NC State football has a lone prior game at UConn
At least the winds of Hurricane Idalia likely have scurried to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by Thursday night’s season-opening kickoff between NC State football and Connecticut, unlike the last time the Wolfpack traveled up to East Hartford, Connecticut, to face the Huskies.
High winds and afternoon thunderstorms trailing a big high pressure ended that game a decade ago with a heavy air blast, a 20-degree drop in temperature and the threat of tornados in surrounding areas.
The postgame box score shows barely an offensive whimper from either team, which had a combined 89 yards on the ground and 204 passing yards each.
Much has changed since that grind-it-out victory in the Wolfpack’s only other trip to Rentschler Field. Both programs have different coaches, Dave Doeren in his 11th year for the Wolfpack, and Jim Mora, in his second year at Connecticut. Doeren has established a solid postseason contender for much of his tenure with the Wolfpack, and Mora took his team to its first bowl game since 2015 last year.
Oh, yeah, Connecticut also traded the naming rights to its stadium to Pratt & Whitney for game-day parking.
The two programs did meet last year in a game the Pack won 41-10 at Carter-Finley Stadium, as both teams qualified to play in postseason bowl games. This game, however, should be more revealing with the Wolfpack hoping to show off a revamped offense capable of producing more a more consistent and exciting attack than the one in 2012.
Led by fifth-year senior quarterback Mike Glennon, who had thrown for 31 touchdowns as a junior, the Wolfpack had hoped to make a statement after its season-opening 35-21 loss to Tennessee a week before in the Georgia Dome, a game in which the Volunteers exposed some weaknesses in All-America cornerback David Amerson’s coverage abilities.
Despite a good bounce-back performance by Amerson, the stiff wind and intermittent rain that canceled a full day of tennis matches at the nearby U.S. Open is about the only lingering memory of that road win in what would be NC State football coach Tom O’Brien’s final season as State’s head coach.
“We played well enough to win, and that’s all that matters,” Glennon said after the game.
It was a sloppy, ugly affair in the Constitution State, with the Wolfpack defense forcing four Connecticut turnovers and the Husky defense sacking Glennon six times.
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“Every time we get turnovers, we win,” Amerson said boldly.
The Pack scored the only points in the first half on a 40-yard Niklas Sade field goal, but neither team could muster much of an offensive threat.
The two biggest plays of the game were on the defensive end, first when Earl Wolff tipped a pass into the hands of Connecticut tight end John Delahunt, who then fumbled it back to Wolff’s arms inside the Connecticut red zone when he was tackled down the field.
Three plays later, Glennon hit Bryan Underwood on a 46-yard fingertip play to score the Wolfpack’s only touchdown of the game, putting NC State up 10-0.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Connecticut quarterback Chandler Whitmer connected on a 46-yard swing pass for his team’s only touchdown of the game.
Glennon drove the Wolfpack down to the Connecticut 27-yard line, but on fourth-and-1, O’Brien opted not to have Sade kick into a stiff wind. The offense couldn’t convert the first down, and Connecticut, with the wind at its back, raced to midfield with the game on the line.
Defensive lineman Brian Slay sacked Whitmer on third down and on fourth-and-4, Whitmer tried a short pass that Amerson batted away to save the game. The wind was in the Wolfpack sails on the way home.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].
