David Scott takes a look at the country’s most perplexing college football teams, and guess who shows up prominently on the list?
N.C. STATE (4-4): If coach Chuck Amato has settled on Marcus Stone at quarterback — and if Stone justifies that decision — the Wolfpack’s defense could help squeeze two victories out of its final three games, against Boston College, Middle Tennessee State and Maryland, to qualify for a bowl. The victory against Florida State reminded us all of N.C. State’s potential.
Folks, potential only holds value for so long. Unfortunately for passionate NC State fans who want to succeed in Athletics, subjective conclusions about the current nature of potential is often all that is needed to justify employment within Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department.
NC State is now in year SIX of Coach Amato’s tenure, and the last 2.5 seasons (almost half of his entire tenure) has failed to remotely live up to ‘potential.’ It is time for Amato to ride the re-energization of last weekend’s win in Tallahassee to a very strong finish.
The standards and expectations of this (or any) season should NOT change in the middle of a season just because the year is not going well. Before this season kicked off, I felt as though anything less than an 8-3 season would be frustrating (but acceptable); and anything worse 7-4 would have been a significant disappointment. Saving the season with a 7-4 finish and an acceptable bowl opportunity is the only way to (barely) claim 2005 was “acceptable” based on a fair set of pre-season expectations.
Postscript: After logging this entry I realized that it piggy-backed well on yesterday’s discussion on the blog sparked by Mel Kiper . To share more that is related to the issue of “Chuck Amato deserving another year”, I would say the exact same thing that I said a couple of weeks ago when so many people were down on Chuck:
I don’t think that statement can be made with 3 (hopefully 4) games remaining. We need to see how this team finishes before we pass such a judgement. (of course, recognizing that any fan’s opinion of Amato and the football program is really irrelevant since Lee Fowler will look for every reason in the world NOT to have to fire someone).
Personally, I feel that Chuck needs a strong finish this year (8-4) to keep me energized about the football program into the future.
Marcus Stone’s limited abiity at quarterback says to me that we could easily be starting a new QB next year against a difficult ACC schedule. Maintaining an optimistic outlook for next year, anything better than 5-6 / 6-5 is almost impossible to imagine. That would be the 4th year in a row of that kind of middling performance and would clearly define that our football program is stuck in purgatory.
I need to see the Pack CONSISTENTLY meet some potential at the end of this season to keep me energized. This is just my opinion. You don’t have to agree with me, althouh I feel like most normal fans probably feel the same way as I.
We can’t help the fact that Chuck is in this position to perform with such a small margin of error. This is the result of inexcusable losses to Carolina and Wake Forest. State shouldn’t have lost those games…but we did. (Not to mention the way we bombed vs Virgina Tech). If State ends this season and 6-5…especially with a loss to Maryland (which will mean Amato would be 1-5 vs the Fridge), what real hope/expectation can truly exist that Amato can ever get over the hurdles that exist in the strong middle of the ACC – Maryland, GT, UVA, Clemson, and Carolina?
