North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Pack Caps Day of Celebration With Bowl Bid
12/8/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. As the players and staff gathered at the McKimmon Center Sunday afternoon for the football team’s end-of-the-year banquet, the invitation to the Papajohn.com’s Bowl had not yet been extended or accepted.
That didn’t happen until nearly five hours after the banquet ended.
The lack of announcement actually added to the atmosphere of a celebratory afternoon: Tom O’Brien and his team were anticipating something good to happen, instead of just reviewing a season in which, until just six weeks ago, nothing seemed to go right.
But ever since the team took a week off following the loss at Maryland, everything has aligned perfectly, as the Wolfpack knocked off, in succession, Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina and Miami to become bowl eligible.
“Six weeks ago, you could tell we were improving after the close losses to Boston College, Florida State and Maryland,” said athletics director Lee Fowler. “The last four games, we started to finally get some people healthy and it all came together.”
Highlights of that remarkable turnaround showed on four huge overhead screens during the luncheon, and players, staff and some invited guests enjoyed every replay, especially the ones from the four wins against in-state opponents.
Afterwards, during the presentation of awards, the players integral in turning the season around, from the Most Valuable Offensive and Defensive Scout Team Players (walk-on cornerback Asante Cureton and quarterback Mike Glennon) to Governor’s Award winner Russell Wilson, the ACC Rookie of the Year and first-team All-ACC quarterback.
Wilson wasn’t the unanimous pick for the team MVP award, which is the only one voted on by the players. But he was the overwhelming winner, getting more than 80 of the 85 votes. It’s not hard to imagine that one of the votes for a different player was cast by Wilson himself.
Wilson spent most of Saturday traveling to and from Tampa, where he accepted his trophy as the ACC Rookie of the Year during the awards banquet that preceded the league’s championship game. He returned to Raleigh Saturday afternoon to participate in the Pack’s final pre-exam practice.
“I talked to ACC Commissioner John Swofford Sunday afternoon and he told me Russell wasn’t good Saturday he was superb; he did an unbelievable job,’” Fowler said. “He told me that Russell is someone the entire university should be proud of because he shows, over and over, on and off the field, what a high character person he is and how well he represents the university.”
It was later in the evening when the players received their best memento for the season: the announcement that they had been invided to spend the week after Christmas in Birmingham, Ala., to prepare for the Papajohns.com Bowl.
Fowler said he never saw much frustration in O’Brien, despite an injury-riddled beginning to the season and several close losses that could have gone the other way.
“Tom is a guy who doesn’t get frustrated by much,” Fowler said. “He felt the kids kept working hard and kept doing the things they asked him to do. It’s very rewarding for a bunch of guys who stuck in there and did what they asked him to do. I think it bodes well for the future that now they see the things that they are doing can work.”
But it was also huge for a program that had not been to a bowl game since beating South Florida 14-0 in the 2005 Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte.
“If we hadn’t gotten a bid, this would have been our third year without going to a bowl,” Fowler said. “When you are talking about high school kids, they are pretty much watching when they are ninth, 10th and 11th graders. You don’t want to go through that long of a gap without playing in a bowl.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for our football staff and players to get us back in a bowl situation. It helps us in so many different ways.”
The Pack will play Rutgers, a Big East team that had a similar late-season turnaround to become bowl eligible. The Scarlet Knights were 1-5 at one point this season, but won six in a row to finish the regular-season 7-5.
For now, however, the team is taking this week off to take final exams, while the coaching staff will hit the recruiting trail.
O’Brien and Fowler are headed to New York on Monday to attend the College Football Hall of Fame inductions. Fowler is going to represent NC State on behalf of Lou Holtz, who coached the Wolfpack from 1972-75. O’Brien is going to see one of his former players, Virginia offensive tackle Jim Dombrowski, receive his plaque.
Afterwards, the coach will join his staff in finding NC State’s next wave recruits.
O’Brien, who owns a 7-1 record as a head coach in post-season games, is hoping those recruits will take notice that the Wolfpack is beginning its preparation for the first bowl game of his tenure at NC State.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
