North Carolina State University Athletics
Amato Looks Ahead
6/2/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
June 2, 2005
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C. - Change is certainly on the way for Division 1-A football teams. Starting in 2006, a 12-game schedule will be put in place on a permanent basis. How coaches and athletics directors deal with the extra game on their regular season schedules will be interesting to watch. At least in the short term, the conventional wisdom suggests that schools will plug in revenue starved Division 1-AA opponents to fill the void. Closer to home in the new 12-team ACC, there's another option being floated out there by fans and media: Why not take the current league schedule from eight games to nine? In the mind of NC State head coach Chuck Amato, such talk isn't all that outrageous.
"I think it would be great," Amato said during a meeting with the media at the Murphy Football Center on Thursday. "Why not? We've never really discussed it. We didn't bring it up as part of the agenda [at the ACC meetings]. I've mentioned it to a few people. If we were still a nine-team league, we'd be playing everybody in the league."
The realignment of several conferences, which started with the ACC's decision to go from nine to 12 teams two summers ago, has caused numerous scheduling headaches across the country. But no team felt the sting of `expansion fallout' more than Amato's Wolfpack, which was put in the awkward position of switching opponents and dates for the upcoming campaign just last month. Initially slated to face Temple in Philadelphia on Saturday, September 10, the Pack had to let the Owls out of their contract for that weekend. Temple will now travel to Wisconsin on the 10th, while NC State has an open date. The make up for the Wolfpack will manifest itself in a November 19th home meeting with Middle Tennessee State.
"It's nothing we have control over; it's like the weather outside," Amato said. "It's done. It's history. Let's go on. That's just the way it is."
Amato works closely with Associate Athletics Director and former Wolfpack player David Horning on future non-conference schedules. The final product is then submitted to Athletics Director Lee Fowler for approval. But with so many teams changing conferences and a 12th game coming into play in 2006, the process has become even more complicated. The increasing strength of the ACC is also a consideration.
"With the conference that we're in, we've got to be awfully selective in who we schedule," said Amato, who will be entering his sixth season at NC State this fall. "We're in a bear of a league. The team that you picked sixth last year (Virginia Tech) won it. The team that you picked first (Miami) had three losses. The team that you picked second (Florida State) ended up being in second. It's a bear of a league and it's going to take time to fill it all out. We're compiling a list and trying to get the best people we can to come here and play us."
Amato will also be trying to bring his program back from its first losing season since he arrived in 2000. After going to four straight bowl games, the Pack missed out on the postseason action after posting a 5-6 overall mark and a lower division finish in the ACC last year. In the long run, Amato believes the disappointments of last fall will be looked upon as a blip on the radar screen once all is said and done.
"It hurt a little bit of the momentum [of the program], but those things happen," Amato said. "That ball we play with is oblong and it takes some funny bounces. I know we're getting better. Our football team, the way it looks this year and the way it looked last year, looks a lot more like a football team than the one we had our first year and our second year. That's the good news. The bad news is that everybody else's is the same way. Everybody else's teams are better. You've got to win the close games and you've got to win the home games. You have to have a little luck."
Lady luck certainly wasn't shining on NC State last season when a series of injuries on the offensive line really stymied the Wolfpack down the stretch. As far as Amato is concerned, a unit that must replace veteran tackle Chris Colmer and center Jed Paulsen will perhaps hold the key to the team's fortunes. As has been the case for several years now, the margin for error up front will be quite small.
"I think that's the biggest question, but the offensive line has been the biggest question every year since I've been here," Amato said. "It's that way with most schools. I'm concerned about it. I'm concerned about the commitment some of the young kids will make and how hard they will work. We've seen thus far that they are. We've got to say healthy. We can't lose a Leroy Harris again. We can't lose a Derek Morris. We can't lose young men that have been in there and played. The people that we've moved over there have really got to come through. That was the beginning of the problems of what happened last year. Poor Jay Davis (QB) got the finger pointed at him, but when Jed Paulsen went down and Leroy went down and Derek Morris got hurt, that was tough."
In an effort to add depth to the O-line, Amato and his staff moved senior defensive tackle Dwayne Herndon over to guard. "Dwayne Herndon has never played offensive line in his life. He was a tailback in high school as hard as that is to believe. I've got some thoughts that maybe we ought to take another one and move him over there (from defensive line to offensive line) just to let them work with the older kids."
To this point, Amato has looked like a genius on those occasions when he's taken defensive linemen and moved them to offense. Former defensive players Shane Riggs and Sean Locklear became formidable blockers for the 2002 team, which won a school record 11 games. Locklear was later taken in the third round of the NFL Draft by Seattle.
