OPINION: Wolfpack feeling effects of former coach

By H. Williams Kellenberger
Cox News Service

Friday, October 19, 2007

One simply indisputable fact about N.C. State football became obvious this week.

After spending the team's bye week giving the third team (mainly expected-redshirt freshman, low-value scholarship athletes and walk-ons) as many practice repetitions as the first team, first-year coach Tom O'Brien was asked if any had impressed him enough to earn some playing time. Perhaps a player had been overlooked, misjudged or had taken the third-team designation as a hit to his psyche and worked his way onto the field on Saturdays.

No, O'Brien said. The best players available already were playing — the same ones that led to a 1-5 start.

So what's this kernel of truth? Chuck Amato's last trick was convincing the world he had some idea what he was doing.

Sure, we knew he was a bad in-game football coach. We could look at penalties and turnovers to know he had no clue how to discipline a team.

Recruiting was his thing, though. Put ol' Chuck in a room with mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and cousins and kids started signing on dotted lines. He got Mario Williams, after all. Plus Andre Brown, then Toney Baker the next year. Serenaded A.J. Davis all the way to Raleigh and gave Tramain Hall a home as well.

Of course, Brown and Baker are the only ones left from that group and his last few recruiting hauls have left only a dull thud on this program.

But Amato had a way of selling his guys. Willie Young was a great athlete, a stupendous athlete (you can almost hear the hoarsed-wonder now, can't you?); really, Young is Manny Lawson with half the speed, none of the power and more than enough confidence.

Pat Lowery was a heck of a football player, not a guy too slow to play middle linebacker at a big-time program.

His offensive linemen were big, strong guys who just love to hit people. That was true of Leroy Harris and Jed Paulsen; Meares Green and Kalani Heppe are no Harris or Paulsen, though.

Kicking Amato when he is already down may not be right, but his impact will still be felt on this program – making him a relevant part of the discussion.

For better or for worse, O'Brien has to live with the players Amato recruited and signed. In some cases, such as North Carolina and Cincinnati, the new coaching staff is able to capitalize on what is already there.

It appears that is not the case at N.C. State.

Thirteen seniors will start Saturday against East Carolina. If this was O'Brien's fifth year, that would be a heck of a thing.

But only two, DeMario Pressley and Darrell Blackman (as a kick returner), are NFL-caliber. The rest are doing what they can, which amounts to a 1-5 record.

O'Brien is in a tough spot. And Amato is the one who put him there.

H. Williams Kellenberger writes for the Rocky Mount Telegram and can be reached at 407-9950 or hwkellenberger@coxnc.com

10/19/2007 12:52:59 AM

go back to your nc central thread bitch

10/19/2007 12:57:13 AM

Pretty sad that you can't spew anything better than mindless bullshit.

10/19/2007 12:58:30 AM

Forte-it takes a true pussy to talk tough via a mindless online message board b/c you'd NEVER say shit to me face to face!

10/19/2007 1:02:36 AM

Quote :

" O'Brien is in a tough spot. And Amato is the one who put him there."

amato didn't put him anywhere. lee fowler sent amato away and ALLOWED tob to take the position. you people make it seem like amato somehow forced obrien into this job. If obrien can't coach other people's players he should have stayed in boston where people seem to be doing a damn fine job coaching his. . amato could still be here right now coaching the players he recruited.


at some point you have to man up and take responsibility for your results.

10/19/2007 1:05:02 AM

"of"

10/19/2007 1:09:26 AM

^ha, wolfwood98 is a huge bitch

10/19/2007 1:11:35 AM

aha no one wants this bitch on this forum. your threads suck, asshole. why dont you go make your own "nc central/other stupid shit no one cares about" forum? it'll be just like the wolf web...you talking to yourself, except you wont be bothering us and no one will be there to make fun of you for being the little bitch that you are.

10/19/2007 1:18:48 AM

if you guys don't like the thread, simply don't click.

the definition of a true "bitch"

10/19/2007 1:20:16 AM

Quote :

"PLAYED FANNIES OFF"

10/19/2007 1:24:39 AM

Wow, the troll are trolling the trolls in this thread.


Nuclear Trollocaust.

10/19/2007 1:32:20 AM

yea its not even worth replying.. (other than this reply that is...)

10/19/2007 1:39:28 AM

yea! get the fuck out! this is an NC State forum!

