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Reading the 2012 pre-season previews, NC State fans are chomping at the bit, waiting for their August 31st tip-off and praying for an ACC Championship season. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it likely? Well, that depends who you speak to. Fans will tell you that we have an experienced team and Coach O’Brien is as good as anyone else in the ACC. O’Brien himself will tell you (and I am paraphrasing) that we have beaten everyone in our division over the last two seasons, so we just have to do it in the same year for 2012. Neither the fans nor the coach would be incorrect. NC State does have an experienced team and Coach O’Brien is one of the best in the ACC. However, Clemson and FSU are always going to be ACC Title contenders. What makes NC State so different from either of them? Why can’t NC State make the jump from “ACC Title dark-horse” to ACC Title contender? We have experience, a great quarterback, a solid game day coach and staff. If you are looking for a flaw, it has to be recruiting and NC State’s roster provides ample evidence. O’Brien is very blunt about his style of recruiting and the merits of having a program built for long-term success. The question becomes whether “long term success” and “ACC Title contender” can co-exist under O’Brien’s recruiting strategy.
LOOKING AT LINEBACKERS
NC State currently has 15 players listed at linebacker, some of which were moved there from previous positions, and 7 of whom are juniors and seniors. The juniors and seniors account for a mere 50 career tackles. DJ Green owns 31 of those tackles and Zach Gentry owns another 11. That means that between the remaining 5 juniors and seniors at linebacker, NC State boasts a total of 8 career tackles. For comparison, Clemson had a “young” linebacking corp last year and they boasted a junior with over 70 tackles as well as a redshirt junior with 69 tackles. That is phenomenal, but for Clemson it is young and inexperienced. NC State actually has a fairly mature linebacking unit this season with 4 of their 6 linebackers listed on the depth chart being juniors and seniors. That said, our impressive “experience” is all for naught if “experience” doesn’t translate into “refined talent”.
What you see with NC State under the direction of Tom O’Brien is a program that looks for talent in places that others might not be looking. You ignore the stars and instead scout for players that fit your program. O’Brien has landed some gems with players like Glennon and Amerson, but how many players that don’t pan out do you have to recruit before you get a solid one? I can’t tell you how often we get a “quality player” through O’Brien’s methods compared to how often we get a mediocre player, but I can tell you that at linebacker, six years into O’Brien’s system, we have 7 upperclassmen at linebacker who have less game day experience, combined, then other rising juniors in the ACC do by themselves.
Stars typically are designed to translate into “how ready for game-day are these athletes”. Three star players are suppose to be solid athletes, with some development, at the FBS level. Athletes with 5 stars are gameday ready straight out of high school (in theory). The problem with recruiting a large amount of 2-star and 3-star athletes is that they typically take longer to refine into game-ready athletes. In NC State’s case, it would appear that we have a bunch of juniors and seniors who haven’t seen the light of day 3 years into their career. Part of that is likely because they simply haven’t been needed. A greater concern for Wolfpack fans should be how many of those seniors don’t have one tackle because they simply haven’t made the cut compared to how many aren’t playing because they weren’t ready for FBS football until just recently. Recruiting lower ranked players means time-lost from their college careers while the staff coaches them up. It also means time spent by the staff training “lesser players” to become “great players”.
UPDATE (8/22/2012 @ 2:45PM): I wanted to add to the discussion of linebackers that the “game-ready” status of our linebackers is directly related to why the position is weak starting the 2012 season… not the fact that we suffered from attrition to the NFL. Programs like FSU, Clemson, and Virginia Tech are competitive year-in and year-out even during periods of high player turn-over. Why? Because many of the players they recruit are highly rated individuals that can make an impact shortly after leaving high school. The excuse that it’s somehow acceptable to have an entire position on defense that is unprepared for the next season because we had players leave for the NFL highlights where NC State football is right now… and it’s not neck-and-neck with other ACC crown favorites.
