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After a 10-0 week of predictions, Week 9 of high school football season is upon us

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The game of the night may very well be the Cary at Panther Creek match up. Each team has two losses and Panther Creek is playing at home but I’m going with Cary. The Imps did not play last week so they have an extra week to prepare for Panther Creek, which was not impressive in a win against weak Lee. Here are 10 football games being played tonight that are within driving distance in the Triangle area. Most games are at 7:30 p.m. You might want to check with local officials as some games start at 7. In bold below are the predicted winners. Last week my record was 10-0 for a 64-16 season mark.

Apex at Northern Durham

Cary at Panther Creek

East Chapel Hill at Southern Durham

East Wake at Southeast Raleigh

Enloe at Wakefield

Fuquay-Varina at Holly Springs

Garner at Knightdale

Heritage at Broughton

Lee County at Green Hope

Leesville Road at Millbrook

Other games in the Triangle include Middle Creek at Athens Drive, North Raleigh Christian at Ravenscroft and Northern Vance at Cardinal Gibbons. Check the scores at the top of the left navigation bar on this page.

Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

White House announces that Obama will be at UNC’s opener

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The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama will be in attendance Nov. 11 when the UNC Tar Heels play Michigan State on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in San Diego.

The Tar Heels are the only team that ended the 2010-11 season in the top 10 to return all five starters.

At Thursday’s basketball media day, UNC coach Roy Williams said that the Carrier Classic will be one of the biggest thrills of his career and that he couldn’t wait for the season to begin.

Williams said, “We’re excited to say the least. It’s my favorite time of the year, the next four weeks. It’s where you really do get to coach. It’s a lot of fun to get on the floor with your team.”

The Tar Heels will have some fun tonight at Late Night with Roy that begins at 5 p.m. with a women’s volleyball match prior to skits and general clowning around by the team and an inter-squad basketball game.

Featured stories, The skinny

Charlotte Checkers owner becomes part owner of Carolina Hurricanes

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Peter Karmanos Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Owner and Governor of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced Michael Kahn as a partner in the ownership of the Hurricanes. Kahn is the Owner and Governor of Carolina’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers.

“Both organizations, the Hurricanes and the Checkers, are heavily committed to the growth of hockey in the Carolinas,” Kahn said. “Investing in the Hurricanes not only solidifies my support for Mr. Karmanos and his vision for the sport in the South, but also my support and belief in the growth of the game. The Hurricanes are a top notch organization led by Mr. Karmanos and Mr. Rutherford and I am extremely excited to have been afforded the opportunity to join them. I believe both organizations have very bright futures and I look forward to what is on the horizon for the Hurricanes, Checkers and the sport of hockey itself.”

Born and raised in Atlanta, Kahn has been involved in a family-owned wine and spirits business all of his life. He is the chief operating officer of Empire Distributors Inc., originally founded by his grandfather in 1940. Kahn, who has been nominated as Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year, currently resides in Charlotte with his wife, Wendy, and three sons.

The Carolina Hurricanes today travel to Buffalo, where they will take on the Sabres on Friday (7:30 p.m., FOX Sports Carolinas, Hurricanes Radio Network) in the first game of a four-game road stretch. The team’s next home game is on Oct. 25, when Carolina hosts the Ottawa Senators at the RBC Center. For information on 2011-12 Carolina Hurricanes ticket packages, please visit www.CarolinaHurricanes.com, or call 1-866-NHL-CANES.

Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

Tulsa AD Bubba Cunningham to become UNC’s new AD, report says

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Sources reported in the early evening that Bubba Cunningham, Tulsa’s athletic director, had interviewed and was a serious and likely candidate for the UNC athletic director position, being vacated by Dick Baddour. By late night tonight, Inside Carolina was reporting that Cunningham will indeed be the new AD at Carolina.

“Multiple sources confirmed that three candidates, with Cunningham tabbed as the top choice, were recommended to Thorp at that meeting,” Greg Barnes of Inside Carolina is reporting.

Cunningham, who became athletics director at Tulsa in 2005, has led Tulsa to success since Conference USA’s realignment in 2005. Tulsa has 34 league championships, more than any other school.

One of Cunningham’s jobs will be to hire a football coach, something he did at Tulsa. Cunningham hired former Tulsa football coach Todd Graham, who led the program to three 10-win seasons over four years, the first time it had been accomplished in school history.

