TOB & Spaziani hitting national ‘hot seat’ radar

'11 Football Coaching Carousel Tom O'Brien45

Two coaches and programs inextricably linked through personnel moves of the last five years are now coming full circle in the national media. ESPN’s Heather Dinich had this today

It’s a game of musical chairs in the ACC, and there are two new coaches trying to stay off the hot seat: NC State’s Tom O’Brien and Boston College coach Frank Spaziani, who are currently a combined 3-7 with no wins against FBS opponents and trail in the Atlantic Division standings.

O’Brien, in his fifth season at NC State, is 27-28 heading into Saturday’s game against Central Michigan, and during his overall career, he is 27-42 (34 percent) against ACC opponents. He only has winning records against three ACC schools: Duke, Virginia and North Carolina. He has had one bowl win in two postseason appearances at NC State. An unusually high number of injuries to key players has played a part in NC State’s troubles, but the recruiting hasn’t helped offset that with depth.

Spaziani is currently 17-15 in his third season with the Eagles. He inherited significant recruiting problems, especially at quarterback, and staff turnover has been a legitimate problem, as there have been three different head coaches in a span of five years. Spaziani is still looking for his first bowl win, but this year, just getting to the postseason seems to be an unreachable task.

Both coaches and programs have their excuses, but both also know this is a business and the bottom-line number is wins. So far for Spaziani and O’Brien — two coaches and friends who used to roam the sideline together at BC — it’s not adding up.

One of the most influential and respected independent bloggers in the ACC is ‘Eagle in Atlanta’. Saturday’s loss to Wake Forest was enough to send Eagle overboard and he has now officially had enough. Good for other school for not accepting losing to the Weak Florist as much as we seem to accept!! FWIW, Tom O’Brien is now 2-3 vs Wake while at NC State when compared to Frank Spaziani’s 2-1 record vs the Demon Deacons. You can see Eagle’s comments and by clicking here.

I’ve held off on calling for Spaz’s job for a variety of reasons. No longer. He needs to go. What’s the point in keeping him? What are we building towards? What is he bringing to the table? The excuse makers can say BC’s young or has a tough schedule or has had some bad luck with injuries, but none of that holds up to any scrutiny. We were beat by a young team with a sophomore QB from a private school that takes academics seriously. If Spaz is going 0-3 against Duke, Northwestern and Wake Forest at home, why are we even playing BCS-level football?

[snip]

For the 19th time in his tenure, BC has failed to score 20 or more points. Are we still blaming his guy Gary Tranquill for that? Or how about Kevin Rogers, who he ran off?

[snip]

….He wasn’t given the job in 2006 for a reason and shouldn’t have been given the job in 2009. Given his track record with football, I don’t trust Gene Defilippo to handle this well, so maybe it is time others in the BC community take control of this situation.

What is particularly interesting is the parallel between what is happening at Boston College in Spaz’s third season (this year) and what happened at NC State in Tom O’Brien’s third season (in 2009).

Eagle makes the comment “If Spaz is going 0-3 against Duke, Northwestern and Wake Forest at home, why are we even playing BCS-level football?”. And, I don’t disagree with Eagle at all. Worth noting is that during Tom O’Brien’s third year at the helm in Raleigh the Wolfpack similarly lost to Wake Forest, was embarrassed at home to Duke in a 21 point loss on Homecoming, and lost to Boston College by 32 points.

At that time in 2009 most NC State fans (including SFN) were still preaching patience and offering optimistic support for our coaches and our program because we were banking on the production and results that O’Brien and Spaziani created together during a decade of stewardship at Boston College. But, where we are in October of 2011, one can’t help but wonder if these two men are much better in tandem than being apart.

In light of the crap that the most patient fan base in the country takes from the media, I always find it very insightful for the public to see the way other fan bases deal with similar issues. Good luck to Boston College in their quest for a new coach…and, good luck attracting a top coach in light of the way they’ve treated their last three coaches relative to the results those coaches have delivered.

