S6: George Tarantini Would Fire George Tarantini (Updated 10am)

AD & Department General Non-Revenue40

Historical SFN soccer entry for background


In the middle of football season we can’t just ignore the other sports in which our program is currently struggling …so, we thought we would throw some love towards “Section Six” for their poignant reasoning.

So, from the coach himself, there are no excuses for not making the NCAAs, and missing the tournament is unacceptable. If/when the team does not reach that goal, then… right? Right?

When you read Tarantini’s comments like the following…

To get to play on Friday or Saturday night will be a huge advantage for us. I have never talked about that before. You never heard me say anything like that. I never talk about facilities. That’s not me. I play with whatever we have, and there was no excuse for us to not make the NCAA tournament.

…you need to keep in mind how easy it is for Tarantini to make these statements publicly without the least bit of private or internal pressure. He could basically make himself sound like quite a stand-up guy because he has never had to worry about complaining about facilities since his Athletics Director makes the excuses for all of his coaches.

Remember this entry?

“I couldn’t expect a whole lot more from [the soccer coaches] with the facilities we had,” Fowler said. “So now that we do have facilities, I expect an uptake, and we need to be playing to go to the NCAAs every year — not one out of two or three.

As shared in the comments section of this entry, the following is the current NCAA South Region Soccer rankings…all of whom OBVIOUSLY have much better fuch-cilities than NC State when you apply the Fowler-doctrine.

1. Wake Forest
2. North Carolina
3. South Carolina
4.Campbell They will beat UNC OCT. 28
5. College of Charleston
6. Furman
7. Clemson
8. Florida Gulf Coast
9. Belmont
10.Appalachian State

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AD & Department General Non-Revenue

40 Responses to S6: George Tarantini Would Fire George Tarantini (Updated 10am)

  1. Greywolf 09/09/2008 at 9:14 PM #

    No matter what Foulup does, says, doesn’t do, the coaches need to be held accountable for the win/loss records of their teams. George Tarantini’s comment about playing on Friday and Saturday comes across like Amato’s infamous Akron poor-mouthing. Maybe the reason we don’t do so well in soccer is the opponents were played on Friday and Saturday and we played on Monday and Tuesday.

  2. RBCRowdy 09/09/2008 at 9:32 PM #

    Facilities a four letter word when used in discussing NCSU athletics as far as I am concerned.

  3. ruffles31 09/09/2008 at 10:49 PM #

    Hey, please give Coach some time. We have played some powerhouses so far. American and Harvard are consistently tough teams and Mercer, well, we tied them and everyone knows what they did last year.

  4. pack80 09/10/2008 at 7:18 AM #

    guys, i’ve been gone awhile. what happened to RedandWhitefromState blog? Will it be back?

  5. burnbarn 09/10/2008 at 7:22 AM #

    Wmn’s soccer is on a 5 game win streak!!

  6. Packaholic1 09/10/2008 at 7:36 AM #

    You’re supposed to ignore the win streaks and focus exclusively on “struggling sports”…

  7. vtpackfan 09/10/2008 at 8:15 AM #

    @ Carolina on Fri. Thinking about going over to take a look see @ the boys in action before commenting on something I know little or nothing about.

    Wait, I will comment after all. Does everyone here realize that his firing would only mean bringing in another inexperienced coach on the cheap? I don’t know anything about soccer in the NCAA, but I do know that NC State will never land a rising leader in the coaching ranks who is ALREADY a HC.

    It’s damned if you do damned if you don’t. Everyone knows TOB fell in our lap, otherwise get used to Fowler stretching out the current coaching staffs indefinitly.

  8. primacyone 09/10/2008 at 8:23 AM #

    “Fowler said. “So now that we do have facilities, I expect an uptake, and we need to be playing to go to the NCAAs every year — not one out of two or three.””

    “”Obviously, we’re not at the level we would like to be,” UNC athletic director Dick Baddour said . . .”We want to win National Championships. . .””

  9. primacyone 09/10/2008 at 8:32 AM #

    NCAA South Region Soccer Rankings

    # School
    1.Wake Forest
    2.North Carolina
    3.South Carolina
    4.Campbell They will beat UNC OCT. 28
    5.College of Charleston
    6.Furman
    7.Clemson
    8.Florida Gulf Coast
    9.Belmont
    10.Appalachian State Who is their AD again?

    Why, Why, Why ? ? ? ?

    I had a choice to send my son to Campbell Soccer Camp, NCSU Soccer Camp or both this summer. I chose to send my son to Campbell only. I had a real concern that sending him to the NCSU Camp would do more harm than good. By the way, the Campbell Soccer Camp was extremly impressive in every way shape and form and I would highly, highly recomend it.

