O’Brien: ‘There’s going to be better days’

“It wasn’t a one-year move,” O’Brien said. “It wasn’t a one-game move. It’s a five to 10-year move on my part. We got pretty beat up today but there’s going to be better days. We’re going to be a much better football team and we’re going to be a heckuva football program.”

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'07 Football General NCS Football Tom O'Brien

74 Responses to O’Brien: ‘There’s going to be better days’

  1. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 09/09/2007 at 12:47 PM #

    I agree Beck is the best option for State. The upside potential is huge and his problems seem to come from his head not his body. If I may assume that he is teachable the poor pass decisions will decrease.

  2. ncsslim 09/09/2007 at 1:31 PM #

    I recognize the first game struggle issues, but does it have to be a struggle of such magnitude (5 ints!)? You would continually think the kid has gotten into a grove, with momentum and confidence soaring, and then another ill advised throw. I’m not comparing the maturity level and game experience, but we put more pressure on Ryan in the first half than we received. I was dissappointed that Beck was not pulled out for at least a series after he made a couple of the throws he made. On one hand, you can say you are messing with his confidence, but on the other, he’s got to know that some mistakes (like a lineman and unnecessary roughness) are preventable and will not be tolerated, at least not the 3rd, 4th, and 5th times.

    But, admittedly, the lack of any semblence of a ground attack has to be devastating to any gameplan.

  3. noah 09/09/2007 at 1:44 PM #

    It’s hard to get into a groove when you’re consistently being forced to throw with three or four guys in your face.

    Even when the OL does a decent job, a QB has to be wary of the protection in front of him.

    IMO, talking about the QB situation is polishing brass on the Titanic. Far bigger issues….

  4. joe 09/09/2007 at 2:11 PM #

    Are people ever going to stop believing the “savior” QB is the guy on the bench? People need to quit being so obsessed with high school rankings.

    First it was Stone, then Greco, then Beck, and now it’s Burke. All of these guys are supposed to be the next Joe Montana. Common sense says if the guys are not playing there is a reason for it.

  5. redfred2 09/09/2007 at 2:13 PM #

    I don’t like to see them, but I do admire a kid who is willing to put his ownself out there, make some big mistakes, and then turn around and go right back at it. See my comments on a BB player named Gavin Grant, for reference.

    As far as the whole, how quickly this situation is resolved all hinges on whether TOB and staff’s have the ability to continue to sell themselves, along with the future of the NCSU football program, irregardless of the present play on the football field. If something doesn’t happen fairly quickly up front to stop the bleeding on the OL, I’m afraid that recruiting will suffer at the skilled positions such as the receivers, and especially at the running back position.

    I know I personally set myself up for disappointment, and I don’t know if we can patiently allow it after all of the “big time” hype leading up to this point, but maybe we need to set ourselves up to wait it out, while allowing a fair amount of time to REALLY fix what was been absolutely neglected by the past regime.

    If no one else does, at least I know Coach Fowler would agree with me on that.

  6. VaWolf82 09/09/2007 at 2:22 PM #

    Common sense says if the guys are not playing there is a reason for it.

    “Common sense is not so common.” – Voltaire (and stolen by many others)

  7. ncsslim 09/09/2007 at 2:46 PM #

    I hope my comments have not been missinterpreted into thinking that I think Burke is the “savior”; my point is that I’m dissappointed with the blatent problems we’ve had with the position that he’s apparently not even a remote option in his second year in the program (same as Beck).

  8. packpower 09/09/2007 at 2:58 PM #

    What noah said.

  9. packgrad2000 09/09/2007 at 5:13 PM #

    Does anyone remember back in 98 when we beat FSU 24-7 and Weinke had 6 INT’s? I think that was his 2nd or 3rd start. Anyway, I definitely don’t think it’s time to give up on Beck just yet. Granted Beck doesn’t have the OL that Weinke did then, but I think a good coach could possibly teach him better decision making. He needs to settle down and learn to read the D (or just see the guy – that 2nd INT he didn’t even see the guy he threw it to).

  10. EverettBeez 09/09/2007 at 5:25 PM #

    ^ I agree – I think we need to let Beck have the time to develop, and see how he does. These young men are young – and fortunes, attitudes and abilities can change quickly. We aren’t going to be great this year, so let Beck stand in there and find his feet, and develop the cool mentality a leader needs to have. You can’t beat real world & work experience.

