North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: O'Brien Narrows QB Option to 2
8/20/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. Slowly, NC State football coach Tom O’Brien has narrowed his choices to be the Wolfpack’s 2008 starting quarterback down to two.
Wednesday afternoon, at his initial weekly press conference of the season, O’Brien announced that heralded freshman quarterback Mike Glennon of Centreville, Va., will redshirt this season, leaving senior Daniel Evans and red-shirt freshman Russell Wilson as his top two choices in what started in the preseason as a five-player race.
“I have made the decision that we are going to redshirt Glennon,” O’Brien said in the press conference. “While he is an exceptional talent, he is not ready to handle some of the situations he will face. We got together with him and talked about it and he is fine with that.
“It’s down to Evans and Wilson and [junior Harrison] Beck will be the third quarterback.”
O’Brien made the decision after watching his team’s third scrimmage, on Friday at Carter-Finley Stadium, in which the Wolfpack worked on end-of-game situations. The team had another scrimmage Tuesday afternoon.
“A lot of the decision had to do with experience and the fact that the college game moves a lot faster than high school, in terms of getting signals and knowing what the clock is doing. Those things will get better for him as he sits out this year.
“He has everything else. He just needs some time to soak.”
Evans has started games in each of the last two seasons, while Wilson sat out last season as a redshirt. However, the young quarterback did get some seasoning while playing for the Wolfpack baseball team in the spring.
O’Brien said he and his staff will dissect Tuesday’s final scrimmage over the next two days and begin preparing its two-deep chart for next Thursday’s season-opener at South Carolina, a game that will be shown nationally on ESPN at 8 p.m.
And not all of the coaching staff’s attention will be devoted to who will be under center. By O’Brien’s count, more than a half dozen starting positions have yet to be determined, including fullback, the five starters on the offensive line, the starting wide receivers and at least one safety.
“Offensively, we know that Jamelle Eugene will start and Andre Brown will back up and Anthony Hill is the starting tight end,” O’Brien said. “That’s about it. Defensively, we are pretty well set on starters. It’s just a matter of who the back ups will be.”
But O’Brien said he is excited about the possibility of facing South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier for the first time as a head coach and going to USC’s Williams-Brice Stadium for the first time since 1987, when he was still an assistant coach at Virginia.
And the rest of the Wolfpack clearly shares his excitement.
“This will be the biggest game I have ever been a part of,” Hill said Wednesday.. “Just to go down to play an SEC team, on ESPN, prime time. This is definitely the biggest one.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
