For the first time in my life, I watched a football game where one of my teams was involved and had an 11-point halftime lead and knew — simply knew — that we were going to lose. The second that it was announced that Russell Wilson was out for the second half with a knee sprain after once again toying with another team like he was playing Tecmo Bowl, I knew the game was over. Even if Rutgers had Short Round kicking field goals and extra points.
With the worst punter in America, a pot-bellied backup quarterback who did his best Billy Joe Hobert impression (Hobert once famously admitted that he didn't know the gameplan when he was put into a game for the Buffalo Bills), a 109-pound third-stringer who can only throw passes off his back foot and an exhausted defense, the Pack simply didn't have it. Hope flickered when State regained the lead late, but even that was stymied when the Wolfpack mind-numbingly burned a timeout to run an unsuccessful two-point try that it didn't need anyway. State made its hay in the second half of the season playing mistake-free football, and knew it had to be nearly perfect to win games. That ended quickly against the Scarlet Knights.
It was an admittedly shoddy way to end a season that had gone from 2-6 to a bowl game, but it's hard not to be super-pumped about NC State's future. With Wilson returning and addition by subtraction in the form of certain punters and safeties, the Pack will be a factor from jumpstreet in '09, if it can simply avoid the injuries and bad starts that have hampered the team for the past two seasons.
For now, Wolfpack Nation will simply have to hold its breath for a while pending the outcome of the MRI on Wilson's knee. Knowing the Amato curses and our history of injuries in both sports, optimism doesn't exactly abound.
Now, if Wilson can only learn how to slide. As a second baseman, you figger he would have that down pat … but something tells me he'll learn it toot-sweet, even if it means Tommy O'Irish has to demonstrate himself.
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