Glasper vs TOB – Much ado about nothing

General NCS Football36

I’ve been traveling for a couple of days so I have missed the opportunity to link up the recent ‘Ryan Glasper vs Tom O’Brien’ rift. We are not going to recap everything here on the blog since we are a few days late with it. You can click on the following links in chronological order to get caught up.

(1) Setting the stage of the ‘controversy’

(2) Some initial perspective from unbiased ACC bretheren

(3) Some follow-up to the initial news-cycle

(4) 850TheBuzz’s summary with good updates after the N&O spoke with Glasper.

From my point of view, this falls under the “football is a tough business” category. One must consider that Glasper’s story isn’t uncommon, and coaches are in the business of winning. Unfortunate? Yes. Something more at work? No. O’Brien had to make a decision based on need, and coaches have to make the hard choice and play injured players all the time.

(5) More follow-up from EagleinATL.

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General NCS Football

36 Responses to Glasper vs TOB – Much ado about nothing

  1. Sam92 05/03/2007 at 9:01 AM #

    in the off season the media digs around for stories that aren’t really stories, and this is one

    bc fans are looking for any way to cast aspersions on TOB and the media needs something to report

    there’s no big deal here

  2. wolfpackerben 05/03/2007 at 9:01 AM #

    There are certain rules for medical redshirt. TOB is a stand up guy, hard to see him applying for a medical redshirt for someone that the doctors had cleared to play and over half the season was left. That is not the intent of a medical redshirt.

  3. primacyone 05/03/2007 at 9:08 AM #

    If I rember correctly, we hired him to Coach NC State Football and to win a bunch of games while doing it.

    It’s a tough game, but TOB’s #1 responsibility is to do what we hired him to do. If that means playing a player who has a sore hip, that means playing a player who has a sore hip. Glatson himself, said he was fine by the time the bowl game came around.

    It’s not TOB’s fault the guy wasn’t drafted. It’s TOB’s fault that he did not play Glatson against us and lost.

    We hired him to win football games. I believe he will.

  4. CedarGroveWolf 05/03/2007 at 9:14 AM #

    nothing to see here, move along

  5. redfred2 05/03/2007 at 9:29 AM #

    There was no redshirt involved, but everyone on this site including, myself, speculated about the decisions to play and the actual playing time Engin Atsur saw after his injury this season. Most of us were just worried about Atsur himself, but we were just spouting off without really knowing anything and we didn’t have any medical knowledge to base anything on.

    The articles about don’t really give the pre/post numbers, or say whether Glaspar’s overall foot speed is less after the injury. They do however say that the kid was back and playing at 100% by the season’s end. Also, the NCSU/BC game, which led to the change in redshirt status, was fairly early in the conference shedule anyway.

    Just an example, I remember seeing Brian Leftwich at Marshall, leg dangling, having to literally be carried downfield to the next huddle in a colligiate post season game. So I don’t give quiet so much credence to the damaged goods, not being drafted, issue. If Glaspar was ever good enough, he’ll have an opportunity to prove that he can play in the NFL.

  6. RickJ 05/03/2007 at 9:48 AM #

    Early in Amato’s tenure at State, I remember him making a comment that came up around the subject of redshirting. It went something like – “My job is to win as many games as possible at NC State, not to get someone ready for the NFL.” In retrospect, it turned out he did an extraordinary job of getting people ready for the NFL and a pretty average job of winning games.

  7. Girlfriend in a Coma 05/03/2007 at 9:50 AM #

    I wonder how TOB would have handled TA.

  8. RAWFS 05/03/2007 at 9:51 AM #

    ^ TA would have been in pool business a year earlier.

  9. redfred2 05/03/2007 at 9:57 AM #

    ^I’m thinking that under TOB, TA might have better lived up to his early breakout performance. Or possibly, he may have never been an opportunity to have that breakout performance to begin with.

  10. redfred2 05/03/2007 at 9:59 AM #

    I wonder if TA does Majerus’ pool?

  11. redfred2 05/03/2007 at 10:04 AM #

    ^^
    “seen” not “been”

  12. redfred2 05/03/2007 at 11:29 AM #

    Not related, and may be old news, but Al Groh and UVA have scheduled a home/home series with Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans. Kind of goes against the grain of what many others have said here on SFN, but it must be nice as a fan, to have that to look forward to though.

  13. TNCSU 05/03/2007 at 12:01 PM #

    I think a home/away series with a USC/Ohio State(couple of years ago)/Florida, etc. would be good thing. I may be in the minority, but I think the more you can play good competition, the better — at least for one or two of our OOC games — not all.

  14. noah 05/03/2007 at 1:02 PM #

    “Are you hurt? Or are you injured?”

    What’s the difference?

    “Well, if you’re hurt, you can play. If you’re injured, you can’t.”

    – Jimmy Caan in “The Program”

  15. Trout 05/03/2007 at 1:10 PM #

    Eagle in Atlanta is certainly hot and bothered by it all…………

  16. crackdog 05/03/2007 at 1:23 PM #

    I guess I’m trying to figure out how everyone is so sure that O’Brien was planning to leave all year, and leveraged Glasper to set himself up for the next job. I always figured that he had thought about leaving, but didn’t actually plan to do it until a job that he liked (the NC State job) came open. Has he actually confessed to looking for a way out all year? Or is this just BC fans jumping to explanations that support their conclusions (that TOB is a “bad guy” who was never “one of them”).

