By Joedy McCreary
Associated Press
RALEIGH ó North Carolina State tight end Anthony Hill was surprised he had to catch passes from just three quarterbacks.
“There are three quarterbacks competing?” Hill asked Saturday. “I thought we had five quarterbacks.”
Until recently, there were five players in the mix to start for the Wolfpack’s most important position. But that was before coach Tom O’Brien whittled the field down to a three-man race between senior Daniel Evans, redshirt freshman Russell Wilson and freshman Mike Glennon.
While the second-year coach anticipates a resolution in the coming few days ó ideally, he said, by Wednesday’s intrasquad scrimmage ó the muddled situation speaks to a painful reality for N.C. State: There are no Philip Riverses left in Raleigh. If there were, he would have emerged by now.
“Whenever you do this, you always hope that somebody would stand out and grab the situation and run away from the other person,” O’Brien said. “But that really hasn’t happened right now. It’s probably not the most ideal thing.
“It’s always better if you have somebody that takes control of the position, whether it be quarterback, tight end, defensive back, whatever.”
O’Brien won’t even hint at whether there’s anything resembling a leader yet.
“Flip a coin. You’ll need three coins,” he quipped.
All that’s certain so far is who won’t be the starter later this month at South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium. Earlier in the week, O’Brien decided that neither Nebraska transfer Harrison Beck nor sophomore Justin Burke did enough to stay in the race.
That likely means the bulk of practice time will go to Evans, who started parts of the past two seasons, and to the two first-year players.
Evans also led the Pack’s four-game winning streak late last season, which temporarily had N.C. State thinking about a bowl berth. Wilson’s redshirt was preserved in 2007. Glennon was one of the jewels of O’Brien’s recruiting class in February and is the younger brother of Virginia Tech quarterback Sean Glennon.
“All five of us were getting reps, and every rep, you had to perform because you knew that every rep was being examined by the coach and every rep mattered,” Glennon said.
Evans burst onto the scene as a sophomore in 2006, beating nationally ranked Boston College and Florida State in his first two career starts, then threw for 2,030 yards in 12 games last season with 12 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
“He has a much better knowledge of the offense than the other two because he’s been in it,” O’Brien said. “You can see it in his execution.
“What he’s been doing looks like a guy that’s played the game of football in our system,” he added. He said the other two are “young and very talented, but maybe they’re looking right when they should be looking left.”
Still, Evans insisted he isn’t frustrated by having to again compete for the job he previously had claimed twice.
“It is what it is. You can’t really do anything about it,” Evans said. “No real added motivation, I don’t think. I’m approaching it the same way as I had two years ago when I never really had any substantial snaps at all.”