N.C. State (4-6, 1-5 ACC) vs. Virginia Tech (7-3, 4-2 ACC)
3:30 p.m., Saturday, Lane Stadium
ESPNU, WRAL 101.5 FM
N.C. State's dynamic duo of Russell Wilson and Toney Baker will face Virginia Tech on Saturday.
Key stats … There will be no late-season bowl run this year for Tom O’Brien’s club. Clemson’s dynamic C.J. Spiller put an end to those hopes last week. Now the Wolfpack travel north to the always hostile Lane Stadium where Frank Beamer’s 16th ranked Hokies sit waiting. Virginia Tech is out of the ACC Championship picture thanks to loses to Georgia Tech and UNC, but they still have a New Year’s Day bowl to play for. These two teams have squared off only twice since Virginia Tech joined the ACC six years ago, splitting contests in 2004 and 2005.
North Carolina travels to Chestnut Hill to begin its two-game stretch of revenge games — with the first against a Boston College team the Heels thrashed 45-24 in Chapel Hill last season.
BC needs a win and a Clemson loss in order to advance to the ACC title game. UNC is jostling for bowl position, including an outside chance of reaching the coveted Chick-fil-A Bowl.
T.J. Yates made up for costly interceptions with clutch throws late in the fourth.
TV/ESPN — Remember when Connor Barth lined up and nailed a a 42-yard field goal to beat No. 4 Miami in Chapel Hill as time expired?
Well, fast forward five years later and Casey Barth continued the family legacy and made two field goals in the fourth quarter against No. 14 Virginia Tech, including the game-winning boot as the clock ticked to zero.
The kick snapped an eight-year losing streak to ranked opponents on the road and mirrored the elder Barth’s game-winner. It wasn’t pretty and and just sneaked its way through the uprights.
For the first time all season, UNC’s offense showed heart, rallying from a T.J. Yates interception that looked to seal a Virginia Tech fourth quarter rally.
But instead, Yates directed a 16-play drive, including clutch catches from Greg Little and Zack Pianalto. The drive ended with Casey Barth’s first made field goal of the game, and stole 8:59 off the clock and left the Hokies with little time to win the game.
After the ensuing kickoff, freshman Hokie running back Ryan Williams took a handoff on third-and-7 and lost a costly fumble. UNC defensive back Deunta Williams recovered and returned the ball inside the Hokie 25-yard line, allowing the UNC offense to run the clock down and score the winning three points. Ryan Williams had a towel over his head the rest of the game and was comforted by UNC linebacker Quan Sturdivant after time expired.
Freshman receiver Jheranie Boyd caught a fade pass -- his biggest catch since the ECU game -- in the endzone to score the only points of the half. (Photo by Rob Rowe)
TV/ESPN — Another first-half offensive slugfest for the Tar Heels … but this time, UNC looked the better team and scored on a touchdown pass with less than three minutes to play.
After being torched by FSU’s Christian Ponder last Thursday, UNC’s defense made key plays on third and fourth down, stopping two key fourth down pass attempts by Tyrod Taylor in UNC territory.
Key series of the half: On third-and-3 in Hokie territory, Greg Little motioned into the backfield and rushed for 23 yards deep into Hokie territory. Little also caught a 17-yard pass on the drive, which milked much of the clock in the second quarter.
Little set up a 13-yard touchdown pass from T.J. Yates to freshman receiver Jheranie Boyd and put the Heels up by seven points.
Key stats of the half: One — that’s how many more carries freshman stud running back Ryan Williams had than Taylor, who spent the first half scrambling for his life.
Williams opened the game with a 25-yard rush only to see his carries diminish as the Hokies got impatient on offense and elected to pass the ball down field.
What to watch for in the second half: Which team sticks to the run? Both the Hokies and Heels ran the ball effectively and looked terrible when passing. If the Hokies start plugging away with Williams, the Heels’ front seven should be in for a long night, especially considering the margin the Hokies are winning the field position battle.
