Torry Holt asks for release from the Rams

WRAL.com link

Could Torry be heading home to play for the Panthers? Possibly, now that Holt has asked to be released from his contract with St. Louis.

Per the St. Louis Dispatch via WRAL, Holt has been on the trading block for a while now with no takers and is due a $1.25 million signing bonus on March 17th.

It will be interesting to see if he winds up in Charlotte. Holt's made no bones about enjoying the idea of being a Panther, and the Panthers could use a savvy counterpart to Steve Smith to help keep the defensive double teams at bay. It's not hard to imagine Holt signing for below market value to retire in Charlotte, close to his home of Gibbsonville. The flip side of the equation is whether the Panthers have the cap room and need to take on an aging wide receiver (Holt is 32). They resigned Muhsin Muhammad last year after a sabbatical in Chicago and have six receivers listed on their two deep at the moment, per NFL.com.

Holt played at State from 95-98 and is the Pack's all-time leader in nearly every pass catching category. He was drafted sixth overall by the Rams, won a Super Bowl ring his rookie season and has been selected to six Pro Bowls.

View the complete entry of "Torry Holt asks for release from the Rams"

Search continues for Corey Smith, three other boaters off Florida coast

The Coast Guard continue to search for former Wolfpack football player Corey Smith and the rest of his boating crew that went missing late Saturday night off the coast of Clearwater, Florida.

Smith, along with Oakland Raider Marquis Cooper and former USF football players Nick Schuyler and William Bleakley, were reported as missing at sea on Sunday. They were out in the Gulf of Mexico in a 21-foot vessel when harsh weather led to extremely rough seas. It's thought that the waves reached heights in excess of nine feet.

The latest on the story can be found here at cnn.com. I'll try to post updates as I can:

- As of 1:30, the Coast Guard appears to have found a capsized boat with a man clinging to it. There's speculation on the boards that it is Nick Schuyler.

- 1:35. It is, in fact, Nick Schuyler. He's alive and reasonably well. That they haven't found the other three is troubling, but Schuyler's recovery is good news nonetheless.



- 3:30. According to Schuyler, the boat the four players were on was anchored in the Gulf when it was capsized by a large wave.


- 12:30 Tuesday. Still no word on the other three occupants of the boat. It's tough to remain hopeful at this point, after having been in the water for over 48 hours, of recovering any of the remaining three alive. The temperature of the water, even if the other three were wearing safety suits, is cold enough to have subjected the men to hypothermia by now. Keep sending your prayers.

- 5:00. According to Tampa Bay's Fox affiliate, the search for the remaining three boaters is being suspended at sundown. (H/T The Struttin' Wolf) This all but ends any hope of finding any of the three men alive. The Coast Guard estimates they've searched over 24,000 square miles of open water during the course of over 50 S&R missions.


Obviously, keep sending out your prayers for all four of the players and their families.

View the complete entry of "Search continues for Corey Smith, three other boaters off Florida coast"

To my readers from Germany, I say "Hallo, Freunde!"

If you scroll down the side of the sidebar to the right, you'll find an app entitled "Feedjit," which maps where visitors are viewing this site.

I took a peak at it today and, lo and behold, not one, not two...but THREE folks from Germany viewed YANCSSB in the last few hours.

I dare say that qualifies this site as an international sensation. I further feel qualified to make the gigantic leap and declare this site, YANCSSB, the web equivalent of David Hasselhoff. Germany is mine, Web America. Dibs.

So given that, I've decided to send out a progress report to my German friends on their native son, Markus Kuhn...and do so in their native tongue (courtesy BabelFish):

(Continues)

College-Student im 2. Jahr Markus Kuhn setzte sein starkes Spiel für den Satz diese letzte Fußballsaison fort, obwohl er seine spielende Zeit sah, etwas wegen des Hervortretens einiger anderer Spieler nach dem defensiven Grundsatz zu vermindern.

