Willie Young Ups The Smack-Talk Ante

...and away we go!

On the heels of Weslye Saunders' revelation to the media this past week that he planned to get an unsportsmanlike penalty should he score a touchdown Thursday night, the loquacious Willie Young cranked up the volume a bit with some comments made today to reporters.

Regarding Steve Spurrier and whether he's an "offensive genius:"

"No," Young said. "No. I think you can be as sophisticated as you want to. Coach (Dana) Bible (N.C. State's offensive coordinator) can be sophisticated. But if you can beat somebody with basic plays, then you can whip them. It all comes down to their individuals against our individuals. And if you have a better individual, that individual can shake and bake, probably, and break the other individual down and make a play. That's just generally speaking.

"He (Spurrier) knows his offense. Don't get me wrong. No doubt. No doubt whatsoever. And I think he's confident. But it's going to come down to individual play."

Young was just getting warmed up at that point.

(Continues)
Regarding Stephen Garcia's playmaking ability:

"Until he hurts us, I'm not worried about him," Young said. "It's as simple as that. Until he starts to hurt us, he can stand back there and juke and jive all he wants to. But until he hurts us, he has no effect on my pass rush or anything I intend to do.

"...He's not getting around (defensive end) Shea McKeen over there. And he's definitely not turning anything up the middle between (tackles Leroy) Burgess and (Alan-Michael) Cash. You can take it to the bank."

And regarding that whole Saunders affair,

"He just talked himself into the biggest MA (missed assignment) possible," Young said. "I'll just put it like that. That leads to nothing but mistakes. I think he's trying to draw attention to himself, if what he's trying to do. Becaus I know, me and my goons, we ain't seeing it."

I'm not sure what the outcome of the game will be, or if the folks from South Carolina will respond to these comments in kind, but the pregame atmosphere just got a lot more interesting.