Cunningham, a Notre Dame grad, has no obvious connections to North Carolina. He played intercollegiate golf for the Irish.

Featured stories, The skinny

Hurricanes finally win and it’s against the Stanley Cup champs

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The Carolina Hurricanes, after two losses and a tie, finally won a game, and it came in style against the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins at home Wednesday night.

The Hurricanes outshot the Bruins 34-28 in the 3-2 victory and goalie Cam Ward made several terrific stops. The Hurricanes never trailed, leading 1-0 after two periods and getting the lead to 2-0 and 3-1 in the third period.

“It’s just the fourth game of the season but we did treat it as a must win game,” Ward said, adding that it is important for the team to feel good about itself and see what it feels like to win a hockey game.

Now the Hurricanes must go on a tough four-game road trip. “You’ve got to be able to win on the road to be successful in this league and we’re going to be put to the challenge,” Ward said.

Check out the box score here.

Featured stories, N.C. State, The skinny

O’Brien outlines what the Pack is doing over this “off week”

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N.C. State has an off week in preparation for playing Virginia a week from Saturday. So, just what does the Wolfpack do during an “off week?”

QUESTION: Can you go through a little bit what your practice schedule has been like this week without a game on Saturday? What are your main points of emphasis this week?

COACH TOM O’BRIEN: Right now we haven’t
done anything. I gave them all off Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday. You know, the good news was
we had no new injuries last Saturday, but we’ve
still got a lot of guys banged up. Today they came
over, and this morning we worked in the strength
and conditioning area. We ran, we lifted, in the
training room every day.

We’ll practice Thursday. We’ll practice
Friday. We’ll give them Saturday off, and then we’ll
start Sunday with game week for Virginia. The
emphasis is on getting better. I just answered the
last question about continuity on defense. Trying
to get a defense lined up that we think will be here
each and every week from the rest of the season
and go back to work on some of the fundamentals
and things.

Part of the week for the coaches has been
out recruiting, the other part has been
self-evaluation and what we’ve done well, what we
haven’t done so well, and what we need to
emphasize. Part of the problem with the defense
with playing so many guys, we’ve got to figure out
what we can do well.

Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

Carolina looks to beef up offense against Miami

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This week North Carolina travels to Miami, a team that UNC coach Everett Withers says is tough and talented. Miami, who is shorthanded because of the program being under fire, hung with Virginia Tech last week before falling. So, here’s the big question for Carolina this week.

QUESTION: What do you need to do with that offense to get it cranked back up to where it was playing before that Louisville game?

COACH EVERETT WITHERS: Well, I give a lot of
credit to Louisville. We had a block here, block
there. All it takes is one guy not fitting the block
real well for a play to not go nearly as far. There
were two plays that our running back did, that Gio
missed a hole. One of them would have been a
20, 25, maybe even longer plus gain that he just
flat missed the hole.

So there are circumstances in every game
when you’re playing good defenses. You just want
to be able to stay consistent, run the ball, and be
efficient in the passing game. We ran the ball
better. We had over 200 yards in the second half.
Gio broke a hundred yards in the second half.

I think people think you’ve got to be
gashing people in the run game for the run game
to be successful. I don’t believe that. I think the
run game is something you do when you want to
control the clock. Run the ball, keep the ball away
from your opponent and eat up yards and try to
score in the red zone. I think we’re doing that.
We didn’t do that efficiently last week, so
we’ve got to make sure we’re better, and I think
that’s what we’re working on this week.

Duke, Featured stories, The skinny

Duke must contend with FSU team that protects their QB and rushes the opponent’s

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QUESTION: Florida State creates a lot of challenges especially with two book ends that can protect the quarterback. What do you expect to see from the Seminoles?

COACH DAVID CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, that’s what
you start seeing in this league now more and more,
which has been kind of my career having to deal
with teams like that. You know, the most critical
thing you do is throw the ball on time. We’ve tried
to adapt a little bit on our quarterback throwing
spot to help alignment.

You certainly already mentioned some
things. We take shots at guys and slow them
down, but it makes you work on those things.
Then they do a good job of moving Jenkins
around, standing him up and putting him in
different places, so you kind of have to hunt him a
little bit.

