North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: O'Brien Eager to Set Sail With Wolfpack
6/15/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. New NC State football Tom O’Brien knows that his honeymoon period is drawing to a close. In another couple of months, his team will be on the field and there may be some adversity that naturally follows during a transitional period.
And, like any good graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, O’Brien is anxious to see what happens when his boat hits turbulent waters.
“We have to figure out which guys are going to stay in the boat and bail and which guys are going to jump out of the boat,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know who those people are just yet. It’s easy when things are good and we are undefeated and all that. “When things really get going, we have to know who is going to be mentally tough to meet that challenge.”
So far, O’Brien said, things have gone pretty much as expected, though the transition has been smoother than when he was named head coach at Boston College 10 years ago.
“We are in better position to undertake this challenge,” O’Brien said. “When we went there, I had to hire a complete new staff. I was able to bring six assistants and two strength coaches with me here. Boston College was coming off the gambling scandal, and we played with a lot of walk-ons my first two years.”
By year three, however, O’Brien was on his way to becoming school’s winningest coach (75-45 in 10 years), setting the Eagles up for an NCAA-best eight consecutive bowl wins.
Now, he’s ready to get started with the same kind of success here.
He’s winding down his Wolfpack Club tour of the south to meet with NC State’s biggest supporters, and he’s full of barbecue. Both Signing Day and spring practice are distant memories. He feels good about May recruiting of high school juniors, especially since he and his assistants fulfilled their goal of visiting all 385 of North Carolina’s public high schools and branched out throughout the south to target next year’s recruits.
So all that is left before the start of fall practice, which begins Aug. 3, is for O’Brien and his assistants to move into their permanent homes next month, something most of them waited to do until after school was out in Boston so their families could join them. O’Brien and his wife, Jenny, will move into their downtown Raleigh home in mid-July.
Friday afternoon, he released an organizational list of his players, though he hesitates to call it a depth chart. It’s more of a guideline he will use going into the start of fall practice, not something that is likely to stay intact until the season-opener against Central Florida on Sept. 1 at Carter-Finley Stadium.
“This is how we will start fall practice,” O’Brien said. “We won’t have a until the Sunday before we play Central Florida. It is more to put people into an organizational position.
“Nothing is cast in stone until we kick off against Central Florida.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