  11. caniac45 09/09/2007 at 5:56 PM #

    tractor: i actually noticed and got very frustrated when one of our guys made a tackle across the first down line by like 3 yards and got up and proceeded to celebrate like he just scored a touchdown…. just something i noticed.

  12. 1.21 Jigawatts 09/09/2007 at 6:19 PM #

    I would like to point out that established programs who are consistant winners (not refering to only those vying for a championship) have 2 advantages that we don’t. (1) They’re QB is either a JR or SR who didn’t get their starting jobs until after learning and playing behind an upperclassman for a couple of years, learning the system, and getting some actual game experience during their understudy years. (2) They have an established OL that is full of JR’s and SR’s, again having time to get bigger, learn the system, and get some game experience while learning. Also the OL where more than likely OL in HS and not HS DL who don’t have a clue how to play OL at the Div 1A level.

    Since Davis didn’t work out under Amato and Mazzone (I think NoEndZone was the OC at the time) we’ve been sending out QB’s who haven’t had time to grasp a system and get experience before sending them out there to the wolves behind a weaking OL full of converted DL.

    If (BIG IF) we had followed the proceeding formula for QB’s and OL then we wouldn’t even be discussing Beck as the Starter because Marcus would be our starter and Beck/Burke would be his understudy learning the system and getting mop up duty for game experience so that next year they would be better suited to be a starting QB at the Div 1A level.

    I say take our lumps this year with Beck as the starter, learning the job that he should be behind a solid, established SR QB (which we don’t have).

  13. noah 09/09/2007 at 6:46 PM #

    Robbie Caldwell once told me that in an ideal situation, no offensive lineman would see the field before their redshirt sophomore season and none would start before the year after that.

  14. VaWolf82 09/09/2007 at 7:16 PM #

    IMO, talking about the QB situation is polishing brass on the Titanic. Far bigger issues….

    I seem to remember Jamie Barnette playing with substandard OL’s and State still could manage to put an effective offense on the field.

    I think that it is foolish to think that State will ever build an OL good enough such that a substandard QB could still be successful. On the other hand, a good QB can make up for alot of other deficiencies.

  15. noah 09/09/2007 at 7:33 PM #

    Barnette played behind guys like Ian Rafferty and Jarvis Borum, both of whom played in the NFL. He also had guys like Todd Boyle, Alex Rice and that big 6-8 kid that we found in Connecticut when we recruited Spikes.

    There isn’t a single guy on this year’s OL squad who would start on the 97-99 teams. I can’t remember who was on the 1996 OL (Barnette started playing about midway through that season).

  16. RabidWolf 09/09/2007 at 8:38 PM #

    This may sound a bit stupid, but how about letting Burke move the ball between the 20’s (he seemed to be ok doing that) and have Evans come in when in the red zone (he has a real knack for finding receivers in the red zone). The 2 QB system..you love it or you hate it, I know. TOB could mix that up a bit, and keep opposing D’s a little off balance. Just a thought. Remember that a couple of Burke’s INT’s came when the Pack was in the red zone. Evans came in to mop up and once again found Dunlap (incredible catch, BTW) in the end zone.

  17. wolfpackbball 09/09/2007 at 9:06 PM #

    Took this video Saturday night. ECU game winner over the ‘holes. Thought it might be of some interest to a few.

  18. Packaholic1 09/09/2007 at 9:11 PM #

    We’re all right behind you coach, (but how about changing quarterbacks again?)
    If the caoches start listening to the fans, before long they’ll be sitting with them.

  19. Packaholic1 09/09/2007 at 9:11 PM #

    We’re all right behind you coach, (but how about changing quarterbacks again?)
    If the coaches start listening to the fans, before long they’ll be sitting with them.

  20. choppack1 09/09/2007 at 9:38 PM #

    I think you need to give Beck more chances. After watching Davis, Stone, Evans and Beck for the last 3 years and 2 games, he seems to have the best combo of decision making ability and accuracy. There were a couple of passes he made yesterday – that weren’t caught, that were perfect given the situation.

    I really don’t know if he’ll ever be able to make good enough decisions to warrant the job in the future when something is at stake, but I think he needs a shot. He threw for 320 yards in a game where we couldn’t run the ball at all – that’s very difficult to do. He did really bad in situations where they knew he was going to throw it – and unfortunately, for the BC D, there was little mystery. But guess what – if our D had as good hands as BC’s did, Matt Ryan – Mr. All-ACC QB – would have thrown for at least 3 INTs.

