5th Time's a Charm

Mike Sturdivant: After coming up empty on its first four attempts, the highly rated Pack will make its 5th attempt for its first ACC win on Saturday at 1:00 pm at Carter-Finley Stadium. If you don't have tickets, don't worry, you can still tune in on the internet.

As has been much chronicled on the ONH, as well as by anyone else with eyes, the Pack has the worst defense in North America. These guys scored 42 points in Tallahassee last week - and lost. But the Pack isn't taking on Christian Ponder and Jimbo Fisher's Criminole offense this week, and should have more of a chance of forcing a punt or two against the Terps.

Okay, so as any good State fan does, lets talk ourselves into how this team could still be decent. The Pack had significant personnel changes on defense last week: Jarvis Byrd lost his redshirt and played half the game at corner, and did a formidable job. He should get even more time this week, and should be a step or two faster in his decision making. Duane Maddox moved over to middle linebacker after the injury to Ray Michele. Maddox had about 10 days to learn how to play a position with drastically different reads than on the outside. As always, he was doing a lot more thinking than tackling. He will have twice the experience this week, and against a much weaker offense. Although State would much rather have Michele in the middle right now, having Manning and Maddox on the field at the same time is the future for this defense. So these guys all have a little more experience in their new spots, but one thing I learned when Les Robinson was coaching in Raleigh, if you've got all your guys coming back, and they are all terrible, that's not a good thing.

As we've said all year, State's offense is pretty good, and they're getting better. Russel Wilson threw for 480 and 5 TD's last week, and Toney Baker may have still been the best looking offensive player on the field. The defense should be able to slow down Maryland just enough to allow the offense to get the win. If not, holy crap, the bottom is going to fall out. I know it pretty much already has, but its going to fall a lot farther and harder. That's going to be a real bad situation. After sitting through tonight's exhibition basketball game in Raleigh, I hope that doesn't happen.