With hopes that 2012 will bring an ACC crown, it’s hard to fathom that one position could be O’Brien’s downfall. All of the other pieces are in place to stage a surprisingly impressive season on offense and on defense. O’Brien’s staff is seasoned and know what they are doing when game day rolls around. The death of O’Brien’s ACC Title hopes, if there is one, will be the fact that he recruited players that need far too much work to be game-ready at the linebacker position. Rather than aiming for a couple players that could be ready to play in 1 or 2 seasons, he opted for the lower-rated players that needed 2 to 3 seasons before they could be trained up. Now we have a single position… a fairly important position… on defense that is a big question mark and risks blowing NC State’s “best hopes for an ACC Title in decades”.
The Good News Is…
Being “solid” for long enough will plug all of your holes, it’s just a matter of how long it takes. Obviously at LB, six years hasn’t been enough time to solve all of NC State’s roster issues. However, O’Brien has a lot of depth in a lot of areas and because of that has put NC State in a comfortable position where having a stand-out star at any one particular position isn’t necessary to have a decent season. O’Brien doesn’t have any “RGIII” type players, but he’s managed to jam his roster with a solid amount of “pretty good talent” and sometimes having enough “pretty good” under a solid coach is enough. Have enough “pretty good” on your roster and you can spread the burden across the team of landing a win rather than praying that Russell Wilson pulls another rabbit out of the hat.
There is also the other team’s roster to consider. When NC State met Clemson in 2012, a team that few would argue was worse on the season that NC State, Clemson had a young, inexperienced linebacker position. NC State having a quarterback that was catching his stride and an offensive line that was continually improving was able to take advantage of Clemson’s gap by having a “pretty good” overall offense. The result: an unexpected win. Having a solid roster allows smart coaches like O’Brien to take advantage of their opponents by ‘out-strategizing’ them. While other teams may take the Butch Davis approach of stacking their rosters and watching them play, O’Brien has a brilliant in-game coach and can take a ”pretty good team” and take advantage of lesser coaches that might not be paying attention. Under this system, NC State can always be better than enough teams to make a bowl and come out of the ACC with an even or winning record.
The question now becomes this: can “pretty good” get NC State to an ACC crown? As long as programs like Clemson and FSU are sitting in our division with “pretty good” players sitting in the 2nd and 3rd spots in the depth chart, NC State will always be little more than a “dark horse”. Programs that contend for conference titles, at some point in time, have to chase after a couple stars. Sometimes all a “pretty good team” needs to break through their glass ceiling is a few stand-outs to overpower their opponents. You aren’t going to get that recruiting 2 and 3 star players.
Sow Mediocrity, Reap Mediocrity
A recent review of the ACC by Opposing Views highlighted the “gaping hole” at linebacker. One author wrote this…
The question is, can the defense make enough stops? I don’t think so. The linebacking corps, in particular, looks like a gaping wound. You can’t be that defective on an entire level of your defense and be any good. The whole thing will just collapse in on itself. And that’s why I can’t get behind the idea of them breaking out of the middle of the pack.
Another author, being far more optimistic about the Pack in their review, also predicted NC State to be in the same mediocre situation as the first author…
If there is a team that can win the Atlantic over Clemson and FSU, it’s NC State. It’s a longshot but if they play to their full potential and other teams don’t, it’s possible. That being said, I think we are looking at a bowl-eligible team that will be a very tough team to beat this season.
Fair enough. NC State isn’t in a position to beat Clemson or FSU, but we aren’t in a position where it’s impossible either. A “solid” team should be able to compete against any opponent and have the opportunity to come away with a win. That being said, “be able to compete” and “favored to win” are two very different things and highlight two different desired outcomes for NC State football. If Wolfpackers want to be relevant within the ACC, it is going to have to do more than compete for an ACC title once in a blue moon. (Remember, not too long ago Wake Forest won an ACC title, but few people consider them a perennial ACC powerhouse.) On the contrary, if Wolfpackers are happy with simply coming away from the regular season with 7-8 wins and going to a mediocre bowl each season, then they have probably already stopped reading this article and begun preparations for their Belk Bowl celebration in December.