    I’m trying to look at the bright side here. The good news is that our D was stout. Our offense moved the ball. All too often, we turned it over – but I haven’t seen State move the ball like that on offense since we played the U on Saturday evening almost 3 years ago.

    If Beck can improve his decision making – and if our OL can open up some holes for the running game, we can be a good team THIS year.

    As disappointing as this loss was – we went on the road and competed against BC. And call me overly optimistic, but I feel much better about this team after this game than I did after the last one.

  21. blpack 09/09/2007 at 11:02 PM #

    We all want to win right away, but if we see steady improvement this year the future can be what we want it to be. I know 0-2 is not what we wanted. I think we will beat someone along the way this season to make us feel a little better. If it’s UNC-ch, we’ll feel a lot better. Go Pack!

  22. RochesterRedWolf 09/10/2007 at 1:34 AM #

    I guess i should temper my criticism of Beck somewhat. I still don’t like how he seems to love 2x/3x coverages on the guy he’s focused like a laser beam on before the ball is even snapped (he did a lot better as the game went on, other problems surfaced of course.). PackGrad2000, i watched that FSU game where Weinke threw 6 INT’s. I also thought to myself how that was kind of empty win, i mean some of the INT’s were 10 feet over the WR’s head and a state SS/CB basically just caught it like a punt. You started feeling sorry for Weinke almost. Didn’t he go on to become a Heisman Candidate?!?!?

    And alot of what has been said about Beck is true…he did throw some exceptional passes in the flat to DB and AB. How many times have u seen QB’s throw those out passes and just lob them out there and either 1) they are dropped or 2) the ball and the LB get to the RB at the same time. Those were awesome little swing passes he threw, led the receivers perfectly. He also threw nicely on the run. He seems to nail the curl routes as well, which are almost 99% guaranteed first downs if the QB makes a laser throw and he’s not telegraphing it to the secondary.

    So yeah, throw him back out there against Wofford, he does have the best arm it seems, which has also been mentioned, you can’t teach/coach. All of his problems are correctable if he is willing to correct them.

  23. eas 09/10/2007 at 9:20 AM #

    There is no doubt Beck has some of the best ability we have seen in a while but his decision making will have to improve. This will take time and unfortunately probably more up and down performances. I still think he is the right one for the job at this point and only time will tell if experience will improve his decisions. I am starting to get a little curious about Burke as well. If we still have some big plans for him, then go ahead and get his feet wet now.

    I feel confident that TOB understands the situation and understands Beck’s natural talent. If Beck continues to make poor decisions (especially ones that could be prevented over time/experience) I am sure he will be calling plays next to the coach rather than on the field. Beck does deserve a few more chances to prove that he can make better decisions. We already know he has the talent.

    On another note, did anyone else notice Andre Brown’s running style (apparently unchanged from last season)? He is constantly heading for the sidelines to make the “big play” but he ends cutting away from the designated holes that are clearly there. I admit I am a little biased to Toney Baker’s running style (he is smart enough to know when to tuck in the football and get 2-3 extra yards rather than trying to cut to the sidelines to make the big play) but Andre Brown is a strong runner (plus he is now the primary since Baker’s is out) that could consistently make the extra 2-3 yards. Sorry to ramble but it is just frustrating to watch Brown make some bad decisions when he has the talent to do better. I also thought Eugene looked pretty good as well.

  24. primacyone 09/10/2007 at 9:20 AM #

    I’ve found the bright side and an area where we have made some improvement.

    Here it is: At least the ball is being thrown down the field versus half-way across the field. I would rather watch Beck sling the ball 20-40 yards down the field, regardless of what team catches it, than watch Jay Davis throw the ball to a Flanker screen over and over and over and over again. Very Nice Improvement.

  25. Great Dane Guy 09/10/2007 at 9:32 AM #

    I am excited to see how this OL improves over the course of the season. I think Horton, Bible and TOB will all have Beck and the OL playing much better by week 5. I think this is where you will see the biggest difference in the new coaching staff. These guys (especially the O) have been together for a long time, and are teachers. The are seeing the OL and QB mistakes, and now can correct them. The D looked really good. Penalties were down to 4. Now, we really need to work on a punter.

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