NC State 28, North Carolina 27

by Akula Wolf on Nov 28, 2009 9:33 PM EST Comment 2 comments

Coming into today's game, the Tar Heel offense was averaging 4.5 yards per snap and had eclipsed 400 total yards once. They piled up 481 total yards against the Pack on nearly nine yards per play, easily season highs in both respects. If you'd showed me those numbers prior to the game, I would have stayed home and slept in. That incredible offensive effort with that defense? By how much would they win? Thirty? Forty?

I was there and I'm still not entirely sure how the Pack did it, but they did.

A tale of two halves for the NC State defense:

UNC Offense, 1st Half: 26 plays, 318 yards (12.2 yds/play)
UNC Offense, 2nd Half: 31 plays, 147 yards (4.7 yds/play)

Once the Pack tightened the screws and cut out the big mistakes, Carolina's offense looked like the ineffective unit I expected to see coming in. And for the first time in a while, State was able to get off the field on third downs, limiting the Heels to 2 conversions in 10 tries.

NC State's offense turned it around in the second half as well:

NCSU Offense, 1st Half: 37 plays, 167 yards (4.5 yds/play)
NCSU Offense, 2nd Half: 31 plays, 239 yards (7.7 yds/play)

Just an incredible effort by the team in the second half, impressive under any circumstances but especially these.

Thanks, Pack. It meant a lot to go out this way. To everybody. (See TOB starting at about the 13-minute mark.)

Some photos from the game and the ensuing celebration:

Williams reception. (big)

Touchdown. (big)

Kuhn's 3-0 against Carolina. (big)

Enjoying the win. (big)

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That was... well... unexpected

So I don’t regret staying in Wilmington for the family oyster roast instead of going to the game, but this one had to be a lot of fun – and quite satisfying.

And you wonder how we won? The same way we’ve LOST so many… we’ve seen this in reverse for years, and it sure as hell feels better to be on this side for once.

The Pack scored a touchdown on every opportunity it had. 4 chances, 4 touchdowns.

unc-ch shat themselves… they had 7 chance to score, but settled for 2 fiel golds (credit to Amato), one blocked fiel gold (which was actually shanked WAY low), and the fumble into the end zone.

Bottom line – they moved it more consistently, but we made the most of our chances.

And then there’s the penalty & turnover story. Both went our way. We put it on the turf a few times, and we got ’em all back. We caught the pick at the end. We jumped on the ball in the end zone.

Bottom line – we did what it took to win. What a welcome freakin’ change. Hopefully it carries over into next year in some way, without the 12 yards per play allowed in the 1st half. ;-)

PS – I fully expected unc-ch’s offense to bitch-slap us all day. The first half was on par. The second was a shock to me. We didn’t give up 40… or even 30…. and, well, our offense is good for 30/game.

by wolfonthehill on Nov 29, 2009 5:48 PM EST reply actions

Not quite

Carolina did NOT move it “more consistently” than us. They had THREE scoring drives that lasted just over 40 seconds. That means they threw up huge, almost hail mary passes, and made the catches. That is not consistent, sustained drives. When it came to more “real” plays, Carolina did their usual awful job on offense. Our defense just gave up a few HUGE plays. If not for that, we’d have stomped them even worse.

by bradleyb123 on Nov 30, 2009 5:20 PM EST reply actions

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