The yelling had not even started to subside just a couple of hours after the Wolfpack’s big win over North Carolina when one of our authors was looking to next year with the a thread titled – “Cross Your Fingers That Baker and Wilson Stay”
Well, over the weekend we highlighted Toney Baker’s big award and discussed his potential return to the Wolfpack for the 2010 season. So, it is only fair to lead this morning with the Wolfpack’s other big personnel question mark for 2010 – Russell Wilson.
The ACC Sports Journal features the potential impact of Wilson decision on Mike Glennon in today’s version of their “Wolfpack Insider”.
Life without Russell Wilson is something N.C. State fans would rather not give much thought to, but it’s certainly weighing on the mind of Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien.
Drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in 2006, Wilson more fits the prototype of a baseball player at 5-11 than an NFL quarterback. There is a belief that baseball is his primary love, as well. Thus, many people at NCSU, maybe even including O’Brien, think Wilson will opt for the national pastime after he’s drafted again next summer.
O’Brien said last week on his radio show that he doesn’t expect a decision from Wilson until after the baseball season. The determining factor may be how high Wilson is taken in the 2010 MLB Draft.
What if Wilson returns?
The Cardiac Pack Blog had a nice feature on Wilson’s pocket presence vs scrambling that is worth checking out here.
But for those of you who still believe the Wolfpack would be better off with Russell running around, take a look at some numbers. I am aware Russell missed time due to injury during the 2008 season, but even if you project his numbers for those games based on what he did the rest of the year it doesn’t add up.
[snip]
Russell’s numbers improved in every category other than interceptions. And to expect the same performance last year regarding interceptions was somewhat absurd. Turnovers happen in football.
And even with the fact that Russell ran less, he still netted 260 yards rushing, gaining an average of 21 yards per contest. In 2008 he only netted 388 (even though it felt like a lot more) yards with a little more than 35 yards per game. So all you people arguing that Russell should have run more this year are making your point based on 14 yards per game. Is that really worth the increased chance of injury?
We like to provide you a centralized place to click through to as much information related to a core topic as possible. With that said, this recent blog entry kind of hits on a lot of items facing the Wolfpack’s football program.