If O’Brien wants to bring things to the next level, he is going to need to decide that he has successfully filled the stalls with “pretty good” horses and now needs to procure a few prized stallions. One thing is for sure: if NC State can have 15 players, 7 of them upperclassmen, at the linebacker position and still call it a “gaping hole”, then we aren’t recruiting effective enough players to begin with.
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Good article, very compelling, but it overlooks two contributing factors. First, who could predict that Terrell Manning would declare for the draft a year early, which had a dramatic impact on the experience and talent of our linebacking corp? Second, the proven intangible that will factor heavily on the success of our linebackers can be addressed in two words, John Tenuta. There simply is not a better positions coach in the conference and arguably in the country.
I don’t disagree with either of these two comments. Here is why I don’t think they settle concerns over recruiting:
1) Terrell Manning declaring for the draft: NC State doesn’t have a “thin” linebacker position; we have a linebacker roster full of players who aren’t ready to play. We have 15 players listed at linebacker. Even without players like Rodman Noel who got moved from other positions to play LB for this season, that is not a bad number of bodies to have in that swimlane. Florida State has a similar number of linebackers (somewhere at or just below 15 linebackers) and Clemson has almost half as many as we do. Virginia Tech also has around 15 linebackers. Terrell Manning left for the draft early, but that still leaves a large number of linebackers sitting on NC State’s roster. The only other explanation for why NC State is “thin” at linebacker is because the players we are recruiting at that position are taking far too long to refine into “game-ready” products. No level of recruiting can completely make-up for the loss of a talented player, but it can mitigate the impacts.
2) John Tenuta is going to mitigate the impacts of not recruiting players that have the talent to be “game ready” by kicking their ass and forcing them to work. I have confidence in how Tenuta will employ our linebackers, but Tenuta shouldn’t be in a position at this point where he has 15 linebackers to choose from and only one with any kind of experience to speak of.
But yes…. John Tenuta will be NC State’s saving grace if there is one in 2012 at linebacker.
One more note about graduating players. Saying “we are having problems at LB because we had 2 or 3 players leave the team” is a pretty ignorant argument, all-in-all, that I’ve heard a few people make (not necessarily you, but several around the blogosphere).
Think about it: if losing players to the league is an excuse for not having game-ready talent in the wings, then how do other year-to-year champions maintain a high level of competitiveness? The answer is that they have talented recruits waiting to fill in when the stars leave for the NFL. If simply saying “we lost several players to the NFL” is a valid excuse for NC State fans for having an entire position in our defense wide open, then I guess our expectations just aren’t on the same level.
I couldn’t agree more. One player declaring for the draft should not decimate an entire position….not when the head coach going into his 6th season. I have harped enlessly about his recruiting and routinely get shouted down about stars not mattering etc & soforth.
The real shame is he hasn’t even been able to cash-in within the state despite the problems, probation, and coaching changes in Chapel Hill. That’s just plain inexcusable.
Just a few comments from my observations of the last few years:
1. From what I’ve read about TOB recruits, it seems that he also factors in to a large extent non-athletic criteria… is the player a leader at his school, does he show discipline to do well at his studies, does he interact well with others, etc. If he could find 4 and 5 star players with those criteria who are willing to attend NCSU, I’m sure he would try to get them. But, my guess is that those student-athletes are also looking at more desirable programs. On the other had, the players that he does get have the discipline to follow the training and strengthening regiment, and by the time they have been in the program 3 years, they are ready for the field (whether or not they’ve been on the field much in the first 3 years).
