North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack Tries to Take Away The Citadel's Options
9/21/2012 12:00:00 AM | Football
Military Appreciation Day Information
Game 4: NC State Wolfpack (2-1) vs. The Citadel Bulldogs (3-0)
Military Appreciation Day
September 22, 2012 • 6:00 p.m. • ESPN3/TWC Ch. 518
Raleigh, N.C. • Carter-Finley Stadium (57,583)
TV: ESPN3 & TWC Ch. 518 | Radio: Wolfpack Sports Network | Gametracker
Game Notes | #GoPack Twitter Talk | NC State Twitter | Ask the Analyst
After enduring five consecutive losing seasons, The Citadel (3-0) is serving notice to the Southern Conference and other FCS teams that the Bulldogs of 2012 are pushovers no more.
NC State (2-1) has been paying attention.
Back-to-back wins over traditional FCS powers Georgia Southern and Appalachian State have the ground-oriented Bulldogs walking on air as they get set to face the Wolfpack Saturday night at Carter-Finley Stadium. Kickoff is slated for 6 p.m.
“They’ve beaten two recent 1-AA champs,” said Pack quarterback Mike Glennon. “They put a real beating on App. State last week (52-28). After our game I saw that and it was one of those things you weren’t really expecting. We’re definitely taking them very seriously.”
Its recent success has pushed The Citadel into the FCS top 10, the school’s highest ranking since the 1992 team was ranked No. 1.
Like many military schools, The Citadel relies on a well-executed triple option offense that gives its opponents fits not only on game-days, but on the practice days leading up to the game as well.
Try as they might, non-option teams have a very difficult time simulating the speed and efficiency of the offense in practice, thus, giving The Bulldogs yet another edge they might not possess otherwise.
If NC State does a good job of defending The Citadel’s option attack on Saturday night, one of the Wolfpack stars will be Josh Stanley. And who in the heck is Josh Stanley, you ask? Stanley is a sophomore defensive back from Raleigh’s Leesville Road High School who has been playing the part of slippery Bulldogs quarterback Ben Dupree for the scout team in practice this week.
“He [ran the option] a little bit at Leesville Road and did it in practice last year before we played Georgia Tech,” State defensive coordinator Mike Archer said. “He’s bigger than Dupree. Dupree is about 5-9 and he’s hard to see. Some of the options that they run, it appears that defenses have it played well and he’ll come out of the pack and break a long run. It’s hard to emulate.”
Dupree was indeed dazzling against the Mountaineers last week, rushing for 144 of his career-high 180 yards in the first half alone. Even in those rare passing situations for The Citadel, he becomes more of a threat as an open field scrambler than as a passer. Through three games, Dupree has run the ball 25 more times than any other back and leads the team with an average of 116 yards per game.
“The quarterback is extremely dangerous,” said NC State head coach Tom O’Brien. “He’s thrown only eight passes.”
And when he’s not running or pitching, Dupree is handing off to sturdy fullback Darien Robinson, who has two 100-yard rushing games this season. In piling up 463 yards on the ground against Appalachian State, the Bulldogs had three runners rush for better than 100 yards.
Fortunately, NC State has an option blueprint with which to work. Two years ago in Atlanta, the Wolfpack did a tremendous job of getting a handle on Georgia Tech’s high-octane offense, holding the Yellow Jackets to under 300 yards rushing in a 45-28 victory. Middle Linebacker Nate irving was a one-man wrecking crew that day with 16 tackles. Last year, a banged up Pack defense wasn’t as successful against the Jackets in a 45-35 loss at Carter-Finley Stadium.
“In that game at Georgia Tech two years ago, Nate played very well,” Archer said. “That was really caused by our tackles playing well that day. Natanu [Mageo], Markus Kuhn and J.R. Sweezy kept their lineman off of Nate. The middle linebacker should make most of the tackles in the wishbone. When your safeties are making most of the tackles like last year against Georgia Tech, that means the ball is getting on the perimeter and you’re not going to be as successful.”
There were three critical keys that enhanced the Wolfpack’s chances in that game at Tech in 2010: State got ahead early and forced the Yellow Jackets to play catch-up; the Pack stopped the fullback dive; thirdly, Georgia Tech was forced to throw 18 passes, twice as many as normal.
Ideally, the Wolfpack would like to employ a similar blueprint on Saturday night. Bulldogs coach Kevin Higgins believes those games against Georgia Tech the last two years will make it difficult for The Citadel to pull the wool over NC State’s eyes this weekend.
“We played against South Carolina last year and they hadn’t played against an option team in several years,” said Higgins, who is in his eighth season at The Citadel. “This team is accustomed to playing against the option and preparing for it, so that’s not going to be much of a surprise to them. We’re hoping with only three or four days of preparation we can gain a little bit of an advantage.”
With The Citadel in mind, State actually practiced against the option for a few periods early in training camp in hopes of getting a jump on this game.
Of course, the NC State offense must do its job as well on Saturday night and take advantage of its opportunities to make the most of every possession. Through three games, the Wolfpack has averaged 76 offensive snaps per game, but given The Citadel’s proclivity to hold the ball for long periods and shorten the game, cracking the 70-play barrier in this match-up could be a challenge.
Although South Carolina wore The Citadel down in a 41-20 victory last year, the Gamecocks could muster only 55 offensive plays from scrimmage.
“As an offense we want to stay on the field, let our defense recover and put points on the board,” Glennon said.
O’Brien put it more bluntly: “if we have to punt 10 times in this game, we won’t win.”
This will be the fifth all-time meeting between NC State and The Citadel, and the first since a 45-0 Wolfpack win in 1983. The Pack has won all four games in the series.
The broadcast day on Saturday begins at 8:30 a.m. with “Inside Wolfpack Sports,” a weekly NC State athletics TV show that airs on MASN and Fox Sports South. On this week’s show, co-hosts Tony Haynes and Mark Thomas will break down the match-up with The Citadel.
Radio pregame coverage on the Wolfpack Sports Network begins with the “Mathews Motors Countdown to Kickoff,” which begins at 4 p.m. and originates from The Fan Zone on the front lawn of PNC Arena. Fans can access our game announcers all day and throughout the game on Twitter/@packradio.
Former Wolfpack All-American Johnny Evans will field questions as well on the pregame show on ‘Ask the Analyst.’ Questions can be submitted here.
