TOB’s train was about to completely run off the track. He had three good things going in recruiting — RBs, DL and QBs. Kitchings was retained for a reason and the DL coach was snatched up by Clemson for a reason. The rest was bad and our steady decline in the rankings reflected it. I actually think we had a graduate assistant promoted to recruiting coordinator.
With the QBs, Bible’s had a track record of putting QBs in the NFL, so it could overcome some of our limitations (like you had to come to campus and throw to get an offer). I think his health issues had killed that QB pipeline. We were prepared to go into the season with Pete Thomas as QB and put him in the shotgun, fully conceding the run. No offense to Pete, but that was going to be an absolute disaster.
Revisionist history seems to forget that we had Archer coaching the defense. We were Swiss cheese and leaving 10 yard cushions on all receivers in our zone. The offense had carried TOB and it was about to come to a screeching halt.
That year was going to be a mess regardless of who coached it. I suspect we’d have gone 4-8 or 5-7 with a couple of wins after a bye week. The question was how far down that really needed to go before the cupboard was completely bare, that this was a total rebuild job, and it was that much tougher to get someone good in here. I applauded Yow for being proactive and dealing with that before it got worse. It was one her best moves as AD at NC State. I’ve never once wished for TOB back.
Now having said that, it took a special kind of awful to go 0-8 in the ACC during DD’s first year. We had serious talent gaps, but the staff didn’t play their cards well at all. DD also called out the fans and right out of the gate. I completely understand why many were quickly turned off and are highly reluctant to turn back on.
In life, people don’t get mulligans. They get second chances. Second chances are much harder than the first go around.
