A little look ahead to 2010 Football

'10 Football36

We’ve had some nice entries and conversations on the blog and the message boards with this week-long stretch between Wolfpack Basketball games. So, why not spend a few minutes on some football items?

Looking Back, Looking Ahead
We are heading into ‘spring practice time’ and ‘The Wolfpacker’ released a lot of good information on the spring in their digital newspaper yesterday. Reading the first couple of pages will serve to elevate the names of some potential key contributors onto your radar.

CFN has put together “Look Back, Look Ahead” for every team in the ACC.

NC State: Assuming QB Russell Wilson is back in the saddle and not playing baseball full-time, the Pack could have the ACC’s most prolific passing game. Not only is Wilson a two-time all-star, but he’s loaded with accomplished receivers. Receivers Owen Spencer and Jarvis Williams combined for 17 touchdown catches, and George Bryan was the league’s first team tight end. If LB Nate Irving can return to his old form after suffering injuries from last summer’s car accident, it’ll give a big boost to the defense.

You can click here for the full write-up on NC State.

Recap: North Carolina State is regressing, an anomaly in the head coaching career of Tom O’Brien. The Pack finished with seven losses for a third consecutive year and below .500 for a fourth season in-a-row, failing to build on last year’s 6-6 mark. Although QB Russell Wilson did all he could to keep the team competitive, even his 31 touchdown passes weren’t enough to overcome one of the ACC’s worst defenses. After peaking with a 38-31 win over Pitt on Sept. 26, State dropped six of the next seven games to sink completely out of bowl contention

Looking Ahead: Naturally, the Pack wants to reverse the recent trend by getting back over .500 and contending in a wide-open Atlantic Division. First, it’ll need to determine if Wilson will be under center or signing a contract to play Major League Baseball. If he bolts, the Mike Glennon era in Raleigh begins sooner than expected. The defense will get a lift from the return of LB Nate Irving, who missed the season following a car accident.

Spring Power Rankings
Heading into spring practice, ESPN’s Heather Dinich rated NC State 8th in the conference in her power ratings:

“The young secondary will still be an issue, and the Pack will be without their starting quarterback, Russell Wilson, all spring because of his baseball obligations. The defense should improve with the return of Nate Irving, but it’s still unclear how much he’ll be able to do this spring.”

The following was how she views the conference heading into the spring:

1. Virginia Tech
2. FSU
3. UNC
4. Miami
5. Boston College
6. Georgia Tech
7. Clemson
8. NC State
9. Maryland
10. Wake Forest
11. Duke
12. UVa

Out of Conference Strength of Schedule Ratings
Yesterday, Dinich released her rankings of the out of conference schedules of ACC Football teams. One can always argue things in the margin, but I can generally understand her thoughts with these rankings. If I had to choose one item to challenge – I think I would have ranked Clemson’s schedule a little higher.

The three Triangle schools stack up as follows:

4. Duke: Elon (9-3), Alabama (14-0), Army (5-7), at Navy (10-4): The Blue Devils will face the defending national champs. It doesn’t get much tougher than that, and Army and Navy are hardly pushovers these days.

5. North Carolina: LSU (9-4), at Rutgers (9-4), East Carolina (9-5), William & Mary 11-3: The Tar Heels kick off the season in the national spotlight, but don’t dismiss a road trip to Rutgers, and the battle for the unofficial state championship.

6. NC State: Western Carolina (2-9), at UCF (8-5), Cincinnati (12-1), at East Carolina (9-5): Two road trips to respectable bowl programs, plus the matchup against Cincinnati, which was one of the nation’s top teams a year ago.

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As always, our Football Forum will provide you an efficient place to pick and choose other recent conversations and relevant topics of interest. Go State!

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'10 Football

36 Responses to A little look ahead to 2010 Football

  1. BamaPack 02/26/2010 at 10:57 PM #

    Prepare for a long season.

    /end

  2. Wolfy__79 02/27/2010 at 1:41 AM #

    western, ucf, cinci, gt, vt, bc, ecu, fsu, clemson, wake, unc, md.

    we definetly start off with an easier opponent and the competition appears to stiffen as we go on until about midseason. heaading into gt, i feel confident we’ll have atleast two w’s under our belt. the short turnaround hurts us for the very winnable cinci matchup. by that time we should see what the defense is capable of (should be quality). w/l then vt at home, should be an even better test of our offense against a steady vt defense. 2nd home game in a week, bc comes to raleigh. that should be a win. then the trip to ecu should provide another win.. ecu lost too much to defeit a TOB team. completing a long break with a THURSDAY game against fsu and its new staff, WIN. the road game at clemson is also after more than a week off, should be a good oppurtunity to grab another division WIN. we’ve got wake at home this year and they no longer have senior leadership under center, WIN. a week later, THE BIG GAME.. for us anyway, unc-ch hasn’t made it to this matchup in what four years now. i don’t expect much different, especially if RW is around. the WOLFPACK finishes the season at college park against one of the conferences’ projected lower teir teams.. HD may have gotten this one right.

    considering the oppurtunity with this schedule, i strongly feel that NCSU will certainly win more than we lose.. probably finishing with 8 wins or so to be safe. who knows, could be better. i think this years team is definetly poised to finish up in the top twenty five.

