North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: O'Brien Talks About Upcoming Season
7/22/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
GREENSBORO, Ga. NC State football coach Tom O’Brien was disappointed that his team was picked to finish sixth in the ACC’s Atlantic Division but he understood why the 65 voters at the league’s annual Football Kickoff put his team there.
The Wolfpack (5-7 overall, 3-5 ACC) tied for fifth place with Maryland in last year’s final standings, but was encouraged by a mid-season, four-game winning streak.
O’Brien spent much of Monday afternoon explaining why his team could be better the second time around. He’s optimistic about the season, even if he doesn’t go into next week’s start of preseason drills with a starting quarterback. He believes he has five good candidates he just has to pick one.
Here are some of the thoughts he shared with the media Monday:
When would you like to decide on your starting quarterback? “Going into your second season, you don’t want to be considering five guys as your starting quarterback. But that is where we are right now. It’s better to make the right decision than just make a decision. I think you name the quarterback when we are comfortable with who it is going to be. We are going to have to name one when we go to South Carolina. That’s the drop-dead date. If we can do it earlier, we will. If we don’t feel comfortable, we won’t.”
Would you be comfortable starting a freshman at quarterback, especially in the opener against South Carolina? “I know it’s a tough place to play and there is a lot of excitement, but if it has got to be a freshman, either Russell Wilson or Mike Glennon, he is going to have to learn to play in that environment. He might as well go start right away and get in that atmosphere.”
How beneficial is it to have a quarterback enroll in January, to go through spring practice? “I think it is huge. You get to spend the whole time in the strength and conditioning area and in the meeting room. You can read books all you want and watch all the tape you want. Until you are under center, take a snap and either hand the ball off or drop back and throw it, none of the other stuff really makes a difference.”
Did you ever investigate that with Mike Glennon? "He couldn’t. The Virginia schools, especially where he is in Fairfax County, aren’t set up academically to allow that. It doesn’t happen. We asked him if he was able to do it and he said no.”
Do you like having a game like South Carolina right off the bat? “Yes, especially for where we are in our program. From the first day we came back in January, there has been a little something about the conditioning program. We knew we would be the first game of the year. The intensity and concentration have picked up, especially in summer workouts, because they know they are going to have to be good early. It gives you a chance to get better faster.”
Does tailback Jamelle Eugene, who started the last six games at tailback, have to look over his shoulders with Toney Baker and Andre Brown behind him: “He doesn’t have to look over his shoulders at all. He did a tremendous job the last six games and a tremendous job in spring practice. He was on the only healthy tailback we had in spring practice. He is going to have to come out of the game and he is going to have to rest and other people are going to have to come into the game, so we will have a rotation. He has proven he be a ball carrier. He has proven he can pass protect and he has proven he can catch the football."
Do you have any thoughts of moving any of your tailbacks to another position? “You can never have enough of those guys. That’s one thing, in all my years in a tailback-oriented offense, you always want to have two and hope you can have three."
With Anthony Hill back and Matt Kushner and George Bryant improved, do you anticipate the tight ends playing a bigger role in the offense? “The key to that is Anthony Hill. A year ago, we felt he was going to be the best tight end in the conference. We certainly feel that way again now. Having played against him, we know he is a tremendous blocker. He can run and catch the ball and get up the field. He is the key to any type of tight-end formation you want to be in. He gives you that extra something. We have always played with two tight ends. It doesn’t change our plans, but we may play more of it.”
Do you have any roster updates heading into the start of preseason practice: “Anything with the players coming back, I will talk about on the first day of practice, but linebacker William Beasley, defensive lineman Marty Everett and running back Tobias Palmer won’t qualify. They will have to go the prep or the junior college route, or whatever they need to get eligible.”
How much will freshman Dwayne Maddox contribute to the linebacking corps and what do you expect out of freshman Terrell Manning? "Terrell Manning is not playing this year because of his knee injury. He didn’t have surgery until January. The recovery is at minimum 10 months, which would be the middle of October. Not having practiced or played, there is no way to get him ready to play. Dwayne has to play. We are very thin at linebacker. It was great for us that he was able to come in and go through spring practice. He will be playing this year.”
How many of your freshman do you expect will redshirt? "I never have a clue how many freshmen will play. As I tell them all the time, they are going to show me who will play. I am not going to pick them they will pick themselves out.”
How has this off-season been different from last year? "The thing for all of us is that all our families have moved in through out the spring. Last year, my wife didn’t move in until after the Fourth of July. We are all living a better routine. We are not living in a hotel. It’s been much easier that way.”
Have you ever experienced anything like the 32 turnovers you had last year? “No, not ever. I think we knew what was going on. We changed in the middle of the year and went on a four-game winning streak and we won the turnover battle and we weren’t making as many mistakes. We had an idea what we wanted to do, but we weren’t getting it across to them. We dropped a lot of balls on defense that we should have been able to catch. That would have made a difference in the turnover margin.”
Do you believe all your players have bought in to your program? “I don’t think it is 100 percent quite yet. A lot of times, success helps that. Obviously, winning in the second half of the season hastened that process. I think it is something you constantly battle. Kids also have to accept that we are not going away. It’s not going to change and this is what is going to be. I was walking back during spring practice with one of the individuals who hadn’t truly bought in to the program and I said to him It’s better to join us than to fight us.’ He said I am starting to figure that out.’”
Were there any surprises for you last year? “Just how bad we were the first half of the year. That was on me, not anybody else. That was my fault we were that bad. We couldn’t line up. We couldn’t execute our assignments. We turned the ball over. It just wasn’t anyway I was used to coaching the football team. It was stuff I wasn’t used to.
Do you tell team to forget about last game last year [a 37-0 loss to Maryland]? “No, we don’t tell them to forget about it. It was a bad day. It is something that we have to learn from and make sure it never happens again. I think we have learned from it. I think they use that and the first game this year and the fact that we were picked sixth in the league. We have a lot of motivation.”
What do you have to do to be better on offense? “We have to run the ball better. We can’t be second-to-last in the conference in rushing offense. We can’t have the quarterback position throw 14 touchdown passes and 23 interceptions. Those numbers have to be reversed if you are going to be a championship football program. The offensive line has to protect the quarterback.”
What do you think this team’s biggest strengths are? I don’t know. It is hard to put a finger on after what we did last year. We have to continue to work in the basic areas of offensive line, defensive line and production out of the quarterback position. If we do that, then we can be a pretty good football team.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
