AUGUST 9, 2011
NC STATE FOOTBALL
JP Giglio (N&O)
Pack shows fight
N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien was vague with the details about Monday’s scrimmage at Carter-Finley Stadium, the first of training camp, but he was impressed with the team’s enthusiasm and his new quarterback.
“There’s good competition right now, especially between the offense and defense,” O’Brien said. “They have a pretty good thing going right now and that’s how you get better.”
GoPack.com
Pack Completes First Scrimmage
The Wolfpack football squad held its first preseason scrimmage of 2011 late Monday afternoon in Carter-Finley Stadium, working out for an hour and a half with the first team offense battling the first-team defense, and the second and third units squaring off as well.
The team ran around 85 plays in the workout, focusing mainly on fundamentals on the first-day of full tackle drills. “This was something to build on,†said head coach Tom O’Brien following the scrimmage. “We worked on our base offense, base defense, getting lined up and fundamentals. We didn’t try to outsmart anybody today. We just wanted everybody to have a chance to play.â€
Jacey Zembal (TheWolfpacker.com)
Special Teams, Defense highlight first scrimmage
“The glass is half empty or half full,” O’Brien said. “It depends on whether you are coaching the offense or defense. You are going to find something good, bad and everything. The defense made it awful tough to run the football there for a while. I think that was the emphasis. We threw the ball a little bit and that loosened things up, and we got some runs. I think the defense is going to be fine.”
Akula Wolf (Backingthepack.com)
First Scrimmage In The Books; Here’s Some Vague Stuff
NC State 11-on-11 at practice (Video)
Tom O’Brien discusses NC State’s defense (Video)
Chip Patterson (CBSSports)
Seen/Heard at Camp: N.C. State
– Glennon’s comfort with the system will be impacted greatly by the development of his wide receivers. Team captain and preseason All-ACC selection George Bryan is the most consistent receiver at tight end, but the Wolfpack will be missing three of their top four ball catchers from 2010. Senior wide receivers TJ Graham and Jay Smith each saw action last year, and will be counted on to lead the new group. According to offensive coordinator Dana Bible, the veterans have entered camp ready to go.
“We’re a work in progress, but (the returnees) must have had a really good summer as far as training because they bring a lot of speed with them,” Bible observed. “And they’re anxious and ready to go. You’re going to see it as I’m going to see it, as it develops.”[Rapid Reports]
JOEDY McCREARY (AP Sports Writer)
Decision At QB Could Define Season For N.C. State
Tom O’Brien made his decision, and he’s sticking with it.
There’s no looking back for the former Marine. No second-guessing if he made the right choice in picking Mike Glennon as North Carolina State’s quarterback and showing Russell Wilson the door.
Outsiders may view this season as a referendum on which quarterback he ultimately should have chosen. But internally, O’Brien and the Wolfpack refuse to let their season be defined by the star player they let get away.
“I understand all the questions, but the decision was made in April,†O’Brien said. “We’re confident that we’re going to be fine moving forward with Mike Glennon. He had a great spring. It’s not about one guy. It’s a team game. There’s going to be more than one guy involved whether we win or lose, and I’m sure it’s going to be the same wherever Russell is. It’s about more than just one guy.â€
GoPack.com
Gentry Named to Watch List for Hornung Award
NC State senior fullback Taylor Gentry has been named to the 2011 Paul Hornung Award Watch List as announced this morning by the Louisville Sports Commission.
GoPack.com
Opening STATEment: Episode 3
DAY 6
Over the weekend, the Wolfpack endured muggy conditions as camp shifted to full pads on Saturday and two-a-days on Sunday. With Monday’s scrimmage rapidly approaching, the weekend represented a final opportunity for coaches to install packages and players to leave an impression.
Andrew Jones (foxsportssouth)
ACC Quarterback rankings
4 – Mike Glennon, Jr., N.C. State – An All-Everything signal caller in high school, Glennon was given the nod over indecisive (regarding his commitments to football and baseball) former QB Russell Wilson, who threw 76 touchdown passes in three seasons under center. If Tom O’Brien is that confident in Glennon, that’s good enough.
Akula Wolf (Backingthepack.com)
ESPN Will Air NC State/Cincinnati Game In 3D
TheACC.com NC State Football Preview
Randy Peterson (Des Moines Register)
Beer a growing part of college football revenue streams
Northern Iowa athletics director Troy Dannen figures his search for new revenue someday will lead to what others nationally already have discovered: Tapping kegs at college football games for everyone of legal age can be financially rewarding.
NC STATE BASKETBALL
Jeff Gravley (WRALsportsfan)
Why Torian Graham decommited from NC State
Torian Graham was an early target of NC State basketball coach Mark Gottfried who landed the 6-4 guard in May. But Sunday, Graham told Wolfpack coaches that he was decommitting from NC State. “It’s nothing personal,” Graham told WRAL on Monday. “It was something I had to do.”
JP Giglio (N&O)
Prized recruit decommits from N.C. State
“Nothing bad happened at State,” said Graham, who’s ranked the No. 24 prospect in the country by ESPN. “I felt like I made my decision too fast and didn’t give other colleges a chance to recruit me.”