  3. Wolfy__79 02/27/2010 at 1:48 AM #

    western, ucf, cinci, gt, vt, bc, ecu, fsu, clemson, wake, unc, md.

    the big question for most WOLFPACK fans is whether or not RW will return. i question this too. but in his absence, i think mike glennon will produce the a similar record in our first three games, probably 2-3. gt and vt’s defense will be tough, one of these at home presents a better chance for a W. by then, he should have some kind of working rhythm.. bc and ecu shouldn’t be too tall of an order for either qb. THURSDAY night in raleigh has produced some special results in years past.. i’d say we have a good shot at a win here too with mg or RW. clemson’s d will be good but not quite as talented as last year, very good shot at the W here too. we finish with wake, unc, md. i think most should feel comfortable about getting atleast two of these.. if RW is playing, i’d say probably all three. alot of reason for optimism here folks…

  4. Wolfy__79 02/27/2010 at 1:56 AM #

    The young secondary will still be an issue””

    college football sees more and more spread offense each year. the deep threat is always an issue. this doesn’t change with youth or experience, i’ve seen great defenses get beat deep(e.g. ncsu vs unc 2009). sure the point is we sucked last year, and we’re still young. there’s noooooo original thought here, other than i think she is dead wrong on this one. we’re dealing with an exprerience HC that throughout his career has developed his players. last year was a fluke that snowballed. don’t expect the same results this year.

  5. wolfmanmat 02/28/2010 at 8:13 AM #

    This is TOB’s last chance IMO; in football EVERYONE goes to bowl games; seasons of no bowl is not good. He is getting lessor talent than CTC and still managing to be near the tops in the league in penalties. If Sid is on the hot-seat TOB should be too…

  6. ryebread 02/28/2010 at 10:19 AM #

    I don’t long for Amato back. He had his chance, ultimately mismanaged it (which was reflected by staff turnover), jumped the shark against ND against the Gator Bowl and was generally on a downward trajectory. I do thank him for the things that he did for us — primarily put the football program back on the map and excite the fan base. He deserved to be fired after the 3-9 season and I contend the lost to Akron of the MAC (not DIAA as someone mentioned) and the comments he made afterwards was when it should have happened.

    Despite that, I wasn’t sold on the TOB hire initially and I’m still not. I was a huge PJ fan at the time and still think he was “the one that got away” for NC State football. TOB was a solid double hire, but we missed on the home run. I’ve not been thrilled by the results so far, the fact that he’s run off a lot of players, the fact that he throws other ones under the bus, and the fact that he’s supported some bad coaches with bad schemes to a fault. We need to see some significant improvements in defense, special teams and conditioning before you’ll find me singing his praises.

    TOB is our coach though, so I support him. I want us to win every game, just like I do in every other sport. I watch virtually every game either in person or on TV. I do think I’m objective though.

    With respect to BD at UNC, I actually see him as following a similar trend as Mack Brown at a time period where we have a mentality that reminds me of Sheridan. While I don’t think that BD is that good of a coach, UNC is amassing talent (and more importantly athletes). We are getting some solid kids, but aren’t tearing it up in recruiting and hoping to develop them once on campus. Eventually BD might have enough to get over the hump, much the way that Mack did. Remember, we were laughing at Mack after two seasons of thumpings by Sheridan, but ultimately UNC had the last laugh. 🙁 Granted, a lot of that was due to Sheridan’s early departure, but I could see the same happening with TOB as he speeds towards retirement. Could we be looking at another O’Cain situation with Archer?

  7. cWOhLFrPAiCKs 02/28/2010 at 12:18 PM #

    Not sure if anyone else mentioned this yet, but Dinich reported two days ago that Nate has been cleared for Spring Practice with no limitations.

    “North Carolina State starting linebacker Nate Irving, who missed all of last season while recovering from injuries he suffered in a one-car crash, said he has been cleared for full participation in spring practices and won’t be limited.”

    That’s got to be a good sign for the D this year. The more time Nate has to work with the young guys and get back into Football Shape, the better for this team.

