I LOVE THIS SEASON

So I have been a little “under the weather” the past couple days. I diagnosed myself this morning with tonsillitis with the help of WebMD.com! Ha Ha

But….that is not going to stop my mood for today! . . . at least I have one thing to look forward to tonight:
NCSU FOOTBALL!

I can’t tell you how excited I am that the season is beginning. I love NCSU Football about as bad as I love jewelry (you know that’s serious if you have seen my jewelry collection!) I will say it again…I LOVE NCSU FOOTBALL! It probably takes up half my heart! There are not even words to say anymore to explain my enthusiasm! I will be a diehard fan until the day I die.

Well tonight it starts and it is on like Donkey Kong! (Don’t make fun of me!) Being that it is a Thursday and I cannot attend the game in person, we have a group going to watch the game at Wild Wings downtown and cheer on our Pack. I am actually nervous for our guys as if I were stepping on the field with them. I hope they come out tonight and start the college football season of right!

To all of you that get to go to the game: I am truly freaking jealous. NC State football is the one reason I did not want to move away from Raleigh. If I could, I would get married on the field of Carter Finley! (Jackie, I hate you :) ) If you have never been to Carter Finley or the fairgrounds to tailgate, you are not experiencing life. It is a thrill to feel the hype that fills the stadium; it’s crazy! I miss you Raleigh!

LET’S GO WOLFPACK!

Even the beginning of this article puts a tickle in my heart!

HAYNES: View from the Booth
By Tony Haynes
RALEIGH, N.C. – Each week before NC State football games, I'll run down some of the things we'll be watching for from our booth on the Wolfpack Sports Network. This week, South Carolina pays a visit to the ever-evolving and improving Carter-Finley Stadium for a much-anticipated battle between two schools that were once ACC rivals. This year actually marks the 40th anniversary of South Carolina's only ACC title and the 30th anniversary of the Wolfpack's 1979 conference championship.

The two programs are virtual mirror images of each other. With 529 all-time college football victories, NC State has just two more than South Carolina. And the series between the two schools stands at 26-26-4. You can't get much closer than that.

And while a little historical perspective is always enlightening, nothing that's happened before will have any impact on what happens on opening night in 2009. Not even South Carolina's 34-0 win over the Wolfpack last August will be terribly significant come Thursday.
With quarterback Russell Wilson improving through the entire 2008 campaign, the Pack became a totally different team than the one the Gamecocks shutout at Carter-Finley Stadium.

"I just want our players to know this is a very good team that we're playing," said Steve Spurrier, starting his fifth season at South Carolina. "Sometimes people have a tendency to go by the score of last year's game, when really you can't. NC State became a much better team as the season progressed and they were much stronger at the end of the season. That's something most teams hope to do. Hopefully, we'll become a much stronger team at the end of the year."

Something the Gamecocks didn't do last season. After winning seven of its first 10, Spurrier's bunch finished up at 7-6. NC State was 6-7. Both teams lost in their respective bowl games.