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'11 Football Coaching Carousel Tom O'Brien

45 Responses to TOB & Spaziani hitting national ‘hot seat’ radar

  1. wolfpacker 10/03/2011 at 9:39 PM #

    We are suckers, TOB pulled a fast one on the Wolfpack. He doesn’t care about the program, he cares about retiring and he’s getting closer by the week. Hopefully he’s seen his last year here.

  2. TheCOWDOG 10/03/2011 at 9:50 PM #

    61, there is at least one 2-3 team on the national radar. Again.

    For all the wrong reasons. Again.

  3. ADVENTUROO 10/03/2011 at 10:46 PM #

    This board is really a hoot. I can recall ALL the bashing of Chuck Amato. We HAD to fire him. He could NOT coach. THEN, after he was fired, NOW, everyone is saying TOB is not the answer. I worked in the corporate world for about 40 years of so. When we had a bad General Manager or Division President, everyone was complaining and there was a CHEER when the Org Announcement came out stating he was gone (Promoted, left by his own power, or to pursue OTHER business interests….rarely did one DIE). Within a year or two, the SAME folks that complained the loudest about the OLD GM or Pres were lamenting about HOW BAD the new guy was and how GREAT the EX GM/Pres was.

    SO, it goes here. Coach O’Brien is WHAT HE IS. He is NOT the fiery Italian that mesmerized the WP nation. He is NOT the guy who rode a White Horse. He is NOT Dick Sheridan. As one who remembers Earl Edwards, THANK GOD he is not him. Otherwise, we would be seeing the infamous “Quick Kick on 3rd down”. I still remember seeing that, even with Roman Gabriel calling the signals, in Rickety Riddick.

    SO, we need some improvement. DUH and we we also need a better economy. Don’t know WHICH will come first. I’m betting on a coaching change, just because. I say, BECAUSE, because I do NOT have a better reason. If “the troops show up” next week and then later on (that comment was a DIRECT quote for the TOB post GT Game presser), then we will probably win a few games. Overall, Coach O’Brien will probably BARELY be above water at the end of the season. NOW, will we go 6 & 1, or 5 & 2 or MAYBE 4 & 3? Don’t know…but I am hoping for 5 & 2. Maybe if I have another glass of vino, I will HOPE for 6 & 1.

    If we do NOT go 4 & 3, then we will probably be looking to AD Yow to have the INFAMOUS meeting and then announce her search. NOW, be advised, the search will NOT get us a top ten coach. It will NOT bring Bill Cowher or John Grunden (sp?) out of retirement or the booth. If we get a coach that has the personna of Mark Gottfried, I would be happy.

    I am NOT advocating firing Coach O’Brien. The season must be played out. He actually sounded UPBEAT in the Presser. BUT, on his TV show last night, he looked like a kid that did NOT want to make eye contact with the principal. I KNOW that he is NO V or A, but he made HERBIE look like a ROCK STAR.

    SO, the beat will go on. We will STILL be at the games (although the high $$ donors are abandoning their parking spaces….a BAD SIGN!) Who knows…it will be the END of the season before all the votes are in.

    I have confidence that AD Yow will make the right call. BUT, for all you folks who want AD Yow to tell Coach O’Brien HOW to run his program, FORGET IT. It AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN….and it SHOULD NOT. Coach O’Brien needs to have the folks that he thinks will do the job. If he makes the wrong decisions, then we will NOT WIN (Hint, that might be a symptom). If he decided to stay with his Lieutenans, then he will do that. He is ultimately responsible.

    SO, cheer for the pack. STAY in your seats. The game on Saturday actually got better. I was among the 10 – 15% that stayed. SO, if you do NOT stay, then quit your complaining and SELL your tickets and find another team.

    I DO like the Triumphant Triumverant idea of TOB for UNC, CA for FSU and BC for the rest.

  4. Par Shooter 10/04/2011 at 8:00 AM #

    I have been very vocal that TOB needs to go before the end of this season; however, I might consider giving him 1 more year if it was with Spaz as DC and Archer in the jobs line. It would be interesting to see how different the D would look with a new DC. It would be the same exact scheme but I’m thinking that the execution would be much better.

  5. state73 10/04/2011 at 8:57 AM #

    Ditto to the last 4 paragraphs by Adventuroo.