Er beendete das Jahr mit 11 Solo- Geräten und neun Vorlagen, einschließlich vier Geräte für Verlust. Er verwundet oben mit zwei Säcken, einschließlich ein sehr großes im Miami-Spiel, das sicher dem Gewinn half, zum der Wolfpack Schüssel geeignet zu erhalten.

It's stark, zum sich von Kuhn nicht vorzustellen fortzufahren, als Spieler auf dem Hochschulniveau zu wachsen. Er hat alle körperlichen Werkzeuge, die notwendig sind, im Haupthochschulfußball zu konkurrieren, aber, gegebenes he' relativer Neuling S.-A. zum Spiel, it' s verständlich, dem sein Spiel mehr benötigt, das damit er eine beginnende Rolle poliert, erwirbt.

Aber das Wolfpack kann Kuhn eher eher als später zurück am defensiven Gerät benötigen. Tiefe am defensiven Gerät, innerhalb der defensiven Linie, ist dünner als an den Enden, in denen Kuhn jetzt spielt. So don' t ist überrascht, um Kuhn zu sehen, mehr nächstes Jahr mitten in der Linie zu spielen.

Ich kann ein großes Jahr nächstes Jahr sein für Kuhn in seiner Juniorjahreszeit sehen. He' s blieb bis jetzt gesund und hat Ethik einer große Arbeit. There' s kein Grund, dass, mit diesem offseason verbrauchten zu denken, seinen Entwicklungsprozeß fortsetzend, dieses Kuhn can' t ist ein Hauptbeitragender in den letzten zwei Jahren seiner Karriere.

Dank für die Prüfung innen auf Kuhn und dem Wolfpack!

View the complete entry of "To my readers from Germany, I say "Hallo, Freunde!""

A look at the 2009 football schedule

ACC Now

Sept. 3	South Carolina
Sept. 12	Murray State
Sept. 19	Gardner-Webb
Sept. 26	Pittsburgh
Oct. 3	@ Wake Forest
Oct. 10	Duke
Oct. 17	@ Boston College
Oct. 24	bye
Oct. 31	@ Florida State
Nov. 7	Maryland
Nov. 14	Clemson
Nov. 21	@ Virginia Tech
Nov. 28	UNC

Perhaps the most notable item on this is what concludes it: a season-ending matchup with Carolina at Carter-Finley.

What a wonderful, wonderful site to behold: The front offices of the ACC acknowledging that this game -- not the Duke/Carolina matchup for the Victory Bell -- is the state's most significant college football game.

I have no idea if this trend will continue, but frankly, this game getting season-ending slotting has been long, long overdue.

(Continues)

Other items of note: like our blue brethren, two FCS opponents are on the schedule this year. What that means is that it will take seven wins this season, not six, to become bowl eligible.

State opens the year with a rematch against the South Carolina Gamecocks on a Thursday night in what should be one hell of a game. Then the two FCS cupcakes precede State's final out-of-conference game, a home tilt against Pittsburgh.

After that, it's conference matchups all the way home. Oct. 24th brings a nice respite before a brutal closing stretch that will decide State's fate.

But the big news again is that final game against Carolina. If the Pack meets expectations and the Heels do, too, then we all may get our football Christmas wish and see this game determine much more than simply in-state bragging rights.

View the complete entry of "A look at the 2009 football schedule"

Signing Day Wrap Up

GoPack.com press release:



I think it's a solid class. It's not a spectacular one, by any means, but one thing Tom O'Brien and recruiting coordinator Jerry Petercuskie have shown over the years is that they are very adept at finding skilled, hard-working kids that are "coachable."

Petercuskie had a fantastic quote in this piece from Tim Stevens that stuck with me this week:

"We want to coach football, not coach effort."

Exactly. Stars are great and indicative of tremendous potential, but O'Brien and company have done a fantastic job of looking past the stars and looking for work ethic.

Hard to believe that Spring Football is right around the corner.

