Recruiting: Incoming Wolfpack Class Impressive

From WRAL-TV

Even if national signing day occurred tomorrow, you could go ahead and count N.C. State’s recruiting year a success.Coach Tom O’Brien and his staff have already put together an impressive class of 19 prospects with more than a month to go before the signing period begins on Feb. 6.But it’s not just the quantity at this stage of the recruiting process that is impressive about the Wolfpack’s effort.

O’Brien has firmly established himself as a major player with in-state prospects and has addressed many of the program’s primary needs with his first full recruiting class since coming from Boston College.

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28 Responses to Recruiting: Incoming Wolfpack Class Impressive

  1. Noah 01/01/2008 at 10:11 AM #

    So far, it’s an excellent mix of ready-made stars and diamonds in the rough. We’ve got the guys like Mike Glennon, Brandon Barnes, Terrell Manning and Dwayne Maddox…guys that could play for any team in the country. But we’ve got plenty of other guys are unknowns. The encouraging news is that right after they committed to us, most of them suddenly popped up on the radars of bigger teams.

    Elton Ford, who may end up going elsewhere, for example…right after committing to State was getting attention from Arkansas and UNC. The FB we’ve got from Georgia was suddenly offered a ride from Miami.

    One thing that bothers me is we’ve got three or four guys that are currently recuperating from major knee surgery. Considering the past season we’ve had…I hope that means they’re getting it out of their system.

  2. VaWolf82 01/01/2008 at 10:13 AM #

    has addressed many of the program’s primary needs

    Let’s hope so….and hope that the needs are filled quickly. (Though I think that many of the problems will take more than one year to correct with incoming high-school recruits.)

  3. sf59 01/01/2008 at 10:14 AM #

    this class is also full of “football” players and hard hitters like Beasley and Mangram

  4. Lunatic Fringe 01/01/2008 at 10:48 AM #

    I am impressed by the quality of the players, but also the “quality of person” those recruits appear to be.

    For example, I heard a lot of great things about Maddox’s leadership from the Shrine Bowl. Everything I have read on Colby Jackson, FB out of Georgia, has left me extremely impressed by the guy. It just does not seem that there are really any “questionable” guys in that list, which may help to right the ship more than just their talent alone.

  5. vtpackfan 01/01/2008 at 1:15 PM #

    Good points Noah regarding the mixture of this group so far. Ford was actually on Petrino’s radar at Louisville a way’s back, as well as TOB when he was at BC, so it makes sense why Ar-KANSAS is hot on him now.

    Lots of upside with the OL that have already expressed interest (verbal). Allen, Wallace, Jones, and the “Canadian Bacon”. Land another and place them with Vermiglio, Roberts, and Lawson and you can see this unit turning around and eventually becoming a catalyst for success here.

    A bit off the subject, but does anyone think there is a chance TOB gets Fowler to inquire with Tunnunu, the former DC of GT? In the past TOB has chosen continuity, but I have to wonder if passing up the Norm Chow of DC’s is too risky.

  6. Lunatic Fringe 01/01/2008 at 2:25 PM #

    We have a DC and I expect TOB to be as loyal to his assistants as they have been to him in the past.

  7. bTHEredterror 01/01/2008 at 2:40 PM #

    And we are still in the hunt for Mattes and the Hargrove DEs, and some solid athletes like Aaron Boyd and Brandon Smith.

    The staff has focused on our areas of need, and thus far has landed some serious talent upgrades. OLs take time to build, but we may see improvement by the end of next year and should be prime for ’09. This is already one of our best classes ever, hopefully it’ll be our best. So much for the TOB can’t recruit theory.

  8. gcpack 01/01/2008 at 4:51 PM #

    As I understand it Tom O’Brien has done a great job with the in-state high school coaches by either mending fences with those that Amato alienated or establishing relationships with those who had none under Amato.

    Assuming he can maintain these relationships and keeps the contacts going in Tidewater, Va. our talent level could be the best in the state and very good in the ACC for quite awhile.

    By the way unless our DC quits we should leave Tunnunu alone(is that spelled right?). He will bolt for a head job any year now. We need continuity with the coaches which is one of the problems Amato had.

  9. Noah 01/01/2008 at 4:56 PM #

    It’s Tenuta. Tenunu is a senator from New Hampshire.