They’ve got talent. They’ve got interior
people that can rush. They have now multiple —
what FSU’s been, they’ve got about eight of them,
so they can keep them fresh and that helps them a
great deal. So against a team like us that throws
the ball a good bit of the time, I expect we’re going
to see all of them.

Duke, Featured stories, N.C. State, The skinny, UNC

ACC teams up with USA football to promote fundamentals, safety

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GREENSBORO – The Atlantic Coast Conference and USA Football announced a new partnership today that makes USA Football the official football development partner of the ACC.

As part of the partnership, the ACC will show its commitment to youth football by taking part in USA Football’s “Put Pride Aside for Player Safety” campaign. Select games on the ACC Network and its pregame show, “ACC Blitz,” will air a USA Football-produced video message within its inventory that promotes player safety, directing youth football coaches to remove a player from a game or practice if concussion is suspected.

“The partnership with USA Football is a terrific fit, as our conference and member institutions continue to believe strongly in the health and well-being of youth athletes,” said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. “We are proud of this opportunity, which introduces young people to the fun and excitement of football.”

“We are pleased that the ACC is part of the USA Football family and we commend the conference and its universities for their commitment to youth players’ health and safety, emphasizing concussion awareness and management,”said USA Football Executive Director Scott Hallenback.. “The ACC shares USA Football’s mission of ensuring that the game’s youngest players have a positive experience playing our country’s favorite sport.”

USA Football’s “Put Pride Aside” video message and its other player health videos will reside on the ACC’s website, www.theACC.com, ACC social media sites, and will be made available to each of the conference’s 12 football members: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.

Prior to the Dr Pepper ACC Football Championship Game presented by Dr Pepper on Dec. 3 in Charlotte, N.C., USA Football will host a “USA Football FUNdamentals” clinic, a fun skills-and-drills clinic designed to teach football basics to youth players. More than 1,000 children are expected to attend the clinic, which will take place at the Carolina Panthers’ practice facility.

Coaches and medical personnel of ACC football programs will be invited to serve on USA Football’s Football and Wellness Committee, which is committed to the safety and development of America’s 4.14 million youth and high school football players.

In addition, select ACC football programs will host USA Football’s U.S. Under-19 National Team player trials. The U.S. Under-19 team competes every February in the International Bowl, an annual competition matching it against a World Team composed of players age 19 and under from approximately one dozen countries. The World Team is managed by the International Federation of American Football (IFAF). Team USA also will represent the United States in the 2012 IFAF Under-19 World Championship. Sixty-two (62) countries spanning six continents possess a national federation of sport dedicated solely to football.

USA Football is the sport’s national governing body in the United States with members – players, coaches, game officials and youth league commissioners – residing in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. In addition to the ACC, the Indianapolis-based non-profit is the official football development partner of the Mid-American Conference and the Patriot League as well as the NFL and each of the league’s 32 teams.

About USA Football: USA Football, the sport’s national governing body in the United States, inspires participation, and ensures a positive experience for all youth and other amateur players. The independent nonprofit hosts more than 80 football training events annually for coaches, players and youth football league commissioners. USA Football is the official football development partner of the NFL and its 32 teams and manages U.S. national teams for international competition. Endowed by the NFL and NFL Players Association in 2002 through the NFL Youth Football Fund, USA Football distributes $1 million annually in equipment grants and offers youth league volunteer background check subsidies. Former NFL team executive Carl Peterson is USA Football’s chairman.

— News Release

Featured stories, The skinny, UNC

Attorney who helped restore UNC players eligibility to speak

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Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr will be the guest speaker at the Raleigh Sports Club on Wednesday.

Justice Orr has been involved in engineering appeals to the NCAA to restore eligibility to UNC Student Athletes, and is concerned over the lack of rights of the Student Athlete in regard to NCAA’s interpretation of possible violations.

Evan McNeil of Fuquay-Varina High School is a football player who will be honored as the Student Athlete of the Week.

Buffet lines open at 11:30 a.m. The Forks Cafeteria will continue to cater a Southern Buffet. Meeting location will again be at Highland UMC at 1901 Ridge Road at the intersection of Lake Boone Trail, just inside the Beltline. Weekly attendance fee remains $14 and applies whether the member plans to eat lunch or not. All guests fees will be $20 per guest. Pick sheets and door prizes will be held.