View the complete entry of "Signing Day Wrap Up"

N&O: O'Brien's system works

Nice piece from Tim Stevens in today's N&O/Charlotte Observer.

It reads like a small measure of sunshine on a dreary Wolfpack Monday following Saturday's game and--if you were like me, rooting for Adrian Wilson and Steve Keim--Arizona's come-from-ahead loss in the Super Bowl.

It sheds some light on O'Brien and recruiting coordinator Jerry Petercuskie's philosophies and methods in the world of recruiting. Here's a snippet:

(Continues)

"As long as we're meeting our needs with players that meet our criteria, we'll be pleased with the group," said Jerry Petercuskie, the Wolfpack's football recruiting coordinator.

One reason for the variance in the perceived quality of each class and its actual achievements could be that recruiting rankings do not evaluate how players fit into a specific program.

"We rate players on things like size, speed, strength and skills and project how they will develop," said Mike Farrell, who covers the Atlantic Coast Conference for Rivals.com. "What we don't do is figure in anything about the program where a player is going. That's not part of our evaluation.

"But it is a huge factor in a player's development."

When you look at the players O'Brien has developed over the years (the piece mentions both Matt Ryan and Mathias Kiwanuka) and the number of offensive linemen he and his staff have put in the NFL (tops of any college), it's tough to argue with the results.

Other fanbases can bleat on about stars and rankings, but I'll trust Major Tom's proven method over star power any day of the week (preferably Saturday).

View the complete entry of "N&O: O'Brien's system works"

Andre Brown, Anthony Hill getting some praise from the Senior Bowl reports

From Todd McShay's piece at ESPN.com (it's an Insider piece, but the Andre and nearly all of Ant Hill's verbiage is visible):

North Carolina State RB Andre Brown has admittedly had durability and academic issues, but he's healthy now and shining in this environment. In fact, of all the South backs we saw Wednesday, he made the best impression. Brown is a decisive downhill runner who has good size, shows good burst to the hole and runs with enough forward body lean to pick up yards after contact. Although he's not the most elusive back, he catches the ball well and can contribute as a receiver out of the backfield. We now think he has a chance to come off the board early on Day 2 of the draft, and that's noteworthy because he didn't put up great numbers in college.

I highlighted the "academic issues" line because, as best I can recall, I don't remember Andre missing any games due to academic suspension. He had to prep before attending State, but in 2005 in his freshman season, he was a first team Academic All-ACC selection.

Odd.

In any event, here's what McShay had to say about Hill:

The gulf in natural ability between [Southern Miss TE Shawn] Nelson and the other two tight ends on the South roster is vast. Still, NC State TE Anthony Hill has some developmental qualities and projects as a middle-round pick. The 6-5 254-pounder is the premier blocking tight end in the 2009 draft class, and every time we've seen him in one-on-one blocking drills this week he has won the battle. In addition, Hill is a big target who isn't afraid to throw weight around and has strong hands. As long as he is facing the quarterback, he can make the tough catch in traffic. On the other hand, he looks like a fish out of water trying to catch the ball on the run and/or over his shoulder. At one point, the tight ends were running seam routes against air; Hill didn't get his head turned in time to locate the ball, a...

...and that's where it ends for us non-subscribers.

So it looks like Brown and Hill are going to both be second-day picks, which is about where you'd expect them to be. Great to hear both are impressing, though, and I can see both players sticking at the next level for the right teams. They're both hard workers and have good heads on their shoulders, and if history has proven any maxim to be true in the NFL it's that the smart, hard-working players are the ones that separate themselves apart from the rest of the pack.

View the complete entry of "Andre Brown, Anthony Hill getting some praise from the Senior Bowl reports"

Nate Irving and Willie Young are staying in Raleigh

Good news if you're a Pack football fan...none of the Pack's underclassmen are leaving for the NFL. The deadline to declare, Jan. 15th, came and went without news of any Pack players departing ahead of schedule.