North Carolina (4-3) at No. 14 Virginia Tech (5-2)
[7:30 p.m., Oct. 29, Lane Stadium]
Televised by ESPN
UNC faces a completely different style quarterback Thursday than FSU's Christian Ponder. (Photo by Rob Rowe)
Another Thursday night game, but this time North Carolina travels to Blacksburg to face an angry and bitter Virginia Tech team looking to stay in the Coastal Division race.
The past few games between these two schools have been closer than expected. An injury to UNC quarterback T.J. Yates cost the Heels the victory in 2008, and the season before the Heels lost by a touchdown despite outgaining the nationally ranked Hokies.
Key stats: 2001 — that’s the last time UNC won a road game against a ranked opponent, and the prospect of ending that streak Thursday night in Blacksburg looks slim.
Despite the poor second-half performance against the Seminoles, some are pegging UNC’s defense as the key for victory. Statistics back up the defense, but last Thursday showed that talented skill players and patient quarterbacks can pick apart Butch Davis’ secondary.
And Virginia Tech is no slouch on defense either. The Hokies allow more than 317 yards per game (No. 31 in the nation) and played a tougher first seven games than UNC did.
Another key aspect of this game is preparation. The Hokies had a bye week to prepare for UNC just like Georgia Tech, Virginia and Florida State did. It’s no coincidence that UNC is 0-3 in league play with such terrible ACC scheduling.
WALLACE WADE STADIUM/DURHAM It was great weather for football, and here’s a slideshow from Saturday’s afternoon contest featuring the visiting Virginia Tech Hokies against the Duke University Blue Devils. (Photos by Rob Rowe)
If you want to read the post-game article, you can find that by clicking here.
Duke takes the field before the start of the Duke-Virginia Tech game. (Photo by Rob Rowe)
WALLACE WADE STADIUM/DURHAM Duke gets a very big opportunity on a sunny and warm day in the Bull City.
The Blue Devils are all right after a 2-2 non-conference start, riding pretty high after a 49-14 romp over N.C. Central in the inaugural Bull City Gridiron Classic last week.
The visitor is No. 6 Virginia Tech (3-1, 1-0), the favorite to win the ACC and a team on a roll after a 31-7 romp over then-No. 9 Miami a week ago in Blacksburg.
Frank Beamer’s Hokies have won eight straight in the series, and the only close one of those was a 14-3 victory over the Blue Devils last season at Lane Stadium. And although the Blue Devils play hard and well, the streak goes to nine as the Hokies hang on to win 34-26.
Lane Stadium, oddly enough, is a place I have visited a lot, since my first three paid newspaper jobs were at papers in Virginia. The first was from 1978-80 at Franklin’s Tidewater News, which came out twice a week and was the flagship of a small chain of six papers in the Southeastern part of the state.
Since it was farm country - pork, peanuts and pine trees - at least a plurality of the locals were Hokie fans.
And that number increased when then-coach Bill Dooley showed up in Courtland to sign local Southampton High hero Cyrus Lawrence, who remains the best high school football player I have ever covered. The trips to Blacksburg for most home games were over 250 miles away after about five hours of sleep, but well worth a chance to begin covering major-college sports.
Lawrence was good enough as a true freshman that by the end of September he was listed as a co-starter at tailback alongside senior Kenny Lewis, who was the Hokies’ career rushing leader at the time. Lawrence might have been a bigger national star if the Hokies hadn’t been independents at the time, and his football career was ended during his senior year by an injury to his anterior cruciate ligament that surgeons didn’t know how to fix at the time.
OK OK, I’ll move back to 2009, eat some kind of egg and sausage casserole concoction and start the game.
Duke has a nice home crowd, augmented by perhaps 5-7,000 Hokies, but plenty of seats are available. And it’s band day. The announced crowd is 26,211, about what it was for the NCCU game in the rain last week.
The game starts very slowly, but finally gets going late in the first quarter.
Duke goes 79 yards in seven plays to take the early lead, with Thaddeus Lewis hitting a wide-open Brandon King down the left sideline at about the 30 en route to a 48-yard touchdown pass. Will Snyderwine adds the boot and it’s 7-0 at the 3:35 mark. Continue reading »
Duke had a respectable non-conference portion of its season in September, although the opener against Richmond may long be thought of as “one that got away.”