Editor: Your last statement identifies the problem. “…and by the time they have been in the program 3 years…”. The issue is that if you are banking on players developing for 3 years, you end up with situations like this year where you physically have enough players at a position like linebacker, but don’t have any experienced players. Having a senior that has never played because he “wasn’t ready” isn’t much better than having a sophomore that came into college a 4-star recruit.
2. TOB’s success is in a large part attributable to his success in developing his players to their full potential. After a player has been here for 3 years, he usually is successful on the field. The “failures” on the field have been the result of having freshman and sophomores in the line up (think of the secondary 2 years ago). TOB doesn’t like to play freshman or sophomores unless he has to. For this reason, I don’t believe that the linebackers this year will be a major weakness in our defense – although they might be the weakest part of the defense at the beginning of the year.
Editor: Again, you don’t “believe” they will be a problem, but you have no idea. Because you have a couple players take off, the entire position is suddenly a big question mark while other quality programs, programs that aren’t exactly ‘crooked’ by most standards, are having player turnover on an annual basis and still don’t consider themselves “thin”. The difference is that they recruit players that as much more ready to play straight out of high school.
3. Being a Division 1 coach today is similar to managing a small corporation. You can’t do everything yourself, so you have to “hire” quality individuals who will do the work for you. As a coach, your most important decisions involve WHO you hire. TOB has shown excellent decision making as to who he hires. Also, he manages to keep his coaches happy enough to stay at our program – another good sign.
Editor: I don’t get your point. Are you saying he has a great staff? Yes, I would agree. That doesn’t fix the problem that we have a gaping hole at linebacker that, unless someone steps up, is an unknown going into O’Brien’s sixth season.
4. TOB has been a coach so long that he knows what his team is missing, their weaknesses, which players will “deliver” on the field, etc. When he says that his team isn’t good, he’s right and isn’t sugar-coating anything. When he says that the team is good, he’s also correct. For example, he let a top QB go because he knew that he had another top QB as a replacement. Now, that guts – and that’s knowing your stuff!
Editor: I would say if he knew what his team was missing, he would have been pushing a little more aggressively to attract some more game-day ready linebackers. It sounds like a broken record brining up that one position, but if he’s so great at knowing what he is missing, then you have to accept that he simply “doesn’t care” that he has a bunch of juniors and seniors with no track record on which to guage performance on for the 2012 season.
5. When TOB has more than a week to prepare for a game, he has a very large chance for success. For that reason, we have a higher chance of beating UT than people give us.
Editor: So by this logic, we can expect a good performance for the Tennessee game, and after the bye-week. Awesome.
6. We WILL get a WTF game at least once a year.
Editor: If this is said as a sobering reality, then of course we agree. If you are saying this to imply we shouldn’t be upset when we lose our “WTF” games, then I take issue with it. John Bunting, former head coach at UNC, use to do this thing each season where he would talk about how good their upcoming opponents were so that if they lost, it was “okay” and if they won, it was viewed as a solid victory. I look at this kind of admission sort of the same way. We’ll lose to someone like UVa that could have been a solid win and people will deem it acceptable because “well…. that’s just to be expected”. Last coach that the fanbase had that mentality with: Herb Sendek.
In my opinion, TOB is doing a fabulous job with what he’s got, and we are improving every year. What else can you ask for? I’ve lived through 25 years of mediocre football (except for the Sheridan years) – TOB has broken that drought. To criticize his recruiting ability is uncalled for in my opinion… I’m sure he’d rather have better recruits also, but he can’t get better recruits who are quality individuals, so he’ll take 2 and 3 stars recruits who are quality individuals. In my opinion, TOB’s players are an example of what the student athlete is all about – hard work, maximizing your potential. Every time I hear interviews with the players, I’m proud at how well they interview (they must get some “training” on that also). UNC certainly can’t say that about their football “student”-athletes.