The top two potentials were junior defensive end Willie Young and sophomore Nate Irving.

(Continues)

Young was probably a little undersized to play defensive end in the pros, and likely would've had to project as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme. Given that his speed isn't world-class, he'll probably need to spend 2009 bulking up to aim for a spot as a rush end in a 4-3.

Nate Irving is probably still a little raw for NFL scouts, but there's no doubt in my mind that he can become a Bob Sanders-type linebacker at the next level. He's got the speed and ability to read the quarterback to play in pass coverage, and the athleticism to break up running plays behind the line of scrimmage. What he lacks may simply be size and proof that he can be durable for an entire college season. Irving spent too much time on the shelf in 2008 to have a truly breakout year, but if he can play all 12 (hopefully 13) contests next season, he should be a first-day pick for sure.

For the Wolfpack, having both of these guys back on the squad is great news, as the Pack's defense will continue to be thin until O'Brien can fill the voids left by the 2006 and 2007 recruiting class debacles. Irving's absence over the course of the season, in particular, showed what a vital part he played in defensive coordinator Mike Archer's zone defense. With Irving, the Pack defense was much more stout against the run and better at creating turnovers in the passing game. Without him, the middle of the field was easy pickings for opposing squads. The Boston College game, in particular, highlighted what one player missing from the lineup can mean.

A larger, stronger Young rushing off the end, decreasing the time the opposing team has to throw the football, should also help improve State's passing defensive numbers.

With both of these players in the fold for 2009, State's defense should be improved.

View the complete entry of "Nate Irving and Willie Young are staying in Raleigh"

Russell Wilson's knee injury will not require surgery

Per GoPack.com, it's a sprain that should heal successfully with rehab.

Good news for Pack fans, obviously. The next question is how the rehab timetable will impact his availability for baseball. The season begins next month and it's tough to imagine that he'll be completely healed come the beginning of the year.

If he's not, does Coach Avent sit Wilson for a while early on to allow more than enough time to heal (you just know with Wilson's competitive streak that he'll be eager to play before the doctors think he's 100%)? I would hope so. Wilson is dynamic enough of an athlete in both sports that risking too early of a return isn't worth it.

Take your time, Russell. We can wait for your healthy return, even if maybe you can't.

View the complete entry of "Russell Wilson's knee injury will not require surgery"

Skip Bayless = dumbass

Look, I know I'm no exactly breaking some new ground here. Bayless has amazingly made a career out of firing off poorly thought-out arguments at a high volume. So what you'll see in the clip below isn't remarkable in the sense that Bayless is off the mark. It would be more remarkable if he were. Pay close attention to the tangent he takes with about a minute to go.

(Note: If you don't want to "feed the troll," then don't click the below clip. Somehow I doubt losing a few hits via this blog will result in Bayless' unemployment, but feel free to pass on general principle...I'll have a recap below.)



Here's the gist of what Bayless had to say with respect to BC and the Jeff Jagodzinski situation:

In defense of Gene DeFillipo,

"They (BC) got wrecked two years ago by Tom O'Brien, who was very popular there, and all of sudden--with recruiting hanging in the balance--he bolts for North Carolina State, out of the blue..."

OK. First off--I have no real rooting interest in the Jags V Gene soap opera. I couldn't care less which way things play out, though I do enjoy the drama. So I was wholly prepared to avoid mentioning anything about the situation here because it doesn't have anything to do with State, aside from the stale O'Brien/BC connection.

