North Carolina State University Athletics
Everette Sands Diary: Short Week and South Alabama
9/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 23, 2011
Having a short week can be difficult, because you're forced to get into your routine faster than usual. In these situations, we have to ask the players to have a faster pace in getting their minds and bodies prepared for the game. Before you know it, you're on the downhill toward the game, and that can be challenging.
We gave up four sacks against South Alabama, something that we can't allow to happen going forward. We had a missed assignment here or there, so the quarterback wasn't under constant pressure, but our focus in pass protection as a backfield has to improve. Despite some technical mistakes, I was encouraged by our backs improvement last week. Tony Creecy had his first taste of action, rushing for 15 yards on three carries. Tony has great vision, does a great job in the open field, and I think his time will come.
We had some issues with ball security in the game, which means that we'll be stressing Every time one of our backs fails to protect and secure the ball they have to do 100 yards of up-downs. They have to do 100, and then the rest of the unit has to do 25, because it's important to remember that failing to protect and secure the ball (because I don't like to use the word "fumble") doesn't just hurt the runner, it affects the entire unit.
The entire team has been affected by the rash of injuries we've had to open the season. It's tough to watch guys dealing with that kind of a setback after putting in so much work during the offseason, but it serves as a reminder that anybody on the roster needs to be prepared to step in if we need them. If that situation happened in our backfield, we're lucky to have Brandon Barnes, a veteran guy that knows what's going on. In case he's called on, he'll be very comfortable and help us out of a tough situation.
My son's team finally had it's undefeated streak snapped, as they lost in a rainy game last week to North Raleigh. The good news is that I was able to get out there for the third quarter, and got to see him run the ball once. Unfortunately, I didn't see much of a hole there for him to run to!
