Bearcats in the sights… and TOB isn’t too happy!

WRAL posted this story this morning about TOB’s concern regarding the scheduling of the game Thursday night.

That’s when he sounded a little ticked off about the timing of the game.

“This is close to impossible. For what we had to do to leave tonight. You know the ACC, I don’t know why they did it to us but it’s a terrible, terrible thing,” O’Brien said on the Wolfpack Sports Network.

Haynes reminded O’Brien that State “kind of saved the ACC” on Saturday.

“Yeah well they offered us up as a sacrificial lamb on Thursday too,” O’Brien replied.

The ACC will be involved in four Thursday night ESPN games this season. N.C. State’s Sept. 16 game against the Bearcats is the only one that doesn’t have an open date preceding it.

Not only do we not have an open week prior to our Thursday night game, we had an AWAY game in Orlando, Florida. Such things are quite curious, and it makes me wonder why there’s so much debate over Wolfpack fans’ perpetual claim that there is no equal protection under ACC “law” with a Tar Heel (Swofford) sitting atop the proverbial conference court.

One might ask: What on earth was Lee Fowler doing when the schedules were being determined? If there was an abnormal scheduling glitch, as in we were dropped unexpectedly from another OOC team’s schedule and had to hastily find another opponent, please share it with us.

Otherwise, I see no reason to not continue looking for black helicopters and checking lampshades in the Murphy Center for bugs.

SFN Postscript: We’ve got a few conversations about both UCF and Cincy taking place in our message forums accessible by clicking here. The forums set records last week, and we’d like to keep riding and growing that kind of activity. Thanks

'10 Football ACC

58 Responses to Bearcats in the sights… and TOB isn’t too happy!

  1. SMD 09/13/2010 at 10:25 AM #

    I’ve got no clue how this works, but I’d love to see some enterprising sports writer ask both State’s administration and the ACC a few questions.

    1. Specifically, what kind of glitch happened to give us too many home games last year and not enough this year?

    2. Are there any protocols, rules, or even generally established precedents regarding how many times a team can play on Thursday, and how much time they are allotted between Thursday night games?

    OK, actually a few was two questions! 🙂

  2. Daily Update 09/13/2010 at 10:25 AM #

    It does suck for us. However, Cinc played Saturday and has to travel to Raleigh. So the disadvantage seems equal except that we played a better opponent.

  3. IamGumbyDammit 09/13/2010 at 10:28 AM #

    Just man up and kick Cincy’s butts.

  4. Packbacker78 09/13/2010 at 10:30 AM #

    I have to agree with Daily Update.

    1) We’re playing a team that just came off a game Saturday AND they are coming to us. Seems fair.

    2) We’re playing a pretty bad Cincy team whose offense only scored 12 points in the first half against a nobody and 14 points total in a LOSS to Fresno State.

  5. JEOH2 09/13/2010 at 10:34 AM #

    We shouldn’t use this as an excuse, but…

    Note that though their game was 12 o’clock at home against Indiana State…ours was 7:30 pm in Orlando against Central Florida…

    Silly scheduling but still, no excuse for us to perform…

  6. StateFans 09/13/2010 at 10:36 AM #

    I will say there is a difference between hosting and FCS opponent at noon on Saturday and traveling to hot and muggy Florida to play a late game against the C-USA favorite. Big difference.

  7. choppack1 09/13/2010 at 10:36 AM #

    Focusing on Cincy is missing TOB’s point. His point is that this didn’t happen to other ACC teams – he implies that the ACC is to blame.

    As noted above, Fowler may have been complicit too.

    The good news is Cincy is coming off a similar rest. The bad news is that Cincy played a cupcake.

    And in case you didn’t notice, guess who had a nice full bye week to prep for GaTech…Now, imagine how po’d Paul Johnson is.

    Maybe if the scheduling was more of a transparent process there’d be more trust.

  8. GAWolf 09/13/2010 at 10:44 AM #

    ^Exactly, Choppack. Exactly.

  9. Daily Update 09/13/2010 at 10:48 AM #

    ^I agree with all of that. The ACC definitely did us no favors. We definitely have no advantage going into the UCF game which you hope the ACC would attempt to give their teams against an OOC opponent.

  10. tvp1 09/13/2010 at 10:48 AM #

    He should have raised hell about this…but not in the media. I don’t like hearing our coach say that the situation is “impossible.” What’s impossible – winning on Thursday? Just let me know and I’ll cancel my flight back to NC.

  11. GAWolf 09/13/2010 at 10:56 AM #

    That’s a good point as well, TVP1.

