wilson led his team on a 12-play 82-yard drive that ate more than five-and-a-half minutes off the clock. He capped the drive with a four-yard dash for the go-ahead touchdown.
He also took his team down the field on its first possession, making a particularly good pass on third and four from Wake’s 40-yard line. He was nearly tackled twice in the backfield, but waited long enough for redshirt freshman Jay Smith to break free down the field and lofted a 27-yard pass to the 13-yard line.
Two plays later Wilson hit wide-open tight end George Bryan for an 11-yard touchdown pass to give the Wolfpack a 7-0 advantage. It’s the fourth consecutive week that the Wolfpack has scored on its first possession of the game.
Wake Forest answered with an end-around pass from D.J. Boldin to Marsh Williams for a 64-yard touchdown pass.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