  6. state73 10/04/2011 at 9:00 AM #

    Ditto to last 4 paragraphs by Adventuroo.

  7. triadwolf 10/04/2011 at 9:13 AM #

    There is already a lot of talk that Mark Richt is not going to survive this year. If DY can get Richt, I think you need to make a change regardless of record. He may not take us to a National Championship, but he’ll be the best coach we’ve had here since Sheridan by a long shot. However he only has two losses thus far so Georgia can still finish in pretty good shape.

    If you can’t get a proven head coach (not saying it has to be Richt) this year I say wait until TOB’s contract is up next year then he can retire and quietly ride off into the sunset. Let’s face it, hiring a hot shot assistant is a crap shoot at best. If we’re going to fire TOB we need a known entity to take his place otherwise just wait one more year and hope there are some good options available.

  8. sundropdrinker13 10/04/2011 at 9:50 AM #

    We had a “known” entity in TOB. Look where that got us. If there is a “hotshot” assistant wanting the job, I say give it to him. Can’t get much worse.

  9. ryebread 10/04/2011 at 9:56 AM #

    Triad: I think the reality of college football is that very few established, winning coaches ever leave programs. That means you either get lower level coaches or assistants. Just look at recent hires by Michigan, West Virginia and Florida for example. They each had far more attractive jobs and more money to offer than NC State and ended up with career assistants.

    A guy like Al Golden is exactly what we’d need to target. Miami got an absolute steal in him. We had that same chance with Paul Johnson but totally blew it. We could only hope someone like that would land in our lap.

    If we’re going with a retread like Richt, then we have to look at one who has won at a school like NC State. Georgia is NOT that. They have massive recruiting advantages that they have not capitalized on. Georgia is THE flagship program in a state with far fewer D1 programs and far more D1 talent. They can also effectively pull talent out of Florida, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee due to their name. If Richt (and his high pay) can’t win with those advantages, then he isn’t going to win with the uphill battle that NC State faces. IMHO, that’d be a horrible hire — if he were even available and if we were even able to pay him.

    Par Shooter: I’ve felt like TOB was a bad hire from second one. It’s been obvious that he wasn’t going to work from year 2 for me. I’ve been wanting him gone since year three. Last year was a pleasant surprise, but it seems it was an outlier. I totally fell off the wagon and started speaking out vocally against his tenure after the RW decision.

    Having said all of that, if Archer, Petercuskie and Bible were replaced and Spaz was brought in on some capacity (could promote Tenuta), then I’d be on board for one more year regardless of record. I can almost guarantee that this combination of events will not happen though. TOB is going with this set of assistants unless one voluntarily leaves (ah la the linebackers coach who left for GT and took all the recruiting with him).

  10. lawful 10/04/2011 at 10:07 AM #

    I vote “no” to firing TOB…at least at this time. I don’t disagree with the injury issues or the overall record either. I do think we should recruit better and the line has to be improved. Had everything fallen perfectly into place, would we be that much better? Don’t think so. For a program like us, it takes more than 5 years to be a CONSISTENT winner.

    I remember going to Blacksburg in the late 80s while in school. I listened to their pregame and postgame. I think we came away 10-10. I think we were a decent team that season (under Sheridan?). On the postgame, they were screaming for the coach’s head. That coach was in his 3rd year and is still there today. To me, VT was a no name program at that time. To me, NCSU is a no name program today. It takes a lot of time to rise head and shoulders above every program in your state. Give TOB this year and Glennon’s senior year.

  11. Sam92 10/04/2011 at 11:37 AM #

    it’s clear that TOB can’t recruit well enough to win.

    I’m in favor of sending him out to pasture.