But good ol' Skip has drawn me in by trying to drag O'Brien's name through the mud in defense of a poor assertion. Good work, Skip--mission accomplished. Let me attack your ridiculous assertion in bullet-point form:

• One: Tom O'Brien did no such thing as "wreck" BC when he left. They actually went to back-to-back ACC title games following his departure. I doubt Bayless knows this.
• Two: Tom O'Brien, at the end of his tenure, was extremely UNPOPULAR with both the fans and administrators at BC, PARTICULARLY Gene DeFillipo who refused to work with Tom O'Brien on a contract renegotiation at the end despite his success. The fans continue to run O'Brien down to no end with insults I wouldn't hurl at the most deserving Carolina fan, player or coach. They are relentless in their hatred of O'Brien to this day.
• Three: He did not, to my knowledge, bolt from BC "out of the blue." GDF knew O'Brien was unhappy (due greatly in part to GDF's treatment of him, IMO). He had expressed interest in other coaching positions prior to leaving BC, and if GDF didn't see it coming, he's not only an idiot, he's oblivious to the world around him.
• Four--and the crux of Bayless' argument: Bayless asserts that TOB up-and-leaving BC "wrecked" BC's recruiting efforts. The year following O'Brien's departure--in Jags' first season recruiting--BC's recruiting efforts were so throughly destroyed by the previous regime that they were only able to manage the country's 22nd-best class. O'Brien's insidious recruiting-killing plan must have been a slow-cooker (hey, revenge is best served cold), because so far BC's recruiting class is ranked 79th by Scout.com. You want to know who's killing BC's recruiting efforts? Hint: It's not O'Brien.
  

Bayless is an idiot. Again, no newsflash here. But the danger of idiots in his position is that--because of the scope of his soapbox--what Bayless spews can be falsely taken as fact. It's not.

If there's one thing that State fans and BC fans can both agree on, it's that Skip Bayless' take in this clip is extremely off-base.

View the complete entry of "Skip Bayless = dumbass"

PapaJohns.com Bowl Live Blog

We'll see how this thing works...head here around 2:45 for some pregame talk and discussion, then stick around for a live blog of the game. My work's ISP allows me access to ESPN360, thankfully, so if you're stranded with no means to keep up with the game, this will be an avenue to keep tabs on the proceedings.

View the complete entry of "PapaJohns.com Bowl Live Blog"

Motorhead + Ozzy + N.C. State/Miami highlights = Awesome

Just a little something to keep you pumped up about football heading into the Bowl Season:

View the complete entry of "Motorhead + Ozzy + N.C. State/Miami highlights = Awesome"

Double Snubbed! Rivers snubbed from SI's 12 Biggest Pro Bowl Snubs list

I'm pretty sure I've never used the term snubbed so many times in a one-week span, but the snubs keep 'a coming for Philip Rivers: Philip snubbed from SI.com's photo essay on top Pro Bowl snubs.

Is that a double snub? A snub squared?

Insult to injury: On Chad Pennington's "snubbed" page, they mention Rivers, saying:

Pennington's numbers might not be as flashy as Phillip Rivers', but you can't argue that the Dolphins have been more successful than the Chargers.

Should I even mention that they spell his name wrong?

View the complete entry of "Double Snubbed! Rivers snubbed from SI's 12 Biggest Pro Bowl Snubs list"

Williams, Wilson make Pro Bowl roster; Rivers snubbed

Mario Williams followed up his breakout year of 2007-08 with solid 2008-09 campaign, and as such was named to the 2009 Pro Bowl.

Williams, after logging 14 sacks last year, has 11 sacks through 14 games this year and has anchored the defense on a much-improved Houston Texans team that's making a late charge for the playoffs.

Arizona's Adrian Wilson, still regarded throughout the league as one of the hardest hitting safeties out there, made the NFC list at strong safety.

In the snubbed category, Rivers did not make the AFC list.

Rivers is one of the few bright spots on a Chargers squad that has struggled all year despite lofty post-season expectations. He leads the NFL in passer rating, yards per attempt and touchdowns thrown, and ranks in the top 10 in nearly every passing category. The AFC quarterbacks selected ahead of him were Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Jay Cutler.

UPDATE: Apparently NFL.com's Vic Carucci agrees with me...Pro Bowl picks miss some deserving players -- especially Rivers

Congrats to both Wilson and Williams for their accomplishments and for making Pack fans proud!

