North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Ill Memories From Last Year's Finale Linger
11/24/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Editor’s note: In addition to this holiday two-for-one ticket offer, fans can get big bargains on Saturday from the merchandise booths run by the Student Supply Store inside Carter-Finley Stadium. All hats will be $10, all jerseys $20 and cheerleader outfits will be $15. Remaining football gifts and novelties will be reduced by 50 percent.
BY TIM PEELER
But he was in the lockerroom after the game, an embarrassing defeat in front of a home crowd. And all he remembers is the look in the eyes of the seniors who had just been embarrassed in their final college football game.
“I remember ... the disappointment they had, that there was almost a sense that they let everybody down,” Hill said. “That’s a feeling I will never forget, just for those guys to say that was their last game. I don’t want to know what that feeling feels like.”
But the Wolfpack (5-6 overall, 3-4 ACC) are pretty much in the same position going into Saturday’s regular-season final Saturday against Miami at Carter-Finley Stadium. Kickoff is slated for noon.
Win, and Tom O’Brien and his team have a shot at going to a post-season bowl game. It would be the Wolfpack’s fourth consecutive win, all over ACC opponents.
If, however, the Pack loses, it would not be bowl eligible and would have to stay at home for the holidays for the third straight season.
“I think we learned from last year that if you don’t come to play, you can get embarrassed,” said senior defensive back Jeremy Gray. “We don’t want that to happen again.”
Hill added: “We are not going to happen what happened to us last year happen again. We are happy that we beat Carolina, but that game is over with. This is the Miami week and that is what we are looking at.”
But this is a different team than last year. Saturday’s 41-10 win over No. 25 North Carolina State’s biggest margin of victory in the series in 19 years was the third straight win for O’Brien’s Wolfpack.
Several of the players who were injured earlier this year are playing up to their preseason expectations, like tailbacks Jamelle Hill and Andre Brown, Hill, linebacker Nate Irving and defensive tackle Alan Michael Cash. And some namely redshirt freshman quarterback Russell Wilson have far exceeded expectations.
“We have been through some ups and downs all through the year,” Gray said. “We lost a lot of tough games. Some teams would have gone under and still kept losing. It could lead to a better season next year.”
O’Brien won’t let his team play the what-if game this season, after losing its last two regular-season games last year.
“It’s a waste of your breath until you [become bowl eligible], so I told my players they better be ready for Miami and that’s all,” O’Brien said. “I would expect, if we win, that we would get a bowl bid, but we have to play a football game against Miami first.”
Last year’s 19-16 overtime victory over the Hurricanes (7-4, 4-3 this year) included three Steven Hauschka field goals, three in the fourth quarter and the game-winner in overtime. The final of four straight wins taught the Wolfpack a little about themselves.
“We weren’t good enough to win either of those final two games,” O’Brien said. “Talking to guys in the spring, they basically said We were satisfied beating North Carolina.’ It was like the season was over already. We have made a big emphasis already that the season isn’t over.”
The Pack’s season turned this year, when the team was 2-6 and had lost four in a row, after Hill and several other seniors called a players’ only meeting at the Murphy Center. The upperclassmen believed the team could get itself in this position.
Now it has to finish the job.
“All this work and everything we have done to get to t his point, it would be a shame to go out and not play the best you can on Saturday,” O’Brien told his team as it gets ready to prepare for this week. “We want to give ourselves a chance to play one more football game.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
