Back from another performance that left a lot to be desired, N.C. State (2-3, 0-2 ACC) take on the Central Michigan Chippewas (2-3, 1-1 MAC) on Saturday afternoon at Carter-Finley.
The Pack will be looking to erase the memories from their loss against Georgia Tech. The Chippewas, on the other hand, fresh from their win against Northern Illinois, will be looking to hand State their third loss.
Coach Tom O’Brien, who is under immense pressure after a poor string of results that have resulted in the Wolfpack languishing at the bottom of the table, felt the huge number of penalties hurt the team a lot in the previous game.
“The negative thing Saturday was that we had 10 penalties,” O’Brien said. “Seven of them were pre- and post-snap penalties, and those are inexcusable. Those are the ones that will kill you and they killed us on that day.”
O’Brien felt that his team was getting better in terms of energy and they are looking to bounce back from their current rough patch.
“I like the enthusiasm of the football team, they got over the hump from the Cincinnati game and it looked like they had much more fire; a lot more energy,” O’Brien said. “When you look at the whole picture and try to put it in perspective, what we were trying to get accomplished with the people we had on defense, you realize there’s enough good to build upon.”
O’Brien admitted the importance of the game for the team in terms of improving their overall record and also felt they would be up against a formidable opposition come Saturday.
“This is a pretty good football team coming in, they are not going to be intimidated at all. It’s a senior, junior offensive team. They put up 48 points last week, the defense is strong down the middle. They are going to make it hard for us to run the football,” O’Brien said. “It’s a really important game, if we can get back to .500 here, and go win the second half of the year, there are still a lot of good things that can happen to this football team.”
Junior halfback James Washington, who leads the team in rushing with 300 yards, felt that as far as the offense was concerned, the loss to Cincinnati was a wake up call, and that has been evident in the way the offense played against Georgia Tech.
“We weren’t able to run the ball against Cincinnati so this week we just decided that we could take control on the line of scrimmage and push their defense,” Washington said. “We just did that and opened up running lanes and, for me, I think it’s more of a determination thing. We didn’t change anything; we just executed better.”
Senior defensive tackle J.R. Sweezy, who is also one of the team captains and just returned to the team after being sidelined through injury, expressed his frustration at not being able to play until last Saturday but admitted he was still deeply involved with the team.
“Its really frustrating, but I had a job to do on the sideline, getting everybody to practice as hard as they could,” Sweezy said. “It wasn’t like it was time off, I was still working to get things done.”
Sweezy felt that, despite the adverse situation with the injuries having taken a huge toll on the team, it was ultimately leading to the players getting more comfortable with each other and finally getting their act together.
“There are a lot of young guys out there, a lot of guys who are not sure about what to do or not do. You can see them each week, getting more confident, and you can see our team get more confident,” Sweezy said. “We are playing with enthusiasm, we are flying around and it’s all coming around.”
Sweezy felt that it was wrong to write off the team despite the early debacle and that the team was still strong enough to bounce back and rise up in the standings.
“Nothing’s over yet, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sweezy said.
“We can still win the ACC Championship.”
