N.C. State ruins South Florida’s first bowl

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Chuck Amato darted right, then danced left, successfully missing the bucket of water his victorious North Carolina State players tried to dump on him.

Minutes later, as Amato tried to accept the Meineke Car Care Bowl trophy, the coach finally ran out of moves and received a chilly dousing down his back.

It was the relief he was looking for after a trying up-and-down season.

The Wolfpack used stout defense and just enough offense to cap a late-season rally with a 14-0 victory over South Florida on Saturday that gave them a three-game winning streak to close the year.

“This might be one of the biggest wins, when it’s all said and done, that this university could have had,” Amato said. “It could be the steppingstone for a lot of things.”

Amato may be overstating it just a bit, but the victory did pick up a program that was 2-4 midway through the year and in danger of one of the worst seasons in school history. Instead, the Wolfpack (7-5) turned it around with five wins in the final six games.

“For us to come here, win like we did and shut them out … it settles it down a little bit,” said defensive end Mario Williams, who indicated he’ll likely go out on top by declaring for the NFL draft sometime next week.

Brian Clark caught a 9-yard touchdown pass and Andre Brown scored on a 1-yard run as the Wolfpack did all their scoring in the second quarter then held on to hand South Florida (6-6) its first shutout in school history.

It was a disappointing end for the upstart Bulls, who were playing in their first bowl in school history. They launched their program nine years ago, moved up to Division I-A in 2001 and capped their first season in the Big East with a bowl bid.

But their 100th game didn’t turn out the way they hoped.

“I don’t want South Florida to be ‘We just did this. We just did that.’ That’s baloney,” coach Jim Leavitt said. “We want to win football games. I get disgusted when we lose and we came here to win.”

Although the Bulls managed 295 yards total offense, they failed to get Andre Hall – the Big East’s leading rusher – into the end zone. Hall accounted for most of the offense, finishing with 118 yards rushing and two catches for 49 yards.

“Everyone is still kind of happy we came, but we lost,” Hall said. “It’s our first bowl game. It was a long week. We had a good season. We went to a bowl game, ended up 6-6. It’s OK. We’ll be all right.”