  12. WTNY 09/13/2010 at 10:59 AM #

    tvp1 — If I’m interpreting TOB’s “impossible” line correctly, I believe he is saying it was impossible, or nearly impossible, to leave Florida Saturday night in order to maintain a “normal” short week schedule.

  13. Packfan28 09/13/2010 at 11:09 AM #

    The game ended at what, 11:00pm? They are out of the stadium and at the airport at best by 1:00 – 1:30am, and back at their residences by 3:30-4:00am. Cinci played at home in basically an exhibition game, and were done by 3:00PM without working up a sweat. And like SFN said, this was a gruelling, physical game in hot, humid conditions.

    Definite advantage to the other guys. Hopefully the team stayed in Orlando Saturday night. Going back to Raleigh makes no sense.

  14. Sweet jumper 09/13/2010 at 11:09 AM #

    I had the same thoughts this weekend when I realized that the UCF game was not at noon. I figured it was just another Fowler Foulup. I do agree with a post above though–“just man up and kick Cincy’s butt.”

  15. Sam92 09/13/2010 at 11:11 AM #

    I don’t like this too much from tob. Complaining and discounting our chances of winning.

    If tob has brought us any character talent and depth in four years we will be able to execute our game plan short week or no

    I’m with gumby – man up and show em who’s boss

  16. hball57 09/13/2010 at 11:12 AM #

    In listing to TOB live, I believe he insinuated that the UCF game was schedule for later in the year and moved to this date by the ACC. I also think his statements were a motivational tool for his team. Tell them you think it’s nearly impossible and challenge your team to do it.

  17. Hungwolf 09/13/2010 at 11:14 AM #

    Has the Wall Fallen? With UNC’s troubles, do coaches and AD’s begin to start speaking out against the UNC biased from officiating to scheduling that has been common of the ACC and has increased under Swofford? And the unfair treatment by the UNC jourmalist in the media? Wonder if TOB would dare have made such a comment without the recent troubles over on the Hill?

  18. Khan 09/13/2010 at 11:16 AM #

    ^ Yeah, we just need to quit griping and win the game. It’s done. The schedule is what it is. Just win the game and drop all the bullcrap whining.

  19. WV Wolf 09/13/2010 at 11:17 AM #

    While I agree the schedule this week is not ideal, I’m in the camp of “shut up and play”. And now TOB has a built in excuse if we lose.

    And I also think that TOB can’t offer to play Carolina in the parking lot anytime and then whine about a short week against Cincy.

  20. Greywolf 09/13/2010 at 11:18 AM #

    Would this have been such a bad deal if we had played at noon? When are times set for games and by whom. The scheduling occurred on Foulers watch, the KO time was on Debbie’s watch, was it not?

  21. Prowling Woofie 09/13/2010 at 11:19 AM #

    Just strap ’em up and knock ’em down.

    No excuses – play football !

  22. old13 09/13/2010 at 11:24 AM #

    There are several reasons why football games are usually not played more frequently that one per week for a team, including what is discussed above. One of the prime reasons, as I understand it, is to allow sufficient recovery time for the players, not just in the sense of helping their performance in the follow game, but for their own welfare as well. Without a proper recovery time, players are more susceptible to injury as I understand it. So in that sense, this is very very poor scheduling.

  23. newt 09/13/2010 at 11:28 AM #

    Tom O’Brien is smart to criticize the unfairness of the ACC right now, when there’s a good chance that Swofford’s UNC background will be a topic of interest this season.

    On the other hand this same week, UNC gets the coveted “2 weeks to prepare” for GT, a well-known advantage when playing that offense.

    If you were coach at NC State, would you want a UNC football player heading the conference? UNC frequently has a favorable schedule, and you have to wonder if it’s because of bias in the front office.

    Rock on, TOB!

    p.s. I swear we are our own worst enemy sooo often; it’s frustrating. Of course TOB plans to buckle down and win the game.

  24. baxter 09/13/2010 at 11:32 AM #

    I think you can look for some positive lines here, one, we come off a real opponent, which puts us in a prepared state of mind, with a boost in confidence for a defense that really lacked standout performances last season. They are coming from an embarrassing 1st half against weak competition. We are at home, we also got a preview of how not to handle a mobile qb late in the game (which might change how we play Collaros in the 4th quarter). We saw some positives on the running game, and have a great focus for the WR/QB core to step it up and be motivated from a bad performance. We have Carter Finley, on a Thursday, with great weather predicted. These guys are going to be riding our emotions from the stands. And you are going to have TOB preaching the ACC is against us, time to step it up and claim the reigns of this division…

    Time to put up.

  25. baxter 09/13/2010 at 11:33 AM #

    Also, it may just have been past TOB’s bed time, and he was sweaty and tired.

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