  10. Classof89 09/10/2008 at 8:36 AM #

    The 5-0 start by the women is largely the result of Kerrigan and/or Fowler watering down the nonconference schedule in a lame attempt to make the performance of the program appear more competitive. When Larry Gross (Kerrigan’s coach) was in charge, we played a murderer’s row of top 20 teams and major conference opponents. This team has defeated a lineup of stiffs that includes Stetson (0-4 this year), VCU (0-4), Elon (1-2-1, although to be fair, includes a win at Maryland), Western Carolina (1-4), and Wofford (0-1).

    The primary drama in this team’s ACC schedule is whether they will win one or two games in the conference…8 ACC teams are either in or receiving votes for the national top 25 ( http://www.nscaa.com/seniorRes.php?it=807 )

  11. primacyone 09/10/2008 at 8:43 AM #

    ^^^VT, Here is everything you need to konw about NCSU Soccer this year:

    “American University Men’s Soccer Dominates N.C. State 3-0 at Duke/Nike Classic”
    http://aueagles.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/recaps/090508aaa.html

    Pay special attention to this line in the article:
    “N.C. State had the first real chance in the second half in the 65th minute when Ronnie Bouemboue broke into goal alone, but Bryant made a 30-yard recovery run to tie him up before he could get a shot off on Makowski.”

    We will be lucky if we win a single game. We tied our first cup cake and got destroyed by our second cup cake. I’m sure we will pull out 2 or 3 wins somehow before the season is over, but we can barely compete with middle school teams right now. It is a lost program and doomed for failure.

  12. sockerne1 09/10/2008 at 9:09 AM #

    N.C. State had a 15-11 advantage in shots and took 12 corners to AU’s five

  13. primacyone 09/10/2008 at 9:15 AM #

    ^Most all of that was after AU had a 2-0 lead, shut down the offense and played prevent defense to get the game finished – therefore the corner kicks and desperate shots on goal.

  14. BillyTheKid 09/10/2008 at 9:18 AM #

    I guess the question I have is what happened after the great run of his first 8 years or so (Final Four in 1990). Is it because he is no longer getting players like Tab Ramos, Henry Gutierrez, and Pablo Mastroeni? Did he get “fat and lazy” if you will?

  15. JeremyH 09/10/2008 at 9:20 AM #

    I went to Campbell soccer camp while in high school, it was a great experience. Now, hasn’t this Taranchila guy been there for ages?

  16. StateFans 09/10/2008 at 9:23 AM #

    what is his motivation to win? what is his motivation to get along with others? what is his motivation to work hard? what is his motivation to take that extra time to take the extra trip to recruit?

    It obviously is certainly not his job or his paycheck?

    How do you think the other coaches in the department view this? How do you think this impacts their behavior?

  17. Scooter 09/10/2008 at 9:23 AM #

    To have 12 corners and 15 shots without a single goal is pathetic. To win that many corners shows that the guys are winning possession in the final third of the field and forcing the opposition defense into dumping the ball out of bounds, but not finishing (eerily similar to other sports?). Finishing at this level goes back to coaching. To have that many attempts, that many set pieces in prime scoring position, and to come away empty handed is shameful.

    My head might spontaneously combust if I hear word of Lee Fowler mention facilities again. Have we not given enough money? The doners have put a warchest into the program over the last 10 years and we have NOTHING to show for it. “Coach” has obviously forgotten what TOB hasn’t — a team is only as good as its record.

  18. Dr. BadgerPack 09/10/2008 at 9:38 AM #

    Whatever Fowler did when he hired Lisa Navas… he needs to repeat with, oh, probably 70% of the teams we have. I know he wasn’t responsible for TOB; no matter how Lowe turns out the hiring process was a debacle. Avent I think precedes Fowler. So, and this is only a guess since I don’t fully know the hiring circumstances, a whole ONE good coach brought in by Fowler. (Holliday doesn’t count either– that was pretty much Avent). Furthermore, Softball was a startup so that hiring even deserves a bit of an asterisk.

    Ugh. Having typed that, I now have a Fowler-induced headache…

  19. Greywolf 09/10/2008 at 10:24 AM #

    ^having read that, I have a Scooter induced head ache.

    Scooter says, “To have 12 corners and 15 shots without a single goal is pathetic.” If you say so… I just wonder what your credentials are. You say the opposition is dumping the ball out of bounds. News Flash, Scooter, dumping the ball out of bounds would result in throw-ins, not corner kicks. Deep in ones own end calls for balls cleared as far out as possible – this being midfield at the college level – not “dumping the ball out of bounds”.