    Mike Archer, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t going anywhere and did a pretty good job, IMO. If we’re looking for a new coach, I’d rather hire Ron English than Tenuta.

  10. haze 01/02/2008 at 8:16 AM #

    First, Archer is pretty good.

    IF Archer were to leave of his own accord, then I think we might see McCollum elevated to DC. Like Archer, he’s an experienced hand with HC time and it appears that he’s a strong recruiter as well.

  11. choppack1 01/02/2008 at 9:47 AM #

    Word on the screet is that Tenuta hates recruiting.

    As far as defensive co-ordinators, I saw some good Ds in the bowl season thus far by Auburn, Missouri, and UGa.

  12. Par Shooter 01/02/2008 at 10:24 AM #

    I agree that Archer did a pretty good job this year. I also think that Archer’s style is a better fit with TOB than Tenuta would be. Tenuta plays a very aggresive, gambling style of D that is not really in keeping with what TOB did at BC or what I preceive he and Archer would like to do here. There is no way in hell that Archer gets displaced unless he leaves on his own. Even if that happened I think we’d see a coordinator much more in line with Archer than Tenuta. The recruiting thing is also a big issue and I believe it was what led Tenuta to part with unc-ch after 1 year. I’ll bet that Bunting wishes he had a mulligan on that decision.

    Personally I hope that all of the assistants on staff are here for at least 3 years and it would suit me if it was much longer than that.

  13. RAWFS 01/02/2008 at 10:53 AM #

    O’Brien is doing something Amato never could seem to do on a sustained basis — bringing in quality Offensive Linemen and Linebackers.

    The OL issue was really perplexing, IMO, and indicative of Amato’s inability to admit that his methods needed changing. His plan of converting failed DL guys was very marginal and the problems of the past several seasons in many ways can be traced directly to the weakness up front once all of O’Cain’s recruits matriculated through the program. Sure, we had some good OL guys here and there, but never a solid unit that matched the caliber of guys like Toney Baker and Andre’ Brown — sought after solid recruits who were done the disservice of not having the muscle up front to get them lanes through the initial layer of the defense.

    Ask yourself objectively — if State had had the quality of OL players that Clemson has, wouldn’t Baker and Brown been considered the equal of Spiller and Davis? I think so. Both have a lot of natural talent that IMO has gone wasted due to the trainwreck of blockers we have had.

    It certainly has not helped QB development out either. It’s hard to believe that none of the highly recruited players we had coming into the program would have ALL been a bust had they ever had the time to develop confidence and go through their reads. Instead, they chucked the football at the first open pair of hands and ducked so they’d be able to get up after they got crushed by the DL. It was incredible how little time our guys had to make their passes.

    That will change under O’Brien and it will change the fortunes of NCSU football…a team that gets more fans in the stands for spring practice than BC has travelling to bowl games.

  14. Noah 01/02/2008 at 11:10 AM #

    If you listen to the braindead f-ing idiots on sports-talk radio (which…you should stop doing, BTW), they’ll tell you that if you’ve got the #1 pick in the draft, you have to draft a running back or a QB.

    Shut the f up.

    You know who the best rookie in the NFL was this year? Joe Thomas. Seriously…both Reggie Bush and D’Brickshaw Ferguson have been busts in the NFL. You know who is actually hurting his team? Ferguson. The Saints ran the ball just fine this year…even with Deuce McCallister out, they still managed to run the ball just fine. But the Jets offense was horrible and most of that was because their OL sucks.

    Anyone think it’s just coincidence that the Texans suddenly got a lot better with Mario Williams healthy and that dude from Louisville helping alongside him?

    You win the game along the lines.

  15. graywolf 01/02/2008 at 11:32 AM #

    Recruiting has been good for years if you listen to the experts.
    What has be missing is recruiting quality people and athletes…..not to say that all of the people the former staff recruited are bad, quite the contrary. However, I feel that the current staff will recruit people we can be proud of academically, athletically and that their championship character will produce championships.

    Thanks Coach O’Brian for coming to N C State!

  16. BoKnowsNCS71 01/02/2008 at 1:19 PM #

    FYI == it’s Sunnunu who is the Senator from New Hampshire. Tununnnu is probably a Samoan wrestler for WWW.

