North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack Looking Forward, Not Back
11/23/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 23, 2010
NC State's Allotment Sold Out for ACC Championship
RALEIGH, N.C. - The best way to do something memorable, says NC State coach Tom O'Brien, is to forget everything that has happened in the past.
So when he takes his team to College Park, Md., this weekend, with a chance to qualify for next week's ACC championship in Charlotte, O'Brien wants the players to put aside all that has occurred up to this point in the season.
Forget about beating North Carolina for the fourth year in a row.
Forget about beating Florida State in a nationally televised Thursday night game.
Forget about the big wins so far this season, and the three close losses in games in which his team led in the fourth quarter.
Forget about returning to the national rankings, where NC State is currently No. 21 in The Associated Press poll of national media.
Luckily for the coach, there aren't many students on campus during this Thanksgiving week to remind his players of those many things.
"The key now is to focus on Maryland," O'Brien said in his weekly press conference Monday. "This team has been good at forgetting whether they won or lost and focusing on what they have to accomplish any given week.
"If they hadn't been, we wouldn't be where we are today."
Despite the upcoming holiday and the short week of school, O'Brien expects his team to remain homed in on its responsibilities for the week.
"I don't see any reason why they wouldn't focus on Maryland, considering that we have a chance to accomplish something really special," the coach said.
The players seem to have absorbed that from the coaching staff.
"If we want to get where we want to be, we have to win this game," said offensive lineman R.J. Mattes. "It's really like two ACC championships in back-to-back weeks. We have to focus on this game first. We have to tighten up our shoelaces and bring our A-game."
O'Brien knows that it has been a long time since the Wolfpack (8-3 overall, 5-2 ACC) has been in this situation. It's the first time the Pack has won eight regular-season games since 2003. It has the chance to win six ACC games for the first time since 1994. And it has a chance to play for the program's eighth ACC title.
The school hasn't won an ACC championship since 1979, a fact of which O'Brien was reminded recently by a few football alumni, Dave Buckey and Bill Cowher among them.
The popular question around the ACC and college football is this: How exactly did the Wolfpack, after three straight losing seasons, get here?
There is a multitude of answers for that, including a high-powered offense led by one of college football's most dynamic players, junior quarterback Russell Wilson, and the return of linebacker Nate Irving, who missed all of last season because of injuries he sustained in a car accident.
But it definitely goes deeper than strong leadership from the coach and his tri-captains: Wilson, Irving and senior wide receiver Jarvis Williams.
A good portion of credit goes to the rank-and-file members of the team - at least those who bought into O'Brien's no-nonsense program. The coach had been a successful assistant and offensive coordinator at Virginia and a successful head coach at Boston College, but he's also a demanding taskmaster who doesn't tolerate his players doing their own thing.
"It took a while for us to all learn," said junior linebacker Audie Cole. "They've been trying to teach us this since they got here. It took a while for the new kids who came in to buy into the program. We [now] feel like everyone has bought in and we're doing the things they want us to do. There's a reason why they're having us doing these things.
"That's why we're a winning team right now."
There has also been significant improvement on the Wolfpack defense, which was decimated by injuries and populated by players who were younger and more inexperienced than O'Brien would have liked.
"I think the defense has grown in maturity, in confidence and in experience from last year," O'Brien said. "We were forced into a situation where we started nine or 10 different defenses in 10 or 11 different games, due to injuries. It's impossible to be any good in those circumstances.
"It was a perfect storm, but we weathered the storm and are better for it."
The coach also credits his team's resilience and its ability to bounce back from three disappointing losses and handle its big wins, including the emotional 29-25 triumph over rival North Carolina on Saturday.
Now, the Wolfpack has to face Maryland, in its third November road game. That's a challenge few teams have had to face on the road to a championship.
"Is it going to be any tougher than going to Chapel Hill? I don't know," O'Brien said. "That was an awful tough situation to go to last week and win a football game.
"But if we go to College Park and do the same thing, then this team's going to deserve to go to the ACC championship game. It's a tough hill to climb. I believe we will show up. We will play hard, I promise you that.
"If we play smart, we will have a chance to win."
fÞ By Tim Peeler, tim_peeler@ncsu.edu
