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The N&O has an appropriate article this morning: Year 4 turns into a big one for O’Brien
“Year 4, this is where you want to be,” O’Brien said. “We’re fighting for a conference title. We have the opportunity to be a special football team in the lore of N.C. State history, not only in wins in the ACC but in total number of wins. That’s where you want to be.”
A year ago, N.C. State’s program was in disarray. Injuries had scuttled whatever momentum the Wolfpack gained from a bowl appearance a year earlier, most notably the car accident that kept star linebacker Nate Irving out for the entire season, and the Wolfpack hit a low point when it was savaged by Wake Forest and Duke in back-to-back losses.
By the end of the year, offensive coordinator Dana Bible was in a hospital bed fighting leukemia, and O’Brien had suffered his third losing season in three years at N.C. State.
It wasn’t exactly what anyone envisioned when O’Brien arrived from Boston College, where he took the Eagles to eight straight bowl games. There were plenty of vocal N.C. State fans who expected to see more progress by Year 3.
They got it in Year 4. N.C. State already has won eight games, the most since 2003, and could get to nine for the first time since 1994 with a win at Maryland on Saturday – not to mention earning a trip to the championship game in Charlotte.
“We haven’t taken any shortcuts,” O’Brien said. “It’s been a long, hard slog. But having gone through it … that’s where your commitment to the plan comes into play.”
[snip]
Through it all, O’Brien insisted last year’s team was improving, even if the youth on defense made that nearly impossible to discern on the field at times.
“We’re about a year and a half into the defense, and we’re trying to recruit and get lined up and get the people in the right [positions] and understand all the nuances of it,” O’Brien said last October. “We’ll fight through this thing.”
If you had the pleasure of listening to any of Jeff’s radio appearances on the Taylor Zarzour show over the summer (back before the Carolina media mafia circled the wagons against SFN), then you heard Jeff consistently hold the line on his position regarding the unparalleled number of injuries within the NC State football program over the last few years — without over-doing the injury bug as an excuse or justification for losing, Jeff felt it was impossible to truly judge TOB’s performance and the program’s evolution with so many injuries. It appears he was right.
As a tangible example, @PackPride tweeted just yesterday that “NC State is 17-7 w/ Nate Irving in starting lineup during his career. The Wolfpack is 7-17 without him. Players matter.”
I would also like to highlight the support that Wolfpackers have continued to provide the program as evidenced by their continued optimism. In addition to continued sellouts in Carter-Finley through all of these years, check out the results below from one of our most popular polls we’ve run at SFN before this season started. Despite all of the hurdles, one of the toughest schedules in major college football, and the expectation that our defense was going to be awful this season…a large majority of Wolfpackers still had the faith in Coach O’Brien that the program would turn a corner this season.
NC State has not had five consecutive losing football seasons since 1956. Will the Wolfpack finish the 2010 season with a winning record?
- Yes (59%, 1,061 Votes)
- No (41%, 741 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,802
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