    How’s our kicking game?

  17. Dr. BadgerPack 01/02/2008 at 1:43 PM #

    Noah- It shouldn’t be any surprise Joe Thomas did as well as he did this year; he’s the kind of player you want on your team (and not just due to skill). I hope TOB brings in a stable full of Joe Thomas types.

    Thomas might have been able to go pro a year sooner, but tore his ACL against Auburn in the bowl game. Oh, and he tore it playing on the DEFENSIVE side, as Wisconsin already had some injury problems. Good athlete for such a huge freaking guy.

  18. packbackr04 01/02/2008 at 1:50 PM #

    any word on whether or not TOB is going to get the new field turf he wants for next yr?

  19. bTHEredterror 01/02/2008 at 3:17 PM #

    To support the OL argument, just look at the win differential between Cleveland and Minnesota. With Peterson (the likely ROY running behind the best right-side offensive line in football) Minn improved by plus 2 games. With Thomas and little other to change in Cleveland, they improved by 6 games!

  20. packbackr04 01/02/2008 at 3:40 PM #

    cleveland had a monster draft thsi yr. i dont care much for Brady Quinn but they had a good draft none the less.

  21. bTHEredterror 01/02/2008 at 3:57 PM #

    I guess Josh Cribbs would be that “little” else I spoke of.

    Does anyone else think that Rich Rodriguez had a hand in that Michigan victory over Florida? Frankly that and the Auburn-Clemson game were the only really entertaining bowl games this season.

    Hoping VT puts up a good fight and to help out our ailing conference. 1-8 all-time BCS and 2-5 this year, another loss will be embarassing and will reverberate further with voters and recruits.

  22. Noah 01/02/2008 at 4:22 PM #

    Michigan was finally healthy. They were a top-five team, talent-wise. I have NO IDEA what happened during the first two weeks of the season, but they were incredibly talented.

    All this talk about how slow they were must have been coming from people who had never seen them play.

    They’ve got five legitimate stars on offense in Henne, Hart, Long, Arrington and Manningham. They’ve got a bunch of future NFL players on defense in guys like Shawn Crable and Tim Jamison.

    At the end of the year, Hart had the high ankle sprain and basically, Henne was playing with a dislocated shoulder. But healthy, they could beat anyone in the country. They showed they could lose to anyone too…

  23. Dr. BadgerPack 01/02/2008 at 4:45 PM #

    The scary thing is Michigan should have blown Florida straight out of the water. Mike “I never lose a fumble” Hart coughs it up twice inside the 2, and they still opened an early cushion.

    Jake Long will be an NFL monster in all likelihood. He was on par with Joe Thomas last year (perhaps moreso in the eyes of the UM faithful than others) but still is a tremendous lineman.

  24. choppack1 01/02/2008 at 7:59 PM #

    speaking of recruiting, espnu had the practices from the upcoming under armor high school all star game. glennon was 1 of the qbs coaches singled out. supposedly has a great arm, throws deep and medium ball well

  25. vtpackfan 01/02/2008 at 9:23 PM #

    Maybe the distinguished gentleman from NH is Tsunnunu and the polynesian wrestler, high flying in the WWW is Tsunami. Don’t know, but I applaud the above commentary.

    I only mentioned Tenuta because I had read multiple places that he was high on TOB’s wish list when he first landed here in Raleigh. Timing is above anything else everything in college football coach search’s, so I’m sure that ship has long passed. Nothing against Archer, I saw absolutely nothing out there this year to lead me to believe he can’t be a succesfull DC in the ACC.

    Glennon seems to be all that good right now, and then some. There is a sense that we are not only getting a QB for the future but that he is also someone who his peers are spotting as a potential stud also.

    Hot shot WR’s look soo much better when they find the soft spot in the zone that is only open for a split second and the ball is delivered right on time. Dominating DE’s and LB’s look menancing when their offense has got them a big early lead and they know the opposition has to air it out.

    I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we finish the recruiting cycle of ’08 with a flurish. First, hang on to Ford, he is going to be a game changer on defense if he stays healthy IMO. Then..1) OL Mattes 2) WR Walker 3) S Floyd 4) Scruggs 5) Somebody who can kick it far and knows where it’s going. Go Pack!

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