View the complete entry of "Williams, Wilson make Pro Bowl roster; Rivers snubbed"

Kids in the front row, get your tarps ready: Cowher Winter 2008 Commencement Speaker

GoPack.com article

Do they make ponchos that fit over a mortar board?

Ok, ok...so I'm making light of coach Cowher's spittle projection propensity. But the man is one of State's most recognized and notable alums, and he's speaking at this winter's commencement ceremony.

So to those graduating this winter, two things: One, congratulations on getting a tremendous education from one of the best universities in the country, and two--while you may get soaked--just be thankful that your graduation speaker wasn't Dr. Harm J. de Blij (mine, back in May 2001)...a speaker as bland as he was unknown to the vast majority of the audience. Nothing screams riveting speaker like Emmy-Award winning geographer!

View the complete entry of "Kids in the front row, get your tarps ready: Cowher Winter 2008 Commencement Speaker"

Going bowling? Here's your free crap

Here's a story that's getting kicked around quite a bit this week: Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal put together a breakdown of all the free items given to players participating in a bowl this year.

State's players will be making out alright. A free digital video recorder, a knit hat and an Ogie backpack/bag/thingy. Some of the bigger bowl participants will get a few hundred bucks to blow in closed-down shopping parties at retailers like Best Buy.

This is one of those weird rules in place by the NCAA that doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the rule book. There are stiff penalties if a player sells shoes or complimentary tickets, or gets post-playing-days graduation gifts from boosters of the team, but somehow a $400 shopping spree is kosher? Seems counter-intuitive.

But enjoy your free crap, State players. Can't wait for it to show up on eBay.

View the complete entry of "Going bowling? Here's your free crap"

CollegeFootballNews.com: Three Non-BCS Bowl Games You Should Watch

The Pack's matchup with Rutgers comes in at #2.

This bowl game is a bit of a sleeper on the national radar because of the teams' records (6-6 versus 7-5), but these are definitely two of the hottest teams in America not named Oklahoma or Florida.

That State finished the year with 4-straight conference wins to become bowl eligible was remarkable and one of the better stories going. But look at what Rutgers accomplished: After a 1-5 start, they rattled off SIX wins in a row and looked dominant doing it.

Russell Wilson is one of the nation's hottest QBs, but Mike Teel may be hotter. Rutgers, and Teel in particular, looked atrocious in the early stages of the season. They dropped a close game to Navy to start 0-3 for the year and Teel, in frustration, took a swing at one of his players:



But from those depths, Greg Schiano resurrected his team (and his image as a top-notch coach) and refocused his quarterback into the leader of a scary-good offensive squad that put up 54 points against Pitt, ranked 17th at the time. They dropped 63 for good measure on Louisville to end the season, and probably could've hit 75-80 had they wanted to.

This game scares me silly, to be honest. Rutgers passes the ball well; State struggles at times in pass defense. The Pack's not nearly as bad as their 90-something-ranked pass defense numbers suggest, but no one would ever confuse this team with one that's impossible to pass against. Teel is playing lights out, as is Wilson, so it may come down to which quarterback dazzles more when the lights come on.

I'll pick the Pack to win when the time comes, as I nearly always do, but anyone out there that thinks this game will be a snoozer isn't paying attention. This is one HELL of a matchup, and should State win it will be their biggest win of the season.

View the complete entry of "CollegeFootballNews.com: Three Non-BCS Bowl Games You Should Watch"

All Things PapaJohns.com Bowl Related

Papajohnsbowl.com/

PapaJohns.com Bowl wiki entry.

The game will be held at historic, if also decrepit, Legion Field in Birmingham, AL. Originally built in 1926, Legion Field hosted the "Iron Bowl" from 1948 to 1988, the intrastate rivalry game between Auburn and Alabama. In fact, the game being held in Birmingham--a major iron and steel manufacturing city--is what branded the game its name.

