RB Dillon’s status still unknown this week
Coach Steve Addazio said the worst thing he could have done was to have put AJ Dillon on a plane and risk further swelling on his sprained ankle.
So, Dillon, one of the best running backs in the country, was left home — and his team rallied too late to get a win at No. 23 North Carolina State.
Monday, Addazio, addressing his regular weekly media gathering, was not able to shed more light on whether or not his sophomore star would be available for Saturday’s ACC home game against floundering Louisville.
“You know, I just don’t know yet,” he said. “This won’t change, just so you know. It will continue to be a day-to-day, week-to-week deal. It’s just hard to know.
“I have not seen him yet today. Certainly he made good improvement over the weekend. He’s working real hard on rehab, just to get his strength back and feel good. I just don’t know when that will be. I don’t anticipate me having a whole lot of information in the next couple of days, but he is improving. Looks better each and every day. So we will see where we head.”
Bobby Petrino’s Cardinals have lost three straight to fall to 2-4, 0-3 in the conference — and they have been outscored 121-58 in those three games. They surrendered 542 yards rushing to Georgia Tech’s option last week with Petrino saying, “We didn’t have any answers for their offense,”
Would they have an answer for Dillon?
The Eagles are 14-point favorites to go to 5-2 overall, 2-1 in the league — and 5-0 at home, where they are 4-0 for the first time since 2009.
With Dillon missing, Ben Glines ran for 90 yards and a touchdown and caught two passes, one for a score, but falling behind 28-3 was too much to overcome in a 28-23 loss to the Wolfpack.
“It starts with me,” Addazio said after the game. “I would put that squarely on me because I would say that we needed to find that adjustment sooner.”
Anthony Brown overcame a tough first half to finish 14-of-25 for 198 yards and a touchdown (no interceptions for the second straight week), but the offense was 0-for-7 on third down in the first half — 1-for-10 in the game.
“I’ve got to be more accurate in the first half,” Brown said. “I kind of found a little rhythm in the second half, but credit to them, they played a great game throughout.”
Said Addazio: “We’ve got to do a better job on third down. Early in the game, we had wide-open opportunities that we were not able to connect on, one in the end zone and several that were in the midfield. You’ve got to be able to make those plays.”