Graham called Kentucky his “favorite” but said he has not received an offer from the Wildcats, who went to the Final Four last season and will be one of the national title favorites – with North Carolina – this upcoming season.
Luke Winn (Sports Illustrated)
The Commitment Project: A study of top-100 recruit behavior
The AAU summer has come and gone, and as the calendar creeps toward the advent of games that actually mean something, many of the top Class of 2012 and ’13 recruits will commit to colleges. Inevitably, a bunch of those recruits will cause heartbreak by either decommitting, asking out of National Letters of Intent, or enrolling and then transferring — and jilted coaches will bemoan this as part of an epidemic that’s hurting the sport. I’ve heard coaches use that exact word, epidemic, as a descriptor for what they consider a rising trend: Players no longer feel obligated to hold true to their word, or stay loyal to one team.
The issue with the fickleness problem isn’t that coaches are wrong. There’s no way to argue that the rising number of decommitments is helping the sport; it’s that it tends to only get discussed anecdotally, i.e. when a recruit such as Michael Beasley switches high schools six times and college commitments once, or Terrence Jones reneges on Washington within less than an hour of putting on a Washington hat in a press conference broadcast live on the web, or LaMont “Momo” Jones sets what just might be a record by moving from Arizona to Iona this offseason: for being the only known top-100 prospect to jump between three high schools, commit to four colleges, and transfer once he was in college.
Brett Friedlander (WilmingtonStarNews)
Wolfpack shouldn’t panic over Graham’s decommitment
Mark Gottfried hit the ground running after being hired as N.C. State’s new basketball coach in April.
He convinced star forward C.J. Leslie into sticking around for at least another season. He offset the loss of point guard Ryan Harrow by producing graduate student Alex Johnson almost out of nowhere.
Then he made his biggest splash by landing one of the top players in the recruiting Class of 2012 in five-star shooting guard Torian Graham.
JP Giglio (N&O)
Gottfried linked to Donnan case
N.C. State men’s basketball coach Mark Gottfried was among several high-profile college coaches who invested in GLC Ltd., a retail company involved in an alleged Ponzi scheme linked to former Georgia football coach Jim Donnan, according to bankruptcy court documents filed in Athens, Ga.
Gottfried invested $250,000 in the retail liquidation company, according to court filings. Donnan is accused of using the company to run an illegal investment plan that netted the former coach an alleged $14.5 million.
Citing ongoing legal issues involving GLC and Donnan, Gottfried declined to comment Monday.
UNC FALLOUT
AP Wire
UNC Begins Another Season Of Turmoil
For the second straight year, North Carolina is starting the season in bumpy fashion.
The school fired Butch Davis as coach a week before the start of preseason practice, putting defensive coordinator Everett Withers in charge of a program operating under the weight of an NCAA investigation into improper benefits and academic misconduct. The Tar Heels also face the distraction of the school’s appearance before the NCAA infractions committee in October as well as possible sanctions.
All the players can do now is focus on what happens on the field.
ROBBI PICKERAL (N&O)
Caudill to chair committee to find UNC AD
A group made up of former North Carolina student-athletes, representatives of the Education Foundation, university trustees, faculty and administrators will recommend candidates to replace Dick Baddour as athletics director.
Chancellor Holden Thorp released the names of the 12-person search committee Monday, 11 days after Baddour announced his decision to step down to allow a new AD to hire a permanent football coach in the wake of an NCAA investigation that revealed academic misconduct and impermissible benefits in the program.
“This search committee represents the full range and balance of perspectives and backgrounds we need to identify the best candidates for the job,” Thorp said in a prepared statement. “The committee’s charge is to find an experienced leader committed to academic success and competitive excellence in men’s and women’s athletics.”
Robbi Pickeral (N&O)
‘Blue Zone’ fans seeing red at UNC
The issue, according to Brown: Why was Davis terminated just nine days before fall practice, after repeated statements over the past year supporting him as coach? He said the group might explore legal action depending on the information it receives.
“I can tell you, everybody that we represent is furious about the timing of Butch Davis’ firing,” Brown said. “They feel like their investment was based on Butch Davis being the head coach … and the public reassurances over the past year that he would remain the coach. … They want answers.”
Steve Wieberg (USA TODAY)
NCAA retreat set to tackle several critical reform issues
“I have little interest — in fact no interest — in simply having conversations for their own sake,” says Emmert, who moved from the president’s office at the University of Washington to the NCAA last October. “If we can’t convert these conversations into some serious action, then the retreat won’t have been a success.”
Says Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford, “I don’t look forward and see status quo.
“I think it’s too early to define where it’s going, whether it’s in the area of compliance, (expanding scholarships to cover) full cost of attendance or the possibility of multiyear scholarships,” he says. “It’s more college presidents and athletics directors and coaches, as well as commissioners, stepping back and saying, ‘This isn’t playing out the way it should be playing out in the best interest of higher education and college athletics, and it’s time to make some adjustments.’ You couple that with new and fresh leadership at the top in the NCAA. That, to me, seems like a recipe for change and change in a good direction.”
