Here are my brief initial thoughts:
1) Tom O’Brien is soft-spoken, but a very poised, confident individual. He handled the media deftly, with good humor at times – but always very directly. If you ever want to see a good example of the difference between “cocky” and “confident,” I think it’s exemplified by comparing Amato and O’Brien.
2) He talked openly of possibly raiding BC’s recruits. That’s kind of a stunner, but personally, I would have zero problem with it.
3) He mentioned the very reasonable goal (for every year) of making it to the ACC title game. As Wake Forest showed this year, in a six team division, anybody can get hot and take the crown. And once you get to the title game, anything could happen.
4) “There’s no such thing as a ‘former Marine.’ Once a Marine, always a Marine.” I just liked that.
5) He said if the ultimate goal wasn’t to win the national championship, that would be cheating everyone in the room.
6) He will get a chance to meet some of the players this afternoon, and I think they will both like and respect him. Something tells me they won’t call him “Tom,” but at the end of the day, they will be happier.
7) He spoke of gauging the players’ strength and weaknesses, and devising a plan to win the most football games possible. That’s exactly right.
8) He explicitly noted his opinion that NC State was a “step up” from Boston College. I think he understands the inherent strengths of NC State as an institution. We really do provide all of the basic ingredients for success. We don’t make it so that can happen by auto-pilot, but precious few programs do.
9) As my wife noted, he laughs a little like Beavis and Butthead. That’s OK, Marines aren’t supposed to laugh much.
Overall, I think you had to be impressed. I know I certainly was.