10/19/2007 2:04:30 AM

it is fairly obvious that blackman and pressley are about the only NFL calibur players..

here's to hoping with some new recruits TOB can turn this ship around

10/19/2007 2:50:41 AM

Amato was a salesman

I hate them

Obrien is no bs

I love him

10/19/2007 7:49:48 AM

Quote :

"Wolfpack feeling effects of former coach"

now thats a thread title

Quote :

"Damn, Amato-I could not of said it better!!! "

this, however...is not

10/19/2007 8:52:24 AM

^ no kidding, I thought Amato actually said something.

oh and

Quote :

"Nuclear Trollocaust."

lulz

10/19/2007 9:03:29 AM

Jeez gunzz, your vagina still bleeding from yesterday regarding thread titles? Why do you even care, you said yourself you aren't even on here that much anymore. Didn't you?

Is this you whenever someone puts up a title that isn't journalistic perfect:

10/19/2007 9:14:26 AM

fuckin troll.

It has nothing to do with being "journalistic perfect", whatever the hell that means, and everything to do with actually describing what the hell is in the thread. Aside from somehow relating to football, the thread title doesn't even come close to what the article was about. Besides, if you say of instead of have, you should be disqualified from posting threads in the first place.

[Edited on October 19, 2007 at 9:18 AM. Reason : d]

10/19/2007 9:18:31 AM

what the tittyfuckshit is going on in this thread. its all sorts of fucked up in here.

10/19/2007 9:24:16 AM

People will be creating crappy titles forever. The people that spend considerable time here see them and see their contents. It's the people that pop in once every 24 hrs or so for a few minutes that cry and get pissed.

They see a story somewhere and are all like

"Oh yea, thats wolf web material, I'm gonna go be cool and post it.

Neverminding the fact that someone else that spends more time here most likely beat them to it.

Then they cry like little bitches about it.

10/19/2007 9:27:39 AM

Did we really need an article telling us our players suck after a 3-9 season and a 1-5 start?

10/19/2007 9:28:05 AM

10/19/2007 9:30:20 AM

Quote :

"fuckin troll. It has nothing to do with being "journalistic perfect", whatever the hell that means, and everything to do with actually describing what the hell is in the thread"

dont worry jocristian...its just chance being his old grumpy complaining self.
dude cant go a day without complaining about something

just dont pay him any attention and let me him blah blah blah to himself

10/19/2007 10:04:15 AM

You were the one complaining you dumbass.

10/19/2007 10:07:58 AM

we are in the shitter

it is the natural place for nc state

10/19/2007 11:05:44 AM

Quote :

"For better or for worse, O'Brien has to live with the players Amato recruited and signed. In some cases, such as North Carolina and Cincinnati, the new coaching staff is able to capitalize on what is already there."

I remember at the beginning of the season everyone was labeling us the sleeper team. We had the talent, we just needed the coach.

Quote :

"amato didn't put him anywhere. lee fowler sent amato away and ALLOWED tob to take the position. you people make it seem like amato somehow forced obrien into this job. If obrien can't coach other people's players he should have stayed in boston where people seem to be doing a damn fine job coaching his. . amato could still be here right now coaching the players he recruited. at some point you have to man up and take responsibility for your results."

Wow. There is so much wrong with this.

1) No one said that Amato forced O'Brien to take the job. "And Amato is the one who put him there" simply means that TOB is in a difficult situation because of the crap Amato left behind.
2) "You people" Who are the people. It's just one article by one person.
3) I'm sure TOB left the new coaching staff at BC a lot more to work with than Amato left TOB's coaching staff. That's this guy's point.
4) Amato could still be here coaching his recruits... and that would just mean we'd have to tack on yet another year of embarrassing losses before we started to approach respectability again.
5) Man up and take responsibility? I could understand that comment had TOB made these comments. I don't think I've heard TOB blame the losses on Amato, so why the comment?

10/19/2007 11:43:29 AM

This whole article can be summed up as:

O'Brien is trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

10/19/2007 11:45:25 AM

So, can I lock this and start suspending some trolls or what?

10/19/2007 11:49:40 AM

Quote :

"at some point you have to man up and take responsibility for your results"

Early successes/failures are far less meaningful than results in the longterm (4+ years). Chuck's teams that included only his recruits had a combined losing record. TOB on the other hand has no results upon which he deserves all the blame/credit.

Quote :

"I remember at the beginning of the season everyone was labeling us the sleeper team. We had the talent, we just needed the coach."

Here's the assumption - NC State had talent. State doesn't even have a full alotment of 85 scholarships, the max for D-I schools. The myth was that Amato was a great recruiter, but a poor in-game coach. Nope, turns out he was bad at both.

