Senior offensive guard Tony Adams has been a starter for NC State football all four seasons he’s been on the team and is a major key to the success of the offense year in and year out.
Adams was named a captain this past offseason by team vote.
“It’s a huge honor,” Adams said. “I take very much pride in it. Just know you have to act accordingly and then lead by example but also by voice; it’s been a wonderful honor throughout this few weeks and I can’t wait to see what the end result is in the season. We’re going game by game and I really appreciate it that the teammates think I’m that type of leader so I’m going to try to lead them to the best of my ability and try to win every game this season.”
Adams is the most experienced starter on the whole team with 35 career starts and over 2,400 career snaps at guard and center. He had the second-highest pass block efficiency from a year ago according to Pro Football Focus with 98.8; this is a major reason why he played 93 percent of offensive snaps last year for the Wolfpack.
Adams and the rest of the NC State offense have been very effective this year so far, scoring 35.25 points per game and averaging 146.25 rushing yards per game which is 86th in the country and 314.75 passing yards a game which is 15th in the country. The offense currently ranks 41st in the nation in total offense which is in large part thanks to the familiarity of the team, as most of the starters have played together for some time now.
“I think getting that chemistry with everyone helps us to work better,” Adams said. “A full offseason with Ryan [Finley] allowed us to all get on the same page I think it’s helped us be successful so far but there’s still some work to do.”
NC State is 3-1 this year, including a huge win over ACC opponent Florida State.
“It’s great, we understand how good we are,” Adams said. “But at the same token we aren’t even close to done, that’s just another week, another win, so we’re going every week by week with the same preparation, same motives, just to know that there’s a way bigger prize at stake, and that’s the ACC championship, we go with each game one by one and prepare the same way for every team because you know how much time we had, we didn’t even play a perfect game and at the same time we still won, so we know that if we can even play better than we can play we may be unstoppable.”
Adams and the rest of the team have high hopes for the rest of the season and are aiming for an ACC Championship, which will be tough considering the division the Pack is in, where it will have to play ranked teams No. 18 Louisville and No. 2 Clemson. Although both of those games will be at Carter-Finley Stadium, neither will be an easy win and many other ACC teams could be tricky wins as well; in this league, no win can be considered a guarantee.