    Hire a young, energetic, charismatic up and comer to take his place. bring some energy into the program. even if a young star leaves us after a few years it could still improve the program

  12. GoldenChain 10/04/2011 at 1:50 PM #

    bax, the argument over TOB and recruiting and depth reminds me of two things:
    1) Why is it that we do have so many injuries…in fact year after year under TOB? Is it just horrible luck or is something wrong in strength training or practice techniques. Heck we had one kid get injured in freakin’ warm-ups last week! I’ve taken plenty of stat classes over the years (including this 6-sigma crap right now) and the probability of that many players from one team getting injured at random in the last 5 years has to be astronomical.
    2) There was this coach before your time. His name was Tom Reed. He suxed. He led the Pack to 3 straight 3-8 seasons. We had an AD back then who actually liked to win and had some balls as well and he fired Reed after that 3rd season just like he had fired Monte Kiffin after 3 seasons. He brought in Dick Sheridan who in my book was our best coach ever.
    Sheridan went 8-3-1 that 1st year and that was on the back of Reed’s recuiting. Life isn’t fair.

  13. triadwolf 10/04/2011 at 2:26 PM #

    Ryebread – We’ll just have to agree to disagree about Richt. He’s in the toughest division in the SEC and has won, just not as much recently. I agree that good coaches don’t jump programs as a rule and Richt won’t leave Georgia for NC State. But if he gets let go we’d be fools not go after him. Would I rather have Saban? Absolutely, but I think we all know that he’s a long shot at best as is Cowher, Pelini, etc. I don’t feel someone like Leach fits in with our program, but he’s worth an interview.

    There are hot shot assistants that have done well, but there are 10 failures to every success. Running a division 1 program is a difficult job and goes way beyond x’s and o’s. As a rule, most assistants don’t perform well when they jump right into a head coaching job for a large school.

    I think Richt would lay a solid foundation and give us some instant credibility. I doubt he’d make us a top 10 program, but he can win us an ACC championship and get us to an occasional BCS. That would be a level of accomplishment not seen in Raleigh for decades.

    In the end there are no guarantees and that’s why DY gets paid the big bucks.

  14. triadwolf 10/04/2011 at 3:11 PM #

    Good analogy Golden. Kiffin and Reed did not perform to expectations and those situations were QUICKLY resolved.

    To further support your point, recruiting is much easier these days. While there is more competition, there is also much more exposure of programs to kids and of kids to programs. In the good ole’ days a coach needed to get in the car or plane to find players, now all you have to do is click to start making your list (well maybe it’s not quite that simple). Anyway, my point is that a coach should be able to upgrade recruiting and the program quicker than in the 70’s and 80’s. I’ll agree that it takes time get a program fully established, but the trend(s) indicating a positive outcome can be identified after 2 or 3 years.

    What trends do we currently have in year 5?

  15. Conrad 10/04/2011 at 4:12 PM #

    wolfpacker, Fired TOB & replace him with who ? Another diamond in the rough mid major coach ? Well please take a really good look at our 6 past coaches and then tell me why do we keep on going back to that well over and over again ? So if this is the ending of TOB, then put up the money for a serious coach that want titles & BCS bowl games instead of just a bowl game.

  16. sundropdrinker13 10/04/2011 at 4:15 PM #

    Injuries and L’s, that’s the trend.

  17. Conrad 10/04/2011 at 4:57 PM #

    Triadwolf, M. Richicht would probably work wonder here at State, but do you when DY told us money will be no problem in getting a new bball coach. Well it did because ended up with MG instead of a Frank Martin of Kan. St. or Tubby Smith etc. But this is nothing against GM because he just might be that diamond in the rough coach, just like V was. I just dont see the same faith that you see in her hiring process, plus she dont even have money to get Ricicht attention.

    And i thought the world of Dick Sheridan, but excuse me, how many ACC titles did he won during tenure ? Not even 1. Well its time to for us to put up or shut up when we are looking for another fball coach.

  18. TOB4PREZ 10/05/2011 at 12:38 PM #

    Remember when TOB led the Pack to 9 wins with a bowl victory over a ranked team, and subsequently finished among the top 25 teams on the land???

    Me too 🙂

    Go Pack!

  19. Skeeball 10/05/2011 at 7:31 PM #

    I ordered a steak and got a turd… Am I wrong to ask for my money back or do I just eat the turd?

  20. NCSU84 10/06/2011 at 4:08 PM #

    Skeeball,

    You ordered another man’s (BC) steak with no guarantee that the steak delivered to your table would be the same steak. Unfortunately, you received a turd – no returns, no refunds. Enjoy!

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