A Word About Saturday / TOB Staff Coming into view (Updated 4:30pm)

General NC State Administration NCS Football Tom O'Brien78

As NC State’s Basketball team gears up for a key home game against Boston College, Tom O’Brien’s coaching staff may be come together.

* We discussed TOB’s staff in this entry earlier in the week. The N&O followed up with the following today:

Although O’Brien has not officially announced new staff additions, those from his former Boston College staff who will join him at NCSU are: associate head coach/recruiting coordinator Jerry Petercuskie, offensive coordinator Dana Bible, offensive line coach Don Horton, tight ends coach Jim Bridge, running backs coach Jason Swepson and defensive line coach Keith Willis.

* We continue to hear promising things regarding the potential for UVA’s Mike London to join the staff.

* Today, the N&O discusses another high-profile defensive coordinator who has talked with the Pack. Click here for the link to the story about Mike Archer.

Archer interviewed for the Wolfpack’s defensive coordinator position this week, Kentucky athletics spokesman Tony Neely confirmed Thursday night. Neely said Archer was in Raleigh on Wednesday and returned Thursday to Lexington, Ky.

O’Brien and Archer were on the Virginia staff of former Cavaliers coach George Welsh in 1991 and 1992. Archer went to UVa after being fired as head coach at LSU, where he led the Tigers to the 1988 Southeastern Conference title.

* We don’t think that landing London or Archer HAS to be an either/or situation. We wouldn’t be surprised to see one of the two coaches take the responsibility of defensive coordinator and see the other accept a different role on staff. We also think that landing both of these coaches would elevate the talent on what appears to be TOB’s staff exponentially. Both of these guys would be home runs.

But, regardless if TOB’s staff is complete by Saturday, we would like to see Coach O’Brien at the RBC Center for the Wolfpack’s game vs Boston College. TOB did attend the Heritage game in Reynolds, but as far as we have seen he has not yet made a Wolfpack Basketball game in the RBC. It would be very nice for him to step in and show his support for the basketball program and get public recognition from the NC State Athletics Department.

We are unclear as to the number – if any – of high school football recruits who will be taking a visit to NC State this weekend. But, if ANY kids are in town, State would be foolish to NOT to introduce and honor Coach O’Brien in such an atmosphere. It would be REALLY impactful if ‘they’ chose to introduce TOB’s new staff for the first time at the game. Maybe make an announcement to please try to stay near your seats at halftime for a special announcement and have Coach O’Brien introduce his new staff to the fans.

Both the fans and the recruits would enjoy this.

4:30pm Update
GoPack.com has announced Tom O’Brien’s offensive staff today in this article.

NC State head football coach Tom O’Brien has announced that all four of his offensive assistants from Boston College will join him in Raleigh. That group directed the Eagle offense that led the ACC in total yards in 2005 and ranked second in 2006. Boston College also led the league in passing offense this past season.

Dana Bible will serve as the Wolfpack’s offensive coordinator and will coach the quarterbacks and wide receivers.

This will mark the 31-year coaching veteran’s second stint at NC State, as he also coached the quarterbacks and wide receivers for head coach Tom Reed from 1983-85. Bible, who has spent the last eight seasons with O’Brien at BC, coached Wolfpack greats Erik Kramer, Haywood Jeffires, Naz Worthen and Danny Peebles during his earlier time in Raleigh. At BC, Bible coached Matt Ryan, who was the 2006 first-team All-ACC quarterback.

Don Horton will coach the offensive line.

Jim Bridge will coach tight ends.

Jason Swepson will coach running backs

after serving in that same position at BC for the past eight years. Under Swepson’s guidance, an Eagle back rushed for 1,000 yards in each of his first five season at the school. He has been in coaching for 15 years.

Additionally, WKYT in Kentucky is reporting that NC State has offered our defensive coordinator position to Mike Archer.

North Carolina State has offered its defensive coordinator positiion to UK’s Mike Archer. The offer could max out with incentives at $500,000 per year. Archer met with N.C. State coach Tom O Brien on Wednesday. Those two worked together previously at Virginia for two years. Rich Brooks has a previously schedule news conference set for Friday at 12:30.

Lastly, we have responded to some of the previous comments left in our comments section of this entry.

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General NC State Administration NCS Football Tom O'Brien

78 Responses to A Word About Saturday / TOB Staff Coming into view (Updated 4:30pm)

  1. WAWolf 01/05/2007 at 1:38 PM #

    as recently as yesterday, SFN was reporting that Spaziani would likely be coming down with TOB to be the DC. any word on what happened there? is he staying at BC?

    SFN: Huh? What are you talking about? Please refer us to these comments?

