The skinny, UNC

FSU coach says Carolina’s secondary looks good to him

Leave a comment

Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher doesn’t seem to be buying that North Carolina is hurting in its secondary due to suspensions and injuries.

“Everybody says they’re thin. They look pretty good on film to me back there,” Fisher said today. “They’re not doing a bad job at all.” He added that getting senior starters Da’Norris Searcy, Deunta Williams and especially Kendric Burney back in the secondary has been a big boost.

“Getting Burney back and those guys, they’re getting their guys back at that position which I think really helps them,” Fisher said. “Getting Burney back there has really made a difference.”

But cornerback Terry Shankle tore the ACL in his left knee and has been lost for the season, and that makes nickle and dime packages especially challenging. Even seldom-used backups Tre Boston and Mywan Jackson have been banged up and may or may not play.

“We’re taking a look at some things and seeing if there’s some guys that maybe need to play more,” UNC coach Butch Davis said, “and seeing if we can move anybody around. But there’s only so many moves that you can make within a season, and we’re getting close to where there’s not many moves left.”

The scout team has even been affected, thus making it difficult to prepare for opponents. But Davis said Carolina’s policy of recruiting athletes that can play multiple positions has paid off.

“If you recruit kids that are multi-athletes – they play basketball, they run track, they play football – it gives you a little bit of versatility within your roster that if injuries occur or something happens that you can flip a kid over,” Davis said.

But it’s a little late in the season to change someone to the secondary, especially if they haven’t played there before. Therefore, someone like Matt Merletti, who started the season in the secondary due to all the suspensions, may have to play major minutes again. Merletti is known as one of the best special teams players on the squad and is normally used primarily in nickle or dime packages.

The skinny

O’Brien says ‘me first’ attitude hurt State his first 3 years

Leave a comment

N.C. State is 6-2 this season, and a critical reason for the Wolfpack’s success is a change in the mentality of the players, coach Tom O’Brien said Wednesday.
In his most in-depth comments on the issue yet, O’Brien said his first three teams lacked enough players with the leadership and team spirit needed to win. O’Brien said “there weren’t enough guys” who were putting the team’s success first.
“It was all about me. It wasn’t about team,” said O’Brien, now in his fourth season. “Nothing was going to change in their minds. That’s who they were. Thirty-one, 32 guys aren’t here because they didn’t want to conform to the team concept.
“We had great kids when we got here – the Evans twins, I can go go down the list. But there weren’t enough of them. They couldn’t overcome the ‘me’ and the ego problems we had when we got here. If you have an ego, you have no chance to be a teammate.”
In particular, O’Brien raved about the leadership qualities of junior quarterback Russell Wilson. “He has a tremendous amount of confidence in his own ability,” O’Brien said. “That’s where it starts. That confidence oozes to the football team. Not only his confidence, but his ability to make plays. He’s a leader by example and with his words.
“You have to have all the characteristics people want to follow as far as integrity, honesty, commitment to the goal. He has all those qualities.”
But O’Brien went on at length to say one player, or even a handful of players, is not enough to set a tone for a team. He said assistant coach Dana Bible pointed that out when they were together on the staff at Boston College, that a winning team had to have enough players with what Bible called “the want-to factor.”
“They want to do the right things. They want to do what it takes to win within the rules and regulations of the game,” O’Brien said. “There has to be that want-to feeling from the majority of guys. It can’t be three or four or five guys.”
The skinny

Maybe making UNC’s Barnes 1st-team All-America isn’t nuts after all

Leave a comment

How good is Harrison Barnes? North Carolina fans are about to find out. But is he really a first-team All-America?

We have to admit we were floored this week when the AP Preseason Team included Barnes, the first time the team has included a freshman since the team began in 1986. Of course, maybe it’s not so crazy when you look back and see Kentucky’s John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins both made the first-team All-America at the end of last season.

The skinny

San Francisco pitchers tattoo Hamilton during World Series

Leave a comment

Raleigh native Josh Hamilton may be the most valuable player of the American League this year but he was easily handled by San Francisco pitchers as the Giants beat the Texas Rangers four games to one in the World Series.

The Dallas News named Hamilton and teammate Vlad Guerrero as “goats of the game” for Game 5 and perhaps even the series.

Newspaper contributor Ryan Jones wrote, “As great as (Tim) Lincecum was, it’s hard to ignore the gaping hole that was the heart of the Rangers’ order this series. From the third and fourth spots in the lineup, Hamilton and Guerrero combined to go 0-8 with three strikeouts in Game 5. Their series slash lines were even uglier: .100/.143/.250 for Hamilton, and .071/.125/.071 for Guerrero.”

Hamilton got only two hits in 20 attempts and he struck out in the final inning of the World Series. Hamilton also has the close-up memory now of the Giants’ Edgar Renteria popping a three-run homer just over his head in the 3-1 series clincher.

During the regular season, Hamilton batted .359 while stroking 32 homers and 100 RBI.

The skinny

Tar Heels lose CB Shankle to torn ACL

Leave a comment
It’s not like North Carolina needs to lose another football player, but Monday came more bad news for the Tar Heels. Cornerback Terry Shankle tore the ACL in his left knee in the Tar Heels‘ 21-17 victory over William & Mary, the school announced.