Since there’s nothing the Blue Devils can do about that now, they have one clear assignment if they’re going to realize second-year coach David Cutcliffe’s dream of a quick bowl bid. They have to go at least 5-3 in the ACC - they have to finish with at least seven wins, since Saturday’s 49-14 victory in their historic first meeting with cross-town rival N.C. Central won’t count toward bowl qualification.
Saturday’s home game against No. 6 Virginia Tech isn’t one that absolutely has to go into the win column, but an upset that would have highlights running on national TV for the rest of the day certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Duke, which has dropped eight straight in the series, gave the homestanding Hokies a scare last season when they were competitive and lost only 14-3.
“There was some confidence gained from playing in that game,” Cutcliffe said. “(But) this is a better Virginia Tech team and I think our team knows that. We certainly need to be a better Duke team to have a chance in the fourth quarter to win the game.
“There’s some confidence you draw from a game like that, but you have to go out every snap and compete with them. There was a lot of pride displayed on that field that night.”
Tech coach Frank Beamer, who has taken his teams to 15 straight bowl games, said he’s not expecting an easy afternoon.
“You look at how they played us last year,” Beamer told The Associated Press. “They didn’t have their quarterback (Thaddeus Lewis, pictured) in that game. He’s back, and they are a better team.
“You have to bring a good game every week, and that’s a fact.” Continue reading »
WALLACE WADE STADIUM/DURHAM It’s pretty easy for Duke football folks to be feeling pretty good about themselves right now.
The Blue Devils are 2-2 at the end of their non-conference portion of the schedule, and are coming off a 49-14 victory in their spirited new cross-town rivalry with N.C. Central in which Coach David Cutcliffe said his team might have taken some things up a notch - at least at times.
“Coming off the game we’re still looking for consistency,” Cutcliffe (pictured) said at his regular weekly press luncheon at the Brooks Football Building. “It was kind of three games. It was a 21-0 game, and then it was a 0-14 game and then it was a 35-0 game. We kind of showed in that regard what we’re capable of doing if we can put that consistently together.”
Yes, the Blue Devils definitely delivered a knockout punch in the rain against a scrappy and inspired but still outmanned opponent.
But the next assignment is going to get a lot tougher.
On Saturday at noon ACC favorite Virginia Tech (3-1) will visit Wade, sporting a No. 6 national ranking and an eight-game winning streak against the Blue Devils. It’s the first true road game for the Hokies, who ripped then-No. 8 Miami 31-7 on Saturday before eking out a 16-15 win over Nebraska the week before.
There is one thing on the positive side for Duke, and that was the success the Blue Devils had last season in Blacksburg as they shed their reputation as the conference doormat. The Hokies won that game 14-3, but needed a 23-yard interception return from Victor Harris to get a knockout punch. Continue reading »
One of the interesting things about sports is the unquantifiable nature of much of it. No matter how much sportswriters and analysts try to fit the entirety of a game into a box score, there are always things that can’t be measured. These things are often very important: They can comprise the “why” of winning and losing.
For instance, when North Carolina’s defense went limp in the second half of an important game against conference rivals Virginia Tech Saturday, there was no easily discernible reason behind it.
Kyle on "UNC holds off pesky NCCU with big second half, awaits selection committee": Mike Potter does Triangle sports fans a wonderful service by providing a unique perspective of events that may not otherwise receive media coverage. Thanks Mike for all you have done and continue to do in your outstanding career as a journalist and an ambassador for the Triangle.
caniacgirl on "Peters and pipes pickpocket a peck of prickly Penguins": I absolutely love the headline! Games like this one definitely reignite the little bit of playoff hope I have left in me. It should be an interesting few weeks that's for sure.
Greg Nccu Student on "Miller leads NCCU to 11th victory": There are a lot of Rumors on Campus about Joanna Miller leaving NCCU next year. Please Coach Robinson, We need to keep this player from gong to another College.
