Gameday: State Readies for Showdown with UNC

NC State Wolfpack vs. North Carolina Tarheels
Kickoff: 12:30pm Today
Location: Carter-Finley Stadium, Raleigh, NC

It’s finally that time, folks. After a rather unsurprisingly disappointing start to the season, the Pack will look to make up for it all with a slaughtering of their cross-town rival Tarheels. Right now, neither team has much to brag about. State its at 0-4 in the ACC, while UNC is barely ahead at 2-5. While it might not seem like it, the Heels are actually on a little roll right now. After nearly beating #10 Miami two weeks ago, they came out and took out Boston College 34-10. But NC State is going to be amped up and at home for this one.

So what can you expect for this one? Well, if you’ve watched UNC then you know their going to bring pressure on defense. They’re going to come with stunts, they’re going to blitz from everywhere and anywhere and they’re going to try to mask everything, which they have done pretty well up to this point. This is a strength, but against a good offense this can come back to kill them. State needs to be able to take advantage of this They need to read the defense and burn them when they try to get too aggressive. The problem right now is that NC State really doesn’t have a signal caller who has shown the ability to exploit an over anxious defense. Mitchell will be back, but is he ready? He sure didn’t look like it against FSU, however that may have been due to the long injury layoff he had.

State is also going to have to establish the run game early on. UNC has shown tendencies of getting shredded on the ground this season. Last week it was 172 yards by BC’s Andre Williams and the week before it was Miami’s Dallas Crawford grinding out 137 yds and 2 TDs. If State can get Shadrach Thornton on track early on, State could control the ground game, control the clock and play this game at their pace.

Stay tuned as we’ll have more following today’s game…