North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: O'Brien Looks Forward to Successful Future
11/29/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
And while he and his players are still stinging from Saturday’s 37-0 loss in the season-finale against
“I am optimistic about the future,” O’Brien said. “Sometimes, it’s the present that I am not real happy with that’s my good Irish-Catholic upbringing.”
O’Brien knows that he and his staff have some big holes to fill, particularly on the offensive line and at linebacker. Most of the Wolfpack assistants have spent the week on the road recruiting, while O’Brien, offensive coordinator Dana Bible and defensive coordinator Mike Archer stayed back in
“We need to sign a lot of good football players,” O’Brien said. “Our main focus is recruiting.”
What the coaches see in their crystal ball is a program that will start spring practice on March 18 with a lot of young players, with 55 scholarships committed to the freshman and sophomore classes. He hopes that those young players will mature between now and the team’s April 19 Red & White Spring Game at Carter-Finley Stadium.
“This is going to be a young football team,” O’Brien said. “But that is the time you can mold and build. Sometimes, it’s tough to teach old dogs new tricks. When you get puppies, hopefully, you can train them right.”
O’Brien confirmed what everybody expected following Saturday’s season finale: all starting jobs are up for grabs during the off-season. He will revert from the season-long depth chart back to the pre-season organizational chart, with no intentions of naming starters until just before next year’s season-opener at
Some players still won’t be available to play in the spring running back Toney Baker and tight end Anthony Hill, who both had major knee injuries during the season, will both miss drills while rehabilitating from their reconstructive surgery. But other players, like running back Andre Brown, should be ready to perform.
The Wolfpack was decimated by injuries throughout the season, losing a total of 54 games to injuries. That’s more than NC State had lost in the last two seasons combined and more than O’Brien had lost combined in his final three seasons at
“It was just one of those years where we were caught in the injury bug early during the transition year,” O’Brien said. “To everyone’s credit, somehow in the middle of October, we found a way to win four football games.
“We are hoping that next year we won’t lose any games to injuries and that will put us right on our average.”
At the same time, the injuries created openings for some young players to shine, and O’Brien was particularly happy with the way tailback Jamelle Eugene, safety Javon Walker and linebacker Nate Irving stepped into prominent roles.
“That was great for this football team and this football program to show that is what we are capable of,” O’Brien said. “Now we have that to build upon and get to spring practice. The goal is to play hard and play smart. If you do that, you are going to win games more than you lose.”
For now, O’Brien and his staff are hitting the road to find their first true recruiting class. More than half of last year’s class had committed to the Wolfpack prior to O’Brien taking over the program. So all of this year’s signing class will come in knowing what the rigid expectations are from the former Marine officer.
O’Brien’s goals are certainly no secret.
“In order to win, you have to get lined up on defense, you can’t have missed assignments and you have to tackle,” O’Brien said. “That’s the No. 1 goal on defense in spring practice. The No. 1 goal on offense is don’t turn the football over. That was the goal last year and we didn’t get it accomplished. Hopefully, we will be much further ahead to get that accomplished.
“If we do get that done, then we will be able to win football games. If you are able to win football games, your recruiting will get much better and then you can play for championships.’
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