He’s a good coach that has a solid record. I don’t think he’ll win an ACC championship on his own team’s merit at NC State. I think that if he sticks around long enough, he’ll have a “good enough” team that he can catch a couple quality teams sleeping and make it to the title game or maybe even get a crown, but if NC State wants to be in the position that they look at their schedule and say “we should be a favorite of many to win the ACC”, similar to where we find ourselves in basketball, then O’Brien is going to have to bring in better talent.
I replied within your post. I agree with the fundamental sentiment that O’Brien is doing a good job and is a solid coach (I wouldn’t go so far as to say “fabulous”), but I don’t think he’s the coach that’s going to “break through the glass ceiling”. Where O’Brien is right now is probably about at his max. If only O’Brien had an O’Brien of his own that could “develop” more potential out of his coaching abilities!
With the exception of some WTF decisions/indecisions (vs Clemson a couple years back comes to mind), I have to agree that TOB and staff do a solid job with what they have. But how anyone can’t see that the inability to get any significant momentum on the recruiting trail going, despite what’s been happening to the west, speaks volumes IMHO.
I’d like to think that a successful year this year will change that, but I don’t.
While I appriciate that TOB doesn’t go after thungs, I call BS on the idea that there aren’t better athletes/players coming out of HS than he’s getting. That’s like saying anyone with over 2* isn’t a solid kid…which is just plain wrong.
Agreed ‘Chain.
I’m glad character counts for TOB and staff and wouldn’t want it any other way. But the two things (character and on field ability) are not mutually exclusive. TOB hasn’t had success getting those character kids who have the star ratings and has thus has had to settle for the middle of the road kids with character.
Need to flip that around.
I know that the mere mention of Tim Tebow gets groans from the peanut gallery but….. Tim Tebow. Great guy; great recruit. He can’t be the only one!!!
Forgot to say that if it takes 3 years to get a recruit game ready, the impacts from the inevitable injuries and other attrition will be more severe, both immediately and long term.
Also, as far as acceptable season records are concerned…with the advent of the 12 game schedule, 7 wins ain’t what it used to be. And 6 should be grounds for dismissal.
I was just talking with GoldenChain saying that 8-9 wins each season puts you “in contention” for an ACC title until late in the season and gets you something better than the Belk Bowl. I don’t think 8-9 wins… REGULAR SEASON… is reasonable.
^ I presume you meant UNreasonable. And I agree. Obviously there would be years we fell short of that…this is NC State. But having a benchmark expectation for 8-9 wins, with the occasional year where there is potential for more (like I was hoping this year might be until last night) should not be beyond our reach even at State.
And as ‘Chain is inclined to point out (and rightfully so), we won’t get there until we start getting some of these guys that seem to want to continue populating empty CH classrooms no matter what they do over there.
I have not become completely anti-TOB. I think the man has some great qualities and is a pretty good coach. But the recruiting issue continues to bug me more and more, even before UT made us look like the champions of the Special Olympics last night. And when you look that small, slow and weak against any opponent, it has to be time to re-evaluate the pool from which you’re picking and choosing your talent.
Maybe TOB should hire Amato as his recruiting coordinator. I’m kidding of course, but can you imagine the two of them trying to coexist on the same staff? Would love to be a fly on the wall of that room.
And WPW, regarding Tebow….no groans here. I’ll groan at the media, etc. that couldn’t talk about anything else there for awhile last year (and frankly I think they were building him up just so they could get a shot at knocking him down at some point). That was annoying and I did get tired of hearing about him. But that’s not on him.
Tebow is the perfect example of the kind of kid TOB should be able to land if he went after him with some gusto. The kid is a heckuva player obviously, but his character and morals are a huge deal for him as well of course…probably bigger in fact. TOB should be able to sell his program and his philosophy of champions on the field, classroom and community to a kid like that (and his family) BIG TIME.
Pepper in a few kids like that and surround them with a capable supporting cast and we’re suddenly relevant. With TOB’s reputation as a straight arrow it seems like it shouldn’t be that much of a stretch to get that done. But then again, what the heck do I know?