TOB ouster speculation begins

'11 Football Coaching Carousel Tom O'Brien96

A Twitter account called Football Rumor Mill (link) attached to this website posted a few items today that we re-tweeted. Haven’t had time to blog much the last few days — letting our message forums carry the heavy load — but wanted to share the tweets.

Multiple sources indicate NC State is likely to dump head coach Tom O’Brien

Early NC State names include Southern Miss head coach Larry Fedora and Alabama AHC Sal Sunseri.

Expect former New Mexico coach Mike Locksley to the on staff at NC State, whoever is named the new head coach.

I don’t know where in the hell the Locksley stuff comes from. I need to go back to re-fresh myself some…but, I seem to remember reading some really ‘interesting’ stuff about him about a year ago that left me with an odd taste in my mouth. The takeaway from the reading is that the guy was a real ass-hole. Of course, I could be 100% incorrect and need to re-affirm my memory. On a related note, Backing the Pack said the following (link):

Maybe Sunseri should be added to the POAPS list, even if this is a dubious source. Locksley is the former head coach at New Mexico, who was fired early in the year for general ineptitude and also because a UNM recruit was pulled over and charged with a DWI in a car registered to Locksley. Locksley was an assistant at Maryland from 1998-2002 before moving on to Florida, Illinois, and then New Mexico. So there is a Debbie Yow connection, though I find it hard to believe we would touch Locksley right now.

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'11 Football Coaching Carousel Tom O'Brien

96 Responses to TOB ouster speculation begins

  1. codebrown 11/15/2011 at 9:23 AM #

    The rumor is that Urban Meyers enjoys Clyde Cooper’s BBQ downtown and he was spotted on a TV set somewhere at a bar on Hillsborough st last Saturday.

    Coincidence? I think not.

  2. PackisRolling 11/15/2011 at 9:30 AM #

    from BJD: “We only got a coach as accomplished as Tom O’Brien because he was desperate to leave BC and his crazy-assed AD. Then he comes here and fails. To me, that says much more about NC State football than it does Tom O’Brien. The only black mark on his resume is his time in Raleigh.”

    unfortunately – this is spot on. Even if TOB is kicked to the curb we will end up with (as my wife predicts) someone else who sucks too.

  3. TheCOWDOG 11/15/2011 at 9:30 AM #

    Word for word, everything BJD just said. BJ, you be a wise boy.

    There is nothing that says we can’t catch the elusive lightning in a bottle, though. Which, if you think about it, is the nature of past, really good, State football teams.

  4. TheAliasTroll 11/15/2011 at 9:31 AM #

    Take it for what it’s worth. Bill Cowher has been spotted in Raleigh.

    Smoke screens everywhere.

  5. RedandWhite97 11/15/2011 at 9:49 AM #

    I agree with BJD. I just hope we can one day become the good Purdue’s and Iowa States. If winning 7-9 games year in and year out is equivalent to good Purdue/Iowa St. or if we can go back to the Sheridan years, that’s fine with me.

    In my mind, the only way you can be an elite program is to a) Have an 85k+ seat stadium (and the associated support) or b) have a billionaire donate millions to your program. We have neither, so the best we can hope for is the Sheridan type years.

  6. coach13 11/15/2011 at 9:55 AM #

    I really want TOB and Co to win out, get a bowl game and come back next year. That said, how stupid is it to keep a guy with 1 winning season outta 5? Geeaz, it’s not like he hasn’t been given a fair shake. It’s not like he’s gonna get new coordinators and we’re gonna see something new next year. Same shitty unimaginative offense. It’ll take 1/2 a season for the defense to start playing. Its a broken friggin record. I hate it but last year is looking more like an aboration than expectations for this staff.

  7. packalum44 11/15/2011 at 9:59 AM #

    I don’t buy the loser mentality. State can be a solid program that makes bowl games every year and wins an ACC Championship every 5-10. There is no f’in reason we shouldn’t have won a title since 79′.

