The nice thing about a new season (especially with a new coaching regime) is the fresh hope it brings. Everybody starts 0-0, and almost every opponent has some question marks. Unfortunately, the Pack stands at 0-1, and the short-term prospects aren’t good. After all, if UCF had so much as a competent QB, they would have hung 50+ points on our defense last night. We played better in the second half, but the blown coverages were still too numerous to count.
That doesn’t mean you have the right to be discouraged. We hired Tom O’Brien to build a program, one that wins consistently and competes for championships. We didn’t hire him to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Success at the latter is by no means a sure sign of success at the former – see Amato, Chuck and Sendek, Herb.
In the “scouts’ views” section of my hard copy Sporting News college football preview, the ACC “insider” said (re NC State) something to the effect of “they will be horrible this year, since not all of the leftovers are going to buy into TOB’s system, but mark my words – he’ll win a conference title there.” That’s fine with me – how about you? Break as many eggs as you need to make the omelette, Coach. I’m not interested in any more “Band Aid” solutions for Wolfpack athletics.
You know what kind of results Coach O’Brien can achieve once he has his personnel in place – you saw him do it at Boston College. I still consider that his floor, not his ceiling. By year three, I expect to see measurable improvement. Harrison Beck will be a redshirt senior, and if needed, Mike Glennon a redshirt freshman. The 2-deep will be filled with legitimate, D-1 caliber offfensive linemen. There will be less flash, maybe – but more football IQ. What you saw last night was a combination of staff and players getting used to each other, along with the net result of several consecutive mediocre and unbalanced recruiting classes. 3-9 teams that lose three players to the first four rounds of the NFL draft tend not to be much better the next year, if they haven’t been recruiting extremely well.
In retrospect, when we saw the first week depth chart released, we should have known that there was trouble, and it went deeper than the QB position. It’s clear that alot of players that needed to step up for us to be successful have not done so.
Want a reason for great optimism? Despite the crowing we heard from BC fans, Tom O’Brien and Dana Bible were not predictable. They did anything but play it “by the book” – changing QBs when the need became painfully clear, throwing a decently long pass to Marcus Stone on 4th and inches (after earlier struggling with power running in that situation), and making a gutsy, mathematically correct decision to go for it on 4th down with time running low in the 4th quarter. One gutsy call worked, and one didn’t (although I’m not sure we would have been in much better shape even if we had punted, in which case it was essentially risk-free, mathematically speaking) – but that’s not how you judge making the right call. The risk/reward ratio was favorable, and both calls showed great situational awareness (perhaps Amato’s weakest trait – maybe after ego). Every justified risk won’t produce a favorable result – but that’s why it’s a risk. Ask yourself this – had you been a Golden Knights fan last night – didn’t you hope State would try running up the gut again on 4th and inches? And that we would send the punt team out on 4th and 6? That’s generally a good way to test a coach’s decisionmaking. My long-standing pet peeve is coaches worrying about criticism if they don’t play by the book, and the play doesn’t work. It’s both cowardly and illogical. From my vantage point, O’Brien and Bible showed both balls and brains last night, and that will reap great rewards long-term.
Another positive – TOB eschewed Tony Haynes’ attempts to make happy talk in the post-game interview. O’Brien certainly acknowledged the second-half improvement, but also the much less comfortable truth that we have a long way to go before being a respectable team, let alone a good one. He was pissed, and I like that. We’re all on your side, Coach. It was a revealing first game, and I’m sure the staff learned alot from it.
On the QB situation, you saw what a good coach (which O’Leary certainly is) will do after studying film on Daniel Evans. Stack the box and blitz – if we can’t give him good time to throw, he can’t get through his progressions fast enough, and doesn’t have the athleticism to get away and buy time for himself. He also is susceptible to tipped passes b/c of his height, and there’s just not enough velocity on his passes to make defenses pay a high price for their aggression. That’s not a knock on Evans – it’s just the simple fact that he profiles as a solid backup who has his best success in short bursts of exposure. Beck, being the superior athlete, was able to make quicker reads, and force balls into smaller windows. The defense also had to respect his deep ball, even though he didn’t connect on it often. That’s why I said all along that I really wanted him to win the starting job, and that it would mean trouble if he didn’t.
