Here is a good article from Rob Daniels of the Greensboro News & Record that provides some statistical insight into what we all know and are feeling – NC State’s football program is depleted of depth and currently undergoing a major rebuilding project.
Hopefully our fans have begun to realize that we are in a total rebuild mode and potentially several years behind other schools who made coaching changes at the same time we hired TOB.
Neither is this a watershed season in the evolution of Wolfpack football. The program O’Brien inherited from Chuck Amato in December 2006 was on shaky numerical ground. Of the 41 players State signed in 2005 and 2006, 17 are already gone. That 41 percent attrition rate far exceeds the personnel losses sustained by the other three ACC programs that changed administrations at the same time. (North Carolina’s is at 18 percent; Miami has lost nine of 37 players from those classes or 24 percent; and Boston College, which O’Brien left to come to Raleigh, has seen six of 35 signees or 17 percent head elsewhere.)
Additionally, we have a writer from the N&O who takes NC State fans to task over the booing in Carter Finley on Saturday. I am reluctant to tackle this issue with any commentary as this topic is right up Jeff’s alley.
This is not an argument against booing college players. They get the scholarships. They accept the attention. There’s plenty of good, and they have to take the bad with it. Such is life.
The way State had played through the first five quarters of the season, the Pack probably deserved to get booed, as many State teams and quarterbacks have been booed before.
But this wasn’t just another quarterback struggling to complete a pass. Evans grew up sitting in those same stands, the Broughton High grad as much a State fan as anyone who voiced displeasure with his play.
“I love N.C. State football, and I love this team,” Evans said when Wilson was made the starter in August. “I love my teammates, and I love this university. So I’m really going to do anything I can to help this team win football games.”
That may not matter to some, but it should. If there was ever a player State fans were willing to cut a little slack, wouldn’t it be — shouldn’t it be — this one?
SFN Note – We will update this entry later in the day with more commentary on the ‘booing’