    Our state is loaded to the gills with football talent and demographic trends suggest one of the fastest growing states with a large African American population….our long term prospects are not bleak. Someone who can put a marginal fence around it could have a top 25 program. Fl St wasn’t FL ST until they hired Bowden and until the state had 18 million people (twice our size).

    It is no small task, but transformation requires vision. You guys have none.

  8. edog05 11/15/2011 at 10:03 AM #

    RedandWhite don’t forget about c) a field with blue turf and last but not least d) black uniforms

    SO basically our only shot is to paint our field Red and wear hot new black uni’s! Would that get the team UP for the Clemson game?

  9. TheAliasTroll 11/15/2011 at 10:06 AM #

    “and demographic trends suggest one of the fastest growing states with a large African American population”

    uhh.. wut? Can you elaborate on how or what does that have to do with anything?

  10. Pack Mentality 11/15/2011 at 10:22 AM #

    packalum44, Confronting reality is not a loser mentality. In fact, I do not think that what you are saying is much different than what other people are saying (top 25 team, bowl games, etc.) But we are not a destination job for an established coach, and I think that is the point that is being made.

  11. 808WOLF 11/15/2011 at 10:26 AM #

    Just spent the weekend in Boise. They may have lost but Chris Peterson is one hell of a coach and knows how to run a program. He’s an expert in establishing culture. His first year as BSU HC they won 13 games and he is 69-6 over all. That means he has lost one more game than TOB this season… in his entire HC career. Theyre paying him 1.6 per year with his current contract set to go to 2015. THIS would be a homerun for the wolfpack. Mike Leach would be my slightly more realistic 2nd choice.

  12. Wolfgarden 11/15/2011 at 10:35 AM #

    To all of you out there who spoke of Mike Leach…I have been saying that for quite some time now…TOB from BC to NC State was a lateral move. He came here to try to make more commercial money. His BC team could not compete with the market of the Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox and the Bruins. There was no money left for Tom. Yes he tried here but it indeed has been a yawn. I pour a great deal of money into NC State sports and mostly football…I have been a ticket holder for some 30+years…

    I agree Sheridan was great for us…but TOB is not. We only keep him cause he beats Orange county U. This then is a gross disrepect for true NC State fans.

    Lets get Mike Leach or at least the likes of him…maybe Phil Fulmer. The Alabama guy ain’t coming…we do not have SEC money. Man I love NC State football…lets please do something positive.

    We lost to BC, now watch we will beat Clemson and lose to Maryland. This is sorry.

  13. BJD95 11/15/2011 at 10:36 AM #

    My fear is that TOB’s failure means that the “Sheridan path” is no longer viable in the modern college football landscape. Which means that we are left only with the “gimmick” path to success.

    I strongly disagree that our recruiting base is anywhere close to a positive. The talent pool is mediocre and significantly overfished. There’s also a longstanding tradition of about half of the local top shelf talent leaving to play for more “bigtime” conferences. You may WANT to cut that off, but…wish in one hand and shit in the other (and see which gets full first). Chief Butch couldn’t do it, and he was cheating his ass off. There’s no way NC State becomes a recruiting powerhouse without blatant shenanigans. None whatsoever.

    So…back to trying to catch lightning in a bottle. And even if we do catch it, good luck “wishing” for the lightning not leaving for greener pastures. I suggest you just enjoy the random good year or two while it lasts. If it ever comes around, that is.

  14. GAWolf 11/15/2011 at 10:37 AM #

    Chris Peterson is to our football job as Billy Donavon is to our basketball job.

    Come on people… please let’s not do this again.

  15. Pack Mentality 11/15/2011 at 10:45 AM #

    One guy who we may want to consider is Nick Saban. He starts winning right away and does not need 4 years to prove it. If we can’t lure him away from his current job I would probably settle for Bill Cowher.

  16. Wufpacker 11/15/2011 at 10:49 AM #

    Nothing like tempering one’s expectations, LOL.