Legion Field wiki page


View Larger Map

No doubt Tom O'Brien is the most relieved at this point in garnering the bid, as it opens the door for the Pack to begin its series of practices leading up to the game.

They'll need every one of them to prepare for a red-hot Rutgers team that finished the season on a six-game winning streak. They outscored their opposition 243-94 over those six games, capping off the streak with a 63-14 ASS-WHOOPIN' over Louisville.

No doubt this will be one of the toughest games the Pack will play all year. If State has really turned the corner as a team, particularly on defense, this game will be the ultimate litmus test of it.

Rutgers' ESPN.com team page

Rutgers Scout.com forums

View the complete entry of "All Things PapaJohns.com Bowl Related"

What Can Change in 10 Years...

As the muddled nature of securing a bowl bid continues to unwind itself, I thought I'd take you back 10 years to look at the bowl picture for the Pack a decade ago.

State entered the 1998 season on an optimistic note. Embattled head coach Mike O'Cain, after back-to-back 3-8 seasons, finished the 1997 season with three straight wins to save his job.

The team started strong and inconsistent, winning huge games against Florida St. and Syracuse with a baffling loss to Baylor wedged in between. A loss to Georgia Tech followed the win against the Orangemen, followed by a win against Duke, then another loss to Virginia.

Three straight wins against Clemson (in Death Valley) Wake Forest and Maryland had the Pack sitting at 7-3 and looking good heading into the first of two trips against the Tar Heels in Charlotte. The final game of the season, against a weakened Heels team, seemed to be setting up for a wonderful conclusion to the year. A win against the Heels -- which would've been O'Cain's first -- and the Pack would be looking at a pretty nice bowl, the team's first since the 1994 season.

(Continues)

But fate was always so unkind to O'Cain at the end of his tenure...a 37-34 loss to the Heels not only meant yet another loss to the Pack's bitter rivals, but it also downgraded the Pack's bowl prospects to the (then-titled) Micron PC Bowl.
The team they would face would be non other than the hometown team, The Miami Hurricanes, also experiencing a bit of a town year by their standards at 8-3 but featuring one of the nation's best tailbacks, Edgerrin James, who entered the game with six-straight 100-yard rushing performances.

It wasn't a fair fight, to be honest. James rushed for 156 yards and two scores. James Jackson also ran for two scores and some guy named Santana Moss caught a touchdown, as well. State didn't do itself any favors, as Jamie Barnette was intercepted five times and All-Everything Torry Holt was held to just 52 yards. The Hurricanes trounced the Pack 46-23.

Flash forward 10 years.

The Hurricanes left the Big East to join the ACC.

Its former coach, Butch Davis, left the team to coach the Cleveland Browns, only to return to the ACC to coach the very team that helped seal the fate of O'Cain.

An alum of the Pack came and went within those 10 years as its head coach, and State hired a guy who 10 years prior had been coaching against Davis in the Big East (whose team also left the Big East to join the ACC).

Micron PC no longer exists. It's gone through restructuring and re-missioning over the years, and now known as "MPC," on November 7th filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The bowl is now known as the Champs Sports Bowl. One can hope they fare better down the road than did Micron PC.

A lot can change in 10 years...

(For a game preview chart, head to the archived page at cnnsi.com/)

View the complete entry of "What Can Change in 10 Years..."

Nice Q&A With Mario Williams in the Sporting News

It's tough not to be a Mario Williams fan.

He's genuinely nice.

He represents State when given the opportunity.

He'll break you in half on the football field but shake your hand afterwards (assuming you're able to stand upright)

So it's tough not to throw some love his way anytime you can. This time is no different. After recording three sacks against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday night, The Sporting News's Tim Montemayor caught up with the former Wolfpack star to talk with him about various sundry topics.

View the complete entry of "Nice Q&A With Mario Williams in the Sporting News"