  17. Cosmo96 05/03/2007 at 2:15 PM #

    This is from Eagle in Atlanta, (sorry, I don’t know how to do quotes on SFN):

    “Ultimately why I do care and why this is a big deal to many BC fans is that one of our own was mistreated. Glasper was a class act and a very good college football player. Our former coach, who claimed to stand for everything Glasper represents, abused his authority in a jerky manner. As Alex said, if TOB had gone to Glasper and said, “we need you” Glasper probably would have come back. But forcing him back against your promise and medical advice was a classless move. (And other fans wonder why the BC community never embraced TOB.)”

    How does he know that O’Brien didn’t come to the guy and say “we need you”, and the kid agreed? He seems to look at that ESPN article, take the kid’s accounts of O’Brien as gospel, and dismiss or ignore the part about the kid being a troublemaker at every level (‘class act’?). By that logic, I can go ahead and make the leap that O’Brien did, in fact, ask the kid to play, he said yes, and then decided to scapegoat someone when he wasn’t drafted. By the way, he wasn’t forced back against medical advice. The team doctor cleared him to play, but apparently, the only real medical experts out there are the ones that fit Eagle in Atl’s agenda.

  18. noah 05/03/2007 at 2:25 PM #

    Eagle in Atlanta sounds either willfully ignorant or hopelessly naive.

  19. TNCSU 05/03/2007 at 2:32 PM #

    Or both? I think it’s closer to the former than the latter. I especially like the “class act” description of a player who admitting getting in fights on the field every day. That’s like saying T.O. or Randy Moss is the “class” of the NFL.

  20. Trout 05/03/2007 at 2:52 PM #

    http://atleagle.blogspot.com/2007/05/more-media-questions-regarding-glasper.html

    Eagle in Atlanta is now suggesting that TOB and NC State “heavy-handed” the N&O to drop the promised floow-up story from Chip Alexander.

    That’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen posted.

  21. kool k 05/03/2007 at 3:08 PM #

    Nice Darnell Jefferson reference, Noah

  22. sautz 05/03/2007 at 3:09 PM #

    Way to blow something out of proportion by the BC guy. Like wolfpackerben says, there are rules for a medical redshirt. If the team doctor clears you to play with most of the season remaining that would not help his case at all. I’m even more happy we have TOB now so BC will have to face the reality of what they lost.

  23. noah 05/03/2007 at 4:03 PM #

    Jeff Fisher got a medical redshirt for high blood pressure. He came in, was overweight, was hopelessly overmatched in his one game and managed to convince the NCAA to get a medical redshirt after his handful of plays against Guh-tech.

    Tyrone Jackson, RB out of Dematha, got a medical redshirt after his first carry in college. He took a pitch against ECU, broke a tackle and ran something like 30 yards. Then he got hit…fumbled…and didn’t play again for a year. I think “concussion” was his excuse.

    Getting a medical redshirt isn’t a big deal. But that’s not what this is about. Again….are you hurt? Or you are injured?

    By midseason, probably most of your team SHOULDNT be out there. They’re all banged up and aren’t doing themselves any favors.

    I mentioned this play once before, but we had a safety (I think it was Rodney Redd) dislocate three fingers in 1998 against FSU. He tried to take himself out of the game, since three fingers were sitting at 90 degree angles to the rest of his hand, but got waved back in by the coaches. He ran back, popped the fingers back into place and then was involved in the tackle on the next play.

    Now that guy isn’t helping himself. If you’ve dislocated three fingers like that, you’ve stretched and pulled those ligaments and you can really screw things up when you pop things back into place if you’re not careful.

    Guys use their heads as battering rams, they carry too much weight on their frames and they take cortisone shots and painkillers to get through it.

    Are you hurt? Or are you injured?

  24. wufpaxno1 05/03/2007 at 4:18 PM #

    The thing that needs to be remembered here is that Tom O’Brien’s first obligation here was to the University. You can not sacrifice the good of the program for the aspirations of one player who had no guarantee that he would have been drafted anyway; and no guarantee that he would have not been injured the following year if he had been red shirted.

    Glasper was going to school on Boston College’s dime and why should they have to carry him for one extra year if he had been cleared to play just so that he could possibly improve his NFL stock. Doing so would have meant giving up a scholarship for the following year and thus taking away an opportunity for someone else.

    It sounds to me as if Glasper was being a bit selfish in this case. He was willing to sacrifice the needs of the team for his own personal interests.

    As far as O’Brien knowing that he was leaving, how could he have possibly known that NC State, Carolina, or anyone else would have an opening at the end of the year that early in the season? State had just beaten his team by exploiting an inexperienced player filling Glasper’s shoes at the time. If I remember correctly, State Fans were hoping for a strong finish following that win and the win over Florida State the following week so Amato was not even threatened at the time.

    This looks much more like a case of sour grapes to me just after the kids hopes were dashed on draft day, followed by a period of remorse over the comments that he had made once he had had a few days of reflection and time to cool down.

    I have stated before that I am not very impressed with Eagle In Atlanta. I know that he cooperates with SFN from time to time prior to State and Boston College match-ups, but I think that he is given entirely too much credit. He does share opinions, but not much product knowledge or enlightenment.

  25. Trout 05/03/2007 at 4:24 PM #

    ^ Agree, especially after suggeting that TOB and NC State “heavy-handed” the N&O to drop the promised follow-up story from Chip Alexander.

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