Every year is a fresh start for a football team. The slate is wiped clean and what a team did the year before has no say on how it may finish this season, and for the Wolfpack football team, a new start is just what the doctor ordered after a below average season in which it went 5-7.
But the fresh start is here, starting with Western Carolina University. And for many Pack players who are going to be heavily relied on throughout the season, this will be the first experience they have playing college football.
“It is definitely going to be fun,” freshman cornerback David Amerson said. “Football is a fun sport so I am looking forward to play that game in front of thousands of people.”
Amerson is one of seven freshmen or redshirt freshmen who will be getting their first taste of collegiate football Saturday against the Catamounts. Freshman running back Mustafa Greene, who is listed as the No. 2 running back on the depth chart, is hoping to fulfill his one wish in his first college game, which is to score a touchdown.
“I am looking for a touchdown,” Greene said. “Without a doubt, that’s the biggest thing I am looking forward to.”
Nerves are sure to be running high 30 minutes before game time, but both Amerson and Greene believe that once that first ball is snapped, all that will disappear and it will just be about playing the game they love to play.
“I am going to be nervous. But usually after that first snap I will be ok,” Greene said. “That is what always happened in high school, so hopefully the same thing will happen in college.”
For Amerson, once he runs out of the tunnel, it will be a dream come true, one he has envisioned many times before in his dreams.
“I don’t know, I can only imagine,” Amerson said. “Every time I go to sleep at night I imagine seeing all those people, the atmosphere and the adrenaline running. I am just looking forward to it.”
A key to the Pack winning this game and any game this season will be the defense and the return of redshirt senior linebacker Nate Irving, who is back after suffering a broken leg in a car crash last summer. Amerson said Irving is back to his old form and describes Irving’s instincts as almost telepathic.
“He is one of the smartest players I have seen,” Amerson said. “It is like he knows where the play is going before every snap. It’s amazing to watch.”
But just because the season opener is against a lesser opponent in Western Carolina, as opposed to a high-profile opponent like South Carolina, who State opened up against the past two years, coach Tom O’Brien believes that it will not diminish the importance of the game. He said his team will not look past the Catamounts.
“There are pluses and minus to opening up on national TV like we have done the last two years,” O’Brien said. “You might say that the questions about overlooking opponents are good because you can’t overlook an opponent like South Carolina. But no one intended to disrespect Western Carolina because they are a Bowl Subdivision school. When you only have 12 opportunities there is no reason why you wouldn’t show up and play your best every game.”
