HAYNES: Pack Preps for 7-Straight ACC Games

BY TONY HAYNES

RALEIGH, N.C. Another week, another starter is missing from NC State’s depth chart. When the Wolfpack football program released its depth chart for next Saturday’s ACC game against Boston College, Julian Williams’ name was not on it. Williams, the Pack’s starting left tackle, injured a shoulder in the first half of Saturday night’s 41-10 loss to nationally ranked South Florida.

Williams joins a long list of starters who have missed action in NC State’s first five games. To be exact, 10 starters have missed playing time because of injury.

The biggest blows may have occurred in just the last week. The absence of quarterback Russell Wilson and linebacker Nate Irving was hard to ignore in Saturday’s lopsided loss to the unbeaten Bulls.

Head coach Tom O’Brien said Irving and Williams are out for an indefinite period of time. The status of Wilson, who has an undisclosed injury, is also very much in doubt this week.

“We don’t know; we’ll have to wait and see,” O’Brien said during his weekly press conference on Monday. “Right now, [Harrison] Beck is listed as the starter and we’ll go into the week with him preparing to play.”

Like the rest of the NC State team, Beck struggled to get anything going against a stout South Florida defense, completing only 9-of-32 passes with three interceptions.

Now the Pack (2-3, 0-1) shifts its focus to a final seven-game stretch that will feature nothing but ACC opponents. Through its first five games, NC State has already played three teams that were ranked in the national polls at some point during the season. Under normal circumstances, it’s a schedule that would prepare most teams for a rugged, intense conference slate. But in the Wolfpack’s case, O’Brien isn’t so sure.

“I guess we’re going to find out,” O’Brien said. “It’s tough to judge because we’ve had so many injuries. We really don’t have any real continuity in the program right now. We’re like the Dutch boy in a dike, sticking our fingers in, trying to stop flooding here, there and everywhere else. If we were whole and everybody was playing, then you would think it would be beneficial to us. But you can’t keep sticking guys in there playing their first game and starting two freshman on defense like we did on Saturday night against a team that ends up ranked tenth in the country. It’s tough to tell.”

It’s also tough to tell ultimately which teams will emerge as the power brokers in the ACC this year. With Clemson falling at home to Maryland over the weekend and North Carolina knocking off Miami on the road, it’s obvious that the next several weeks are going to be like a wild roller coaster ride.

Every team in the ACC, it seems, has some rather noticeable flaws and it’s clear at this point that there are no dominant clubs. The pavement on the road to the ACC title game in Tampa is likely to feature a lot of bumps and potholes.

For that reason, players and coaches on every team are emboldened, asking, why not us?

“On any given Saturday, anyone can win,” said Wolfpack center Ted Larsen. “It really has been nutty with some of the games. It’s kind of crazy. All we can do is focus on the games ahead and take it one game at a time. Hopefully we can come out on top the majority of the time and be playing in the ACC Championship Game at the end of the season.

Kick off for Saturday’s contest between B.C. (3-1, 0-1) is set for noon.

O’Brien will talk more about Wolfpack football on his weekly radio show tonight from 7-8 p.m. on the Wolfpack Sports Network.

North Carolina State University Athletics

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