  2. Dan 01/05/2007 at 2:02 PM #

    VAWolf, the spring signing period is a ways off still.

  3. redfred2 01/05/2007 at 2:13 PM #

    ^ncsu96:

    Strange, but there was an earlier thread regarding Gavin Grant becoming the next “MJ”? Maybe the wording got mixed up somehow.

  4. Dan 01/05/2007 at 2:33 PM #

    Transfers like Johnson worry me. He’s transferring because he cant get the playing time he wants. That means he’s getting beat out at UT for playing time by better players. There are always busts in the top 50 (though few). Tansfers are 8 time of 10 guys that lost the competition for time at their first school.

    SFN: He has been injured most of the year and is a candidate for a medical redshirt.

  5. choppack1 01/05/2007 at 2:36 PM #

    “as recently as yesterday, SFN was reporting that Spaziani would likely be coming down with TOB to be the DC. any word on what happened there? is he staying at BC?”

    My understand and everything that I’ve read here is that he was likely to stay at BC. The only thing that could change that is BC’s new HC deciding he wants another DC.

    Dan – I share your concerns. However, at this point and time, we need guards – badly.

  6. Rochester 01/05/2007 at 2:38 PM #

    My thoughts exactly, Dan. When a guy basically gives up before giving it a full season, it’s a little red flag. Maybe it wasn’t the right situation for him, and by transfering before the second semester starts he can save himself some time, etc., but it does scare me just a little.

  7. NCSUwolfpack4Life 01/05/2007 at 2:43 PM #

    Archer is too gung-ho on the 3-4 defense. Personally i really really don’t like the 3-4 defense. Also, we don’t have the personel to run the 3-4 defense. Our linebackers are barely good enough to run a 4-3 much less a 3-4.

    Also, yes, I am very aware they’ve run a 4-3 over there under Archer, however, from what I understand from their site, he was forced to run the 4-3 even though he didn’t like it. I wish this weren’t the case and he would run a 4-3, but that’s simply not going to happen. I really don’t want Archer as the DC.

  8. Dan 01/05/2007 at 2:43 PM #

    I feel you Chop, but we thought we needed bigs last summer and we gave Big Lew a very valuable scholarship that we could really use right now.

    You have to maximize each scholarship even if it means taking a hit for a year. This isnt the NBA where you can sign a guy to a one year deal. And giving a guy a scholarship that cant get off the bench is worse than not having anyone. If Bartosz doesnt care than he has almost zero chance of playing next year (McCauley, Costner, Hickson, and Smith ahead of him most likely) then we wont get that scholly back for 3 more years. My bet is that he transfers out of a desire to play the game he loves. But you never know.

  9. NCSUwolfpack4Life 01/05/2007 at 2:51 PM #

    Dan, you do realize that scholarships ARE one year deals. They don’t get a 4 year scholarship. They get a one year scholarship. Usually it’s given with an understanding for 4 years, but I think in this case, it was very clear to all parties involved, he was given the scholarship to give us a body THIS year.

  10. roandaddy 01/05/2007 at 2:59 PM #

    ^^^ while true.. start pulling scholies after one year on a couple of guys and you lose all respect and credibility from the high school coaches. Its a VERY tricky balance.. and the reason you don’t see players cut after year one is because no one wants the reputation of being a dead end to players. Would you commit to a school knowing you could lose your ride based on an untested high school recruit who is labeled as “can’t miss”, and coach saying.. thanks for your time, but we really think this high school guy will be better than you.

  11. NCSUwolfpack4Life 01/05/2007 at 3:08 PM #

    Thats a valid argument if it’s done on a consistent basis. However, I would hope that most High School coaches are intelligent enough to look at our situation and understand that we NEEDED another body and that everybody and their brother knew that Bartosz was not an ACC caliber player and would probably either have his scholly removed or transfer because of no playing time after the first year. Doing it one time in the first/second year because of not having enough players to even fill a practice squad isn’t the same as pulling schollys on a consistent basis.

  12. Woof Wolf 01/05/2007 at 3:17 PM #

    I don’t see how we are in trouble on scholarships. By my count we only have eight guys on scholarship now who might be back next year, including the big guy.

  13. Pack Laddie 01/05/2007 at 3:19 PM #

    Hypothetically speaking, Marques Johnson could be enrolling in class next week, practicing with the team this spring, and be eligible to play at the end of exams next December, just as Trevor Ferguson did this past year.

