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Message: [QUOTE="Fjoinkay, post: 1182003, member: 604"] Before the season I saw the NC State game as a potential trap game. Last week coming out of the Clemson game with all of SU's injuries I saw NC State coming off of a bye and I thought this game could be ugly for SU. What I saw yesterday was an SU team that was prepared and that had opportunities to win the game and missed on those opportunities. SU needs to embrace this situation and build on the mindset that they can continue to get healthy and to grow and they can win the next game and focus on the next game. Plenty of positives on defense. They settled in and played hard throughout which is almost always the case with this unit. Reddish continues to shine. The LBs played well, and the young backers are going to be fun to watch. The DL continues to get after it and be a disrupting force. The offense worked within it's limitations and had some success. I avoid criticizing play calls because I have tremendous respect for that task which is complex and which I believe is partially a form of art. I also realize as a fan that I have a minuscule amount of information, and I would need much more info to make play calls. Some of you on this board, especially some of those who go to the games, seem much more qualified to comment on play calling. AJ is a true freshman which means that his growth edge will involve making costly mistakes as he learns. He's fun to watch, and he throws a very nice ball. I really enjoy PTG, and I hope that for the remainder of this season he can focus on running north-south when the call is to run north-south. He's never been able to completely break that habit of stopping when the hole is plugged and then stepping back in order to run laterally at an angle that loses more yards. We saw other seemingly minor mistakes, drops and missed blocks up front, that add up. The point is the QB is important, but all 11 have to shine as much as possible. I thought under the circumstances the offense played through it. I'm hoping the offense can continue to get healthy, and I think the bye week when it finally arrives after Duke will be helpful. I'm also excited to see this offense perform against Duke. SU missed a great opportunity on kickoff coverage. Also, NC State successfully ran a fake punt early from it's own territory that resulted in a FG. That hurt, but mostly the staff did a good job in minimizing the effects of playing another opponent who was coming off of a bye week. It's beginning to look like T-Hunt may not return this season. I hope I am mistaken about that because I would love to see him have the opportunity to play this season. This isn't because I think he is better than AJ or worse than AJ. I do recall fall camp when the coaches spoke highly of the younger backup QBs, and then the coaches would say but we hope we don't have to see them play this season. Mostly, I think about T-Hunt's experience on the field and off the field. To lose the ability to play is a big loss for every player no matter the circumstances. With T-Hunt I know that in his young life he has already lost so much, and I hate to see him lose the chance to play. I have no doubt that losing the chance to play is a trigger based on some of the other loss in his life. He may not even be aware of this himself at his young age. But for a kid who loses his or her parents (I believe both in T-Hunt's case) every misunderstanding, every failed connection, every loss hits the system in a way that reminds the kid's system of the earlier traumatic losses. These implicit memories can be disrupting and create obstacles especially if awareness is missing as it so often is in young people especially guys. T-Hunt is a good college QB, and I hope he can work through this experience and compete whether he gets the job back or not. Looking forward to Duke. Go Cuse! Btw, did anyone else notice before the game the way the field reporter and one of the of guys in the booth both referred to SU's 8 consecutive games as: "8 games out of the past 9 weeks.."? I nearly fell down laughing. That's like someone working M- and on Friday when leaving work saying: "I just worked 5 out of the last 6 days!" It's like someone referring to a 30 game hitting streak in baseball as hitting safely in 30 out of the last 31 games. It would be like someone saying this week against Duke that SU will be playing it's 9th game in 11 weeks! (Including the bookend bye weeks- the bye before CMU and the bye after Duke). Makes no sense. [/QUOTE]

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