Shankle, a redshirt freshman from Norwood, N.C., will have surgery to repair his ACL in the next few weeks.  He is out for the the rest of the season.  Shankle had eight tackles and one pass break up this year.

The skinny

Panthers, Redskins have something in common – no offense

Leave a comment

The offensive woes continue for both the Carolina Panthers and the Washington Redskins.

The Panthers’ Matt Moore threw three interceptions and the team ran for just 25 yards on the day as the Panthers were never really in it and fell 20-10 to the St. Louis Rams.

The Panthers, trailing just 10-3 in the second half, had the ball up to midfield when Steve Smith fumbled after making a catch. Five plays later, the Rams scored and the game was virtually out of reach at 17-3.

The Redskins’ Donovan McNabb spent much of the afternoon on the ground as he was hurried, knocked down and also sacked six times as the Redskins fell 37-25 to the Detroit Lions.

The Redskins had only 80 yards rushing, 30 of which came on a scramble by McNabb, who was benched in the last two minutes of the game with Redskins down just seven.

“Offensively speaking, they’ve got nothing,” Former Redskin John Riggins said of the Skins after the game. “The offensive line is a mess.”

The Redskins actually had the lead in the fourth quarter after Garner’s Brandon Banks ran a kickoff back 96 yards to give the Skins a 25-20 advantage.

The Redskins fall to 4-4 while the Panthers fall to 1-6.

The skinny

What a start for Canes’ rookie Skinner

Leave a comment


What a great pick Jeff Skinner is turning out to be for the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes had a disastrous season in 2009-10, which netted them the seventh pick in the draft. Over at Capital Sports, you could hear us screaming to keep losing – and get the No. 1 pick and Taylor Hall.

Well, that didn’t work out. The Canes played their way down the draft order with some inspired late-season play. They had the seventh pick in the draft, which you figured might get them a promising defenseman like Cam Fowler if they were lucky. And sure enough, Fowler was available at No. 7.

But Carolina played a hunch and took Skinner, who doesn’t have huge size but is blessed with offensive skills. He scored two goals Friday in the 4-3 win over the New York Rangers, which is just remarkable stuff for an 18-year-old player. He is now tied for the team lead in points, with nine, and has three goals and four assists. He even had a brilliant shoot-out goal in Helsinki.

Now we all realize it’s a long NHL season, and the thrill of the start gives way to the grind of an endless series of games, but it’s clear Skinner has NHL-level talent. Franchises can’t afford to blow high picks like No. 7, and you have to give Carolina credit for a gutsy choice that could pay off for a long time.

The skinny

Opening drive of 3rd quarter proved to be pivotal for N.C. State

Leave a comment


It’s hard to be epic in the era of 24-hour sports. Every moment is magnified, every event hyped, and the colossal glare of the modern media just slides from one  stage to the next as the cycle looks for its next round of fodder.

But Thursday’s event at Carter-Finley Stadium was big, perhaps watershed. N.C. State, so stricken with bad luck in Tom O’Brien’s era, won a monumental game with Florida State that puts the Wolfpack on track for a berth in the ACC title game. This was only a step – the Pack could easily lose Nov. 6 at Clemson, and you only need to look at the University of South Carolina to see how a good team can flop after a huge win.

There were so many important plays Thursday that there are multiple ways to define State’s win. But an important clue to the eventual outcome came at halftime, when O’Brien stopped with the ESPN reporter for a brief interview with the Pack down 21-7. Asked about the second half, O’Brien said State needed to get back to doing what it does best, which is spread the field.

On hearing that, you had to be startled – coaches rarely give away insight into game plans, especially in the heat of the contest. Was O’Brien really saying State would open it up more in the second half, or was he being coy and giving a false response?

The answer, it soon became obvious, was the latter. This game turned on the Wolfpack’s opening drive of the second half, and State’s approach was to bludgeon the Seminole defense with the hard running of freshman Mustafa Greene. Dean Haynes got the bulk of the carries in the first half, but he suffered an injury and so State turned to Greene.

“One of our running backs went down and I was able to get the opportunity in the second half,” Greene said. “We knew we going to have to run the ball down their throat and we took advantage.”

Greene had only two carries for nine yards in the first half but carried six times on opening second-half drive. Russell Wilson had three critical rushes, too. Twice on third-and-1s he had quarterback sneaks for 2 yards. And he got the touchdown on a 10-yard run on third-and-6.

Florida State responded with a turnover, and State tied the score at 21 with Wilson’s 20-yard run.

While the ending was monumental enough, the Wolfpack put itself in position to win with that critical stretch in the third quarter. N.C. State had to run, to take pressure off Wilson, and did. Greene rushed for 67 yards in the second half, an impressive effort against the Noles, and a State team that rushed for only 67 yards in the first half finished with 189 on the ground.

Much of the media coverage of the game, understandably, focused on the dramatic final moments. But the game really changed at the start of the third quarter, as State found a way to punch through Florida State’s outstanding defense. Great teams have great balance, and that made a difference for the Wolfpack Thursday.