  17. packhammer 11/15/2011 at 10:54 AM #

    We hired a guy coaching at William and Mary one time that turned out to be very good (Holz). He had an assistant that was good too (Rein). So I don’t really buy the notion that we are simply what we are from here on out. That is crazy. The fact is that we will not have won a division road game in 5 years. I love Tom O’Brien and wish to God he would hurry up and get us to be the mature, competitive team that we should be by now under his 5 years of leadership. He claims to run a “performance based organization”. Either our performance is just fine (?), or by his own rules something has to change. Him, his assistants, the players?

  18. Wolfgarden 11/15/2011 at 10:55 AM #

    Nick Saban??? The whole of NC does not have enough money for him!!! Your kidding right. And Cowher goes pro before he goes college…

  19. TheAliasTroll 11/15/2011 at 10:58 AM #

    “Which means that we are left only with the “gimmick” path to success.”

    I agree 100% the only way we can win is via gimmicks. It’s worked out well for Jim Grobe and his WF team. We need a coach who is willing to not only run some “trick plays”, but incorporate it into the fabric of who we are. We have got to be creative. It appears the current playbook with ~5 offensive plays doesn’t work if you don’t have a heisman caliber running QB improvising for you.

    I would be 100% behind a Mike Leach hire if we could get him. I have no idea if he’d consider us or not.

  20. Classof89 11/15/2011 at 11:02 AM #

    The Holtz analogy is an apt one, I think. He wasn’t a “big name” in college football when Willis Casey hired him out of William & Mary. People who think we have a prayer at landing the biggest names out there this year are delusional. Every successful coach we’ve ever had was an unknown commodity plucked from a much smaller school (Sheridan, Valvano, Holtz, Coach K at Duke)

  21. Packfan28 11/15/2011 at 11:02 AM #

    Packalum, I really think you’re confusing what people are saying here. Nobody is saying we can’t be a perennial Top 25 team. The challenge is how to get there. It may be unfortunate and hard to accept, but right now NC State is not a destination job for high profile college football coaches. Therefore you have to get lucky to find that right guy (the same guy that most other schools are looking for). If we get that guy, and he can recruit, and he can coach, and he can bring in the right group of assistant coaches, and we can pay him enough to reject offers from big money SEC schools when he succeeds, then of course we can be a Top 25 program.

  22. packhammer 11/15/2011 at 11:02 AM #

    BTW, one further thought. I’ll trust Debbie Yow and the Chancellor on this. Given her interest in moving Friedgen along for a number of years, she knows the talent that is out there, who she might want, and what it will cost. She will also know whether this is the right time for a change from the fiscal and many other standpoints. Hell, I still hope we win out this year and O’Brien has a strong case to continue with his QB and a bunch of returning players next year. Again, I want to believe in this guy but we are not getting it done on the field.

  23. wardncsu 11/15/2011 at 11:24 AM #

    http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/09/25/report-mike-locksley-out-at-new-mexico/

    I think the Locksley comment was an attempt at a knock following the CJ Leslie “car borrowing” incident. See article above.

  24. BJD95 11/15/2011 at 11:40 AM #

    Yep, we did find a Lou Holtz. And he left in short order. So will the next bottled lightning, if we ever catch it again. So…enjoy whatever good year(s) we get, but don’t ever expect it continue ad infinitum. It won’t.

    GA is right re Pedersen. With the added dimension that our football job is WAY less attractive than our basketball job (same theory on the best coaches wanting to compete at the highest level). That would be the equivalent of Donovan leaving for Penn State hoops. Ridiculous.

    Pedersen has turned down much better jobs than ours and the Holes’ (I do expect the baby blues to try, in order to appease the Butch supporters who want to dream big – but they have NO shot).

  25. lonewolf 11/15/2011 at 12:06 PM #

    So, it sounds like everyone is saying our expectations are too high. Where does that leave us? Consider Ok. State. I wouldnt mind us being in their position right now even if our coach were using us as a stepping stone. I dont think its that big a stretch to compare the two histories. Is GT’s program that much better than ours? They have a title to show for it. Consistency in winning may be a stretch but an occasional flash in the pan is a reasonable goal.

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