    A packed defense would likely result in balls shot into defenders with velocity and balls glancing off defenders across the end-line. Scoring off a corner is no gimme. Attackers are marked up and with 11 in the box it is virtually impossible to get an uncontested head on the ball. “Finishing” refers to putting the ball in the net while it is under player control. It is unfortunate that a team scores 2 goals and then dumbs down its offense to prevent the other team from scoring. That’s the kind of playing that, while winning the game, results in consideration of rules changes (see NHL) to make the game more fun to watch and play. Using this tactic acknowledges the other teams superior skill, usually, and unfortunately results in a boring game.

    Scooters comments remind me of the stuff you might hear at youth league matches by parents who haven’t a clue about the game but do have an opinion about everything. That parent would have been me when my son was playing in the 70’s. When I started coaching youth soccer I wasn’t qualified to pick up balls and cones after practice.

  20. Daily Update 09/10/2008 at 10:29 AM #

    The stats for the soccer team look better except in the win column. They lost to 16th ranked Harvard by a score of 3-1, but appeared to dominate play based on corner kicks and shots. It was almost as if http://www.gopack.com had the stats reversed.

  21. primacyone 09/10/2008 at 10:56 AM #

    It helps if you look at the stats by period. Everybody has played State the same way so far. Get a lead and then shut down the offense and pack it in on defense as Greywolf has described. That’s the way a lot of teams are playing in general these days. You even see a lot of 1-0 games played that way.

    SHOTS BY PERIOD 1st 2nd OT OT2 Total
    NC State………….. 24 27 4 2 – 57
    Opponents……….. 16 10 0 0 – 26

    CORNER KICKS BY PRD 1st 2nd OT OT2 Total
    NC State………….. 6 15 0 2 – 23
    Opponents……….. 8 5 0 0 – 13

  22. sockerne1 09/10/2008 at 11:03 AM #

    Nobody wants coach T gone more than i do….other than perhaps current and future players. I was just surprised at the number of shots/corners. When I was on the team, Coach did not let guys other than forwards go to up and attack very often. Typical boom ball ugly soccer. I was curious if this is still going on, or if they are actually allowed to push forward as a team more.

  23. Manu Ginobili 09/10/2008 at 11:10 AM #

    Thanks SFN for posting something about soccer. I was at the Mercer game, and I know that one game means nothing, but we are pathetic. I have been following State soccer for 5 years, I have friends in the team, some Argentinian guys like me that came to play directly from there. And let me tell you, ALL of them agree, including me, that Tarantini is probably the worst coach they ever had. Even a fan like me, just watching a game, would realize that Tarantini’s coaching skills are zero. He sold that he’s from Argentina, that his brother won a World Cup, etc, but believe me, he’s an absolute nobody there.

    I agree that he had some success in the early 90’s, but that was a probably a combination of good recruits, good luck and who knows what else. Just watching the way his team plays gave me headaches. No game plan, just kick it away and run as fast as you can, no possession whatsoever, no organized attacking, etc. He’s just a bad soccer coach period. He recruits internationally, selling that the ACC is the best league in the country (which is true), and from someone like me who didn’t know anything about NCAA soccer before coming here, that sounds promising. But we haven’t competed in the ACC probably since those early 90’s.

    I hope that we will have a good season, but looking at our first three games, I doubt it. Mercer is probably one of the worst D1 teams (as one of those former Argentinian players told me the other day), American (who?) cannot compete against other ACC teams, and Harvard is ranked, yes, but is Ivy League and that means no scholarships, right?

    Finally, don’t look at the stats to understand a soccer game, or make conclusions about it. They mean nothing. Having played this sport for about 20 years, the only stat that counts is goals for and goals against. I noticed that at the games here, if you shoot the ball from like 50 yards away, and it goes through the end line, even nowhere close to the goal, that counts as a shot. To really understand a soccer game, you have to be there or watch it somehow, and make your own conclusion of which team team is playing better and which one os not. and having to probably more than 25 NC State soccer games, let me tell you, we are usually the one playing worse.

  24. sockerne1 09/10/2008 at 11:16 AM #

    Manu…does he still yell nonsense instructions all game, or does he sit down occasionally?

  25. Manu Ginobili 09/10/2008 at 11:42 AM #

    He still yells nonsense. And I think that’s part of the show, and one of those stupid reasons why a lot of people at the Athletic Department, and fans alike, think he is an “special” coach looking forward to a “memorable” season.

    Also, I couldn’t go to the games last weekend at Duke, but some of my friends told me that he was very aggressive to some of his players, and that’s something I noticed has increased in the last couple of years (sign of weakness?).

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