    SFN: …hypothetically…

    🙂

  14. Rochester 01/05/2007 at 3:24 PM #

    I think this is the current breakdown:

    Sr: Atsur
    Jr: Grant
    So: McCauley, Fells
    Fr: Costner, Ferguson, Horner, Degand, Lewandowski
    07: Hickson, Smith, Thomas
    08: Mays, Williams

    We only have one more to give for 2007-08. That’s where the limitation comes in, assuming no one leaves and everyone who’s supposed to come does.

  15. wufpack 01/05/2007 at 3:26 PM #

    Johnson is a VERY solid pickup. Sid really wanted someone who could come in and help out at PG next year, and using that criteria the only player that it could even be argued would be a better option is Lucas. And most of the staff had a real problem with his size, so they did not view him as the best option. Plus, there’s certainly no guarantee that we could have gotten him anyway, it’s not like we are his dream school or anything.

    Johnson is a guy that was easily a top-100 prospect (there are VERY few of those still on the board in the class of ’07) who will be a year more mature and have already had a lot more practice time with the team than any incoming freshman. Not to mention that he’s a guy that Larry Harris, who has an excellent eye for talent, really liked last year. More highly regarded, more mature, and will get more practice time than basically anyone else we could take? I don’t know what happened at Tennessee, but this guy is less risky than anyone else we could get with at least as much upside, if not more.

  16. redfred2 01/05/2007 at 3:39 PM #

    Red flags…on any transfer in general??? Sometimes circumstances dictate a change and it doesn’t always signal a player’s bad attitude or a lack of desire to practice hard and play hard. If there is a group that should be well aware of that fact by now, I would think it would be Wolfpack fans.

    As far as immediately yanking a scholarship over the course of a few days, because you need to guarantee the latest 5 star commit a spot before he goes looking elsewhere, that’s much different from giving a kid heads up and letting him know that things aren’t working out, then letting him decide for himself. Especially when it’s done in the right time frame and the staff helps him to find a university that may be in need of his services.

  17. Rick 01/05/2007 at 3:45 PM #

    “Hypothetically speaking, Marques Johnson could be enrolling in class next week, practicing with the team this spring, and be eligible to play at the end of exams next December, just as Trevor Ferguson did this past year.”

    Is this “hypothetically” as in you know something or are you truly being “hypothetical”?

  18. Woof Wolf 01/05/2007 at 3:47 PM #

    I still don’t se that as a limitation. If everyone comes and stays, we probably wouldn’t need more than one anyway unless we can get at a couple of 5 stars.

    Also the way things are today it would be foolish to plan on everyone coming and staying four years. I would almost bet that Big Lew leaves and we loose one or two to the NBA. In this environment you have to play for this year and next year and make adjustments on the fly.

  19. Dan 01/05/2007 at 3:48 PM #

    Its possible we are really gambling on ’08 because it could be JJ’s only year. Its a scary lineup if we had a great PG along with Fells, Grant, Costner, McCauley, Hickson, and Smith. Really scary. I just dont want to gamble away ’08 to get us there.

    I mean, why did we take Degand then and what does it say about where the staff thinks he is?

  20. Dan 01/05/2007 at 3:51 PM #

    Woof Wolf, you need multiple scolarships so you can offer multiple players even if you only want one. See what happened to UNC this year. They whiff on Love, so they have to play catch up on everyone else.

    ..and we arent losing anyone to the NBA this year. No one. And thank goodness for that.

  21. Woof Wolf 01/05/2007 at 4:04 PM #

    I wasn’t talking about this year I think there is a good chance that Hickman may be one and out and Costner has NBA potential depending on how fast he developes.

  22. Woof Wolf 01/05/2007 at 4:13 PM #

    And I would love to have Roy’s problems.

  23. cpwolfpackfan 01/05/2007 at 4:15 PM #

    so is mj from tenn, coming here or not? or is that just a rumor. if so we would have 10 very solid players
    Hickson
    Mccauly
    Grant
    fells
    MJ

    Smith
    Costner
    Horner
    Fergerson
    Degand

    thomas
    green
    harris

  24. NCSUwolfpack4Life 01/05/2007 at 4:26 PM #

    Hickson is an absolute rebounding MACHINE. With Hickson and Costner on the floor I don’t see how anyone would ever get a rebound on us. I could see a starting lineup with Costner SF, Hickson PF, McCauley C… that would be so nasty

  25. Cosmo96 01/05/2007 at 4:28 PM #

    I believe Johnson was injured for most, if not all of his time at Tennessee. That’s why he wasn’t a major part of their rotation. I’m not sure why he decided to transfer, but I don’t think it was because he wasn’t “good enough” to cut it there. He was a four-star player out of high school, and as was mentioned earlier, was really high on Larry Harris’s wish list.

    We have a huge influx of talent joining the talent we already have on board. Now I just hope like crazy that Tracy Smith qualifies.

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