True, we have some good skill position players, but State has been dominated on the line of scrimmage. Offense, defense, it doesn't matter. That and the quarterback play is fucking terrible. TOB went over the three QBs he had available with a magnifying glass, only to realize "Damn, we're in for a long season." There's a good reason TOB repeatedly said that none of the three distinguished themselves in pre-season.

10/19/2007 12:15:41 PM

Quote :

"So, can I lock this and start suspending some trolls or what?"

plz

If you continue the laissez-faire thing, we're going to have to man up with some vigilante justice

10/19/2007 12:16:09 PM

Quote :

"4) Amato could still be here coaching his recruits... and that would just mean we'd have to tack on yet another year of embarrassing losses before we started to approach respectability again."

You mean like this year? amato never had a season this bad. Even when we won 3 and 5 games we were inches away from winning several of the games we lost.

approach respectability? you mean the same way people respected duke during their 20 game losing streak? we aren't approaching anything but the shitter.

Quote :

". I don't think I've heard TOB blame the losses on Amato, so why the comment?"

several times indirectly. He basically says our players suck all the time. He never says the gameplan wasn't good enough or the players weren't prepared to play to their full potential. He just says lol we suck after we get our asses kicked. I don't care if you take the 10 best players away no coach at a place like ncstate has an excuse to lose by 30 points to clemson.

TOB has put in his system and made no effort to adjust it or cater to the ability of the players we have. For example, it was quite evident after the very first play of the season that he should have gone to a man defense because thats all the players know how to play.

10/19/2007 12:18:54 PM

lol

10/19/2007 12:19:34 PM

Quote :

"no coach at a place like ncstate has an excuse to lose by 30 points to clemson."

Yeah like 2 years ago when we whipped their asses on ESPN Thursday night game and everyone cheered so loudly when Chuck Amato was on the big screen!

Lock and suspend Beardawg this is terrible

10/19/2007 12:38:42 PM

we lost that game 31-10

[Edited on October 19, 2007 at 1:06 PM. Reason : and proving amato was a bad coach doesn't make it fine to replace him with one thats not as bad]

10/19/2007 1:05:18 PM

along with the injuries and turnovers, the reason for our lack of success is that the players aren't buying into TOB's system.

We sure do suck. IBTL

10/19/2007 1:17:27 PM

hey Poetrickster, good point you made about all the SEASON ending injuries to 1/2 our starters.

Good damn job

10/19/2007 1:37:12 PM

Does anyone not know who Poetrickster is? Just out of curiosity... think of who defended Chuck all the way to his firing last year... and who made gay pop-culture joke threads all the time.

Honestly, this article is absurdly shitty. I could make sense of the real point the writer was trying to make.. but he was all over the place...



[Edited on October 19, 2007 at 1:44 PM. Reason : x]

10/19/2007 1:43:41 PM

Quote :

"So, can I lock this and start suspending some trolls or what? "

PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

and who is poetrickster?

10/19/2007 2:28:22 PM

Quote :

"You mean like this year? amato never had a season this bad. Even when we won 3 and 5 games we were inches away from winning several of the games we lost."

I guess I didn't make my point clear. If Amato was here with his recruits we would just have one extra year of sucking before we eventually got better... no, actually it was pretty clear. It means one more year under Amato + the time it takes for a new coach to put the program back together. Right now we are at "the time it takes for a new coach to put the program back together" - hence the comment about one extra year of being in the dumpster if Amato was still around.

You see, we are currently in the position of "the time it takes for a new coach to put the program back together" minus the "one more year under Amato." So, we have one year less of guaranteed suckage.

Quote :

"approach respectability? you mean the same way people respected duke during their 20 game losing streak? we aren't approaching anything but the $#!++3r."

Yeah, when you are at the bottom there is no where to go but up. I spoke of approaching respectability as a future event, meaning we currently aren't there. I also said approaching respectability, not being respectable. I chose that language to further highlight the effort and time I believe it will take before we can become a winning team.

[Edited on October 19, 2007 at 2:31 PM. Reason : -]

10/19/2007 2:29:14 PM

Quote :

"He basically says our players suck all the time. "

A necessary step. He had to deal with the inflated egos of State's players regarding their supposed football superiority. The bottom line is that State's team this year, compared to the rest of the league, simply isn't that good. When you're losing the battle at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, skill players are nigh-on useless.

10+ fewer scholarships than other schools, injuries, a new coaching staff, and abysmal QB play. Shocking that we're 1-5... truly shocking

10/20/2007 4:31:19 PM