  8. Wolfy__79 02/28/2010 at 10:56 PM #

    i’m hoping the freak acts of nature seasons are behind us. i am very optimistic about this football season… but i agree with anything concerning archer sucking as a coach. i’m glad tenuta joined the staff.

    butch the builder has gotten some good recruits. defense. i’m not blown away by any offensive players. they do have good rbs, but nothing that scares me. i wouldn’t rate his defense any better than any of the d’s we had in the past decade. seems like more than a decade ago. i can’t compare butch to mack or certainly not sherridan. he was the man.

    with the TOB hire. we should have known what we were getting in that one. he does recruit character players and build them. funny that butch is the builder… maybe the blitzer. i hate the results to this point, outside of owning unc-ch, but i think he is definetly recruiting well. our o line hasn’t been this deep in years. pretty good at all skill positions… IMO, all that is missing right now is defense. remembering tenuta at gt… maybe that piece to the puzzle is in play!

    if you haven’t guessed, i’m one of those optimistic fans.. despite the kicks to the groin the last few seasons.

  9. Sam92 03/01/2010 at 8:19 AM #

    honestly, i have completely given up on basketball, so i’m glad for any football piece.

    i was so optimistic about last season – TOB’s third year, players he recruited starting to play, the first season the program was really his –> and we got worse. that was so disheartening, disappointing.

    because of that, it’s really hard to be optimistic about this season coming up. i do think we should be better, but probably only in the improvement of turning 5-7 to 7-5, that’s about the best shine i can put on this

    having nate irving back should help – if he is capable of his old form

    and frankly i’m ready to see Mike Glennon, i won’t be at all disappointed if russell wilson leaves for baseball.

  10. Classof89 03/01/2010 at 9:06 AM #

    61, you’ve got to be kidding when you call for bringing Amato back as AD, right? Has there ever been a coach in the history of ACC football that was worse at managing a staff? What, the entire coaching roster turned over like three times in his six seasons? Was there a single staff person that was with him the entire time?

    I can’t imagine a worse choice for AD, other than the current occupant of the office.

    And as for football, our program is starting to remind me a lot of the MOC era–very marginal level of talent in the program compared to the ACC’s best due to lightly regarded recruiting efforts.
    -hovering around .500 overall with really strange swings in effort/results (beat Pittsburgh, lose to Duke under TOB = beat FSU, lose to Baylor under MOC)
    -win some we shouldn’t due to brilliant offensive game plans; lose equal number that we shouldn’t due to head scratching lack of game plan/execution.

    Biggest disappointment to me of the TOB era has been lack of development in the trenches…we were told if there was one thing he could do, it was develop a championship caliber offensive line. Yet we are going into year four, and neither OL nor DL measures up to the top 3 or 4 teams in the conference, let alone nationally. Nor does the talent on the lines in the program/coming in look particularly impressive.

  11. ryebread 03/01/2010 at 10:43 AM #

    I agree with Classof89. Amato would be horrible AD. He couldn’t manage a football staff. What makes people think he’d be good at managing an entire athletics program? I like Chuck, but he needs to focus on coaching and not administration.

    HWSNBN would have probably been a good AD and I was actually for firing LF and promoting HWSNBN. He had an accountant’s mentality, was methodical, worked hard, and knew how to stay in the good graces of the big boosters. That sounds like a pretty solid AD to me and much better than the one we are shackled with.

    As for my metaphor, I’m not comparing BD to Sheridan. It’s more like this:
    TOB : BD :: Sheridan : Mack Brown

    I think our plan under TOB is to take moderate recruits, coach them up, work hard on fundamentals and try and overachieve. This is very similar to what we did under Sheridan. I think TOB’s ceiling is about where we were with Sheridan.

    I think that BD is following the Mack Brown formula. BD is just trying to stock pile enough talent that it can hide the coaching gaps. They’re getting some elite level athletes — particularly on the defensive side of the ball. If they get enough, then they’ll start winning.

    UNC and NC State are following these trajectories at the same time — much like what happened with Sheridan and Mack Brown. It’s interesting to me that history seems to be repeating itself. Right now we’re beating UNC on the field, but they’re amassing a large talent advantage that quite possibly be too large to overcome.

    I’m also taking the analogy one step further. If BD gets UNC to the top 10 like Mack Brown did, I think he jumps to a bigger program. What happens afterwards will be interesting. I could see UNC feeling betrayed and want to hire an alum who wouldn’t leave them.

    With TOB, we have a coach with a limited shelf life due to age. If TOB gets us to Sheridan levels and then retires, I imagine there will be a push to promote from within. When I look down the staff, I think we’d end up with Archer as our coach. That sure looks like MOC part two to me.

    I’m not sure things will ultimately play out this way. I could also see both coaches flaming out. It will be interesting to watch.

    BD still has to do some more recruiting to get over the hump and into the top 10. TOB is going to have to improve in several well documented areas to start turning out 8-4 to 9-3 kind of season. Truthfully, BD is probably closer than TOB is to their respective plans.

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