North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Opportunties Abound For Injured Pack
8/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
Tailback Toney Baker (knee), wide receiver Donald Bowens (hairline fracture of the back) and defensive back Clem Johnson (broken jaw) are all out indefinitely with significant injuries. Bowens, who O'Brien announced Friday will miss the entire season, might be the biggest loss, since he was primed not only to start at wide receiver, but also serve as the team’s primary punt and kickoff returner.
“Losing Donald is a tough loss for the football team,” O’Brien said Saturday at the football team’s annual media and picture day. “When you lose your most experienced and best receiver coming back it certainly hurts you, especially when you are trying to find a quarterback.
“We have faced this situation in the past and one man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. We are just waiting for another man to step in there and take advantage of that opportunity.”
O’Brien believes his team which has more depth than last year, when it suffered a similar string of early season injuries is better equipped to handle these losses, even if the squad is thin on experienced wide receivers and safeties.
“I don’t think the team will be as affected by it as we were last year,” said O’Brien, who saw starting tight end Anthony Hill go down with a knee injury before preseason practice began last year and Baker suffer a season-ending knee injury in the season-opener. “This team takes things in stride a little better than it did last year.
“Hopefully, we won’t have any more injuries and we won’t have to keep talking about these things.”
At wide receiver, sophomore Owen Spencer is now the team’s most experienced returning player. He caught five passes last year for 73 yards as a true freshman. Sophomores Jarvis Williams and Darrell Davis have also seen some brief action on the field, as well as returning junior Geron James, who was not enrolled in school last year and hasn’t played since 2006.
Andrew Evans and redshirt freshmen Steven Howard and Jay Smith will also add to the receiving corps.
“They’re about as green as the quarterbacks, with the exception of [senior] Daniel Evans,” O’Brien said. “It’s a situation that is a work in progress. Some of those kids have to step up and make some plays.
Johnson was attempting to earn playing in the secondary at safety, where the Wolfpack was already thin in experience. Senior J.C. Neal is likely to hold one starting position, but the other spot is up for grabs between sophomore Javon Walker, redshirt freshmen Jimmaul Simmons and Justin Byers. But the real concern is at the return positions, since Bowens and Johnson were the top two options in the punt-return game. As he did last year when Baker was lost for the season, O’Brien will turn to junior running back Jamelle Eugene to fill in the holes. Eugene and true freshman T.J. Graham are now the leading candidates to return punts, O’Brien said. A handful of others, including Along with safety, wide receivers and quarterback where senior Daniel Evans, redshirt freshman Russell Wilson and true freshman Mike Glennon continue to battle for the starting position there are several other spots that are still unsettled heading into the final 10 days before the Aug. 28 season-opener at South Carolina. The coach is still looking for five starters and five strong reserves on the offensive line and kickers Josh Czajkowski and Bradley Pierson are still battling for the starting job kicking off. “The offensive line is still a work in progress,” said O’Brien, who started his career as an offensive line coach. “There is nothing settled up there yet. We are trying to get as many guys ready to play as we can so that we can get into some type of rotation. Last year, a couple of those guys played every game for 12 games and at the end of the year, they wore down. “We are still trying to find the best five guys and also find some guys who can go in and spell them so they won’t have to play 82 plays or 75 plays a game. We’ll be better in the long run for that.” O’Brien continued to deflect questions about the quarterback situation, though he would clearly like to see it settled coming out of Wednesday’s final scrimmage of the preseason. “Whenever you do this, you always hope some one will stand out and grab the situation and run away from the other people,” O’Brien said. “That really hasn’t happened right now. It’s probably not the most ideal thing. It’s always better if you have someone who takes control of the situation, whether it be quarterback, tight end, defensive back, whatever.” You my contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
