Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995                   TAG: 9508300023
SECTION: COLLEGE FOOTBALL                    PAGE: CF-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

N.C. STATE, DUKE PLAY FOR RESPECT

Sometimes, preseason rankings say more about an athletic program than how it finishes the year.

Coaches often say the only poll that interests them is the last one, but the first poll of the season shows what kind of reputation a program has.

Just ask North Carolina State. The Wolfpack won nine games last season for the third time in four years, but did not make The Associated Press' preseason Top 25 poll.

``The thing we need at N.C. State is national recognition,'' coach Mike O'Cain said at the ACC's Operation Kickoff in Pinehurst, N.C.

``We've played seven bowl games in a row, we've finished second in the ACC in three of the past four years, but people across the country don't know about N.C. State. Why is that? I don't know. People just for some reason or other, when they think about college football, N.C. State doesn't pop into mind.''

Neither does Duke. The Blue Devils won their first seven games last year and received an invitation to the Hall of Fame Bowl, yet were 36th and 38th, respectively, among teams receiving votes in the AP and USA Today/CNN preseason polls.

N.C. State can address the issue this season when it faces Alabama and frequent Southwest Conference contender Baylor. Duke, not far removed from four consecutive losing seasons, has nonconference games with Rutgers, Army and Navy.

N.C. State has the advantage of playing North Carolina and Virginia in Raleigh, N.C., but voters are notorious for not looking at schedules. The Cavaliers and Tar Heels are ranked 17th and 20th, respectively, by the AP, although UVa, for one, has a brutal schedule.

Carolina, with heavy losses, has turned over its offense to fifth-year senior Mike Thomas. The Heels' quarterback, along with Georgia Tech's Donnie Davis, is one of the developing stories to watch in the ACC.

Thomas and Davis were rated among the best quarterback prospects in the country in 1990 and 1991, respectively, but because of injuries and other circumstances neither has lived up to his billing as a collegian.

The exceptions in the ACC this year is the team without a senior quarterback. Six of the starting quarterbacks will be fifth-year seniors, provided Scott Milanovich regains the Maryland job as expected once his four-game suspension for gambling ends.

Fourth-year seniors Danny Kanell and Rusty LaRue start for Florida State and Wake Forest, respectively. The only underclassmen among the ACC quarterbacks is Clemson sophomore Nealon Greene, and the Tigers have a graduate student who has started in parts of three seasons, Louis Solomon, in reserve.