Columnists
Email
Print
The New Rivers: In All-ACC Wilson, it appears that N.C. State has found its next standout quarterback
AP File Photo
N.C. State's football season began to turn the corner when quarterback Russell Wilson got healthy and gained full control of the offense.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: December 24, 2008
RALEIGH -- Ask N.C. State's Russell Wilson if he is happier to be the All-ACC first-team quarterback or the ACC rookie of the year, and he dodges the question the same way he eludes blitzing linebackers.
"Neither, really," Wilson said recently. "Just getting to a bowl game is the most satisfying part."
OK, then, it's time for another question.
Is this guy a coach's dream, or what?
Wilson, a redshirt freshman from Richmond, Va., doesn't just play the part that Coach Tom O'Brien and offensive coordinator Dana Bible have in mind as their ideal signal caller. He thinks and talks the part, too.
He is smart, humble, selfless and inspirational, and he is more excited about playing Rutgers in the Papajohns.com Bowl next Monday in Birmingham, Ala., than collecting individual honors.
This is the quarterback that Wolfpack fans waited for from the moment Philip Rivers left five seasons ago, the quarterback that Jay Davis, Marcus Stone, Daniel Evans and Harrison Beck hoped to be but never were.
He's the single biggest reason the Wolfpack was able to win its final four games, salvage a 6-6 season and pull out the bowl berth. For perspective, no other offensive player got so much as honorable mention All-ACC, let alone first or second team.
It's interesting that Wilson's coaches and teammates talk about his maturity, his presence and his leadership every bit as much as they talk about his decision making, passing accuracy, scrambling ability and knack for getting the most out of each play.
"He has grown so much as a player and as a person," wide receiver Owen Spencer said. "We love him so much on the team. He is becoming more vocal than some of the seniors and captains on this team. He has done a great job of leading us."
O'Brien said that Wilson has only polished some of the rough edges and that Wilson had the traits long before he enrolled at State.
"I think that's part of his makeup," O'Brien said. "He came here with those traits. Obviously some of the trials and tribulations we went through this year helped bring them out and made them a little more pronounced, but those are certainly things he brought with him to campus."
Erasing any doubt
Wilson turned the rookie-of-the-year and All-ACC balloting into no brainers with his play down the stretch.
In the four wins down the stretch, he completed 60.1 percent of his passes, passed for 869 yards and eight touchdowns and ran for 203 more and two touchdowns. The only bad thing about those numbers is that as impressive as they are, they don't come close to emphasizing how much Wilson was in total command of the situation in each game. He was a dual threat every time he walked to the line of scrimmage, and that inherently put defenses on edge.
N.C. State averaged 30.1 points in its last four games.
He was at his most dominant in the two games that defined the turnaround -- a 41-10 stunner at rival North Carolina and then the season-ending 38-28 win over Miami that secured the bowl berth.
The most telling statistic, in reality, is Wilson's current streak of 226 passes without an interception. That is the longest active streak in the nation. It takes good fortune to build such a streak, because it means that passes aren't bouncing off receivers' hands and into defenders' hands, which could have happened on some of Spencer's legendary drops. But every bit as important as good fortune is the poise and the proper decision-making and the accuracy.
"I don't really think about (the streak)," Wilson said. "Obviously, I'm aware of it. But I don't think about it more than that. I just try to get the ball to the right people. It's definitely something I'm proud of. That's something everybody looks for in a quarterback. They don't want a quarterback to turn the ball over, especially on our team. Coach O'Brien, he's doing a great job in helping us understand how not to turn the ball over. You have a much better chance of winning when you don't."
Unanswered question
The question that will never be answered is how much more Wilson would have developed, and how good N.C. State might have been, had Wilson not been in and out of the lineup because of injuries early in the season.
He suffered a concussion in the season opener at South Carolina after 20 snaps. He was held out of all contact against William & Mary the next week, then was thrown back to the wolves the next week at Clemson. He hurt his shoulder in a 30-24 win over East Carolina, when he was 21 of 31 for 210 yards and three touchdowns in the first glimpse of what was to come. That injury kept him out the next week against South Carolina.
So it wasn't until the sixth game, against Boston College, that Wilson was completely healthy and in command of the offense. The improvement started to a degree against Florida State, and then was noticeable in a last-minute loss at Maryland. And then the winning streak started the next week at Duke.
"I think the East Carolina game definitely gave us a lot of confidence, made us realize we could make plays and we could win games," Wilson said. "I think it really started clicking around the Boston College, Maryland games. Those games, we came up short, but we really played well. I think we figured out things, and I personally figured out things. I just started seeing what the defenses were doing, and understanding you've got to make big-time throws. And also how to salvage plays. If nothing's there, you've just got to throw it away."
And he did this all with family concerns hanging over his head, after his father suffered a stroke in August.
His father was finally able to come to Raleigh and watch him play the final two home games, at a time when he was playing his best football.
"We have been going through peaks and valleys all season long," Wilson said. "Things didn't look good, but the guys just kept working together, working as a team. I think that is where our strengths really came through."
That is most certainly where his strengths came through.
All of them.
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
Email
Print
