By Joedy McCreary
Associated Press
RALEIGH ó Moments after North Carolina State’s come-from-behind victory over Pittsburgh, coach Tom O’Brien delivered a sobering message to the Wolfpack: They’re still not a good football team.
“I believe we all agreed with him,” tight end George Bryan said Monday.
So much for winning solving all problems.
Yes, N.C. State has rediscovered its offense, scoring at least 35 points in three straight games. The defense is tops in the nation, at least statistically. And a three-game winning streak would seem to wash away the bad taste that lingered after a lackluster opening loss to South Carolina.But O’Brien isn’t happy, and neither are the Wolfpack. Not after a 38-31 win over Pittsburgh in which N.C. State (3-1) rallied from 14 points down but was penalized 12 times, then nearly gave the game away with a botched shotgun snap before the defense stopped Pitt inside the 10-yard line to preserve the win.
After the game, O’Brien was hard on his team and himself, opening his postgame press conference by saying, “We’re just not a very good football team right now. There’s too many mistakes, and I’m doing a bad job coaching them. Any time you have 12 penalties, and most of them were before the snap, that’s just a bad job.”
He didn’t back off of those strong words Monday.
“We weren’t a real crisp organization,” O’Brien said. “We were very happy to win the game, but we certainly aren’t a good football team if you’re doing things like that.”
Of course, it’s not unusual for coaches to be hard-to-please perfectionists. But while the Wolfpack certainly have plenty of room for improvement, it’s clear that they’ve been doing some things right, too.
Since the Gamecocks held them to only a field goal in the opener, N.C. State’s offense has found a groove. Atlantic Coast Conference player of the week Russell Wilson set a school record with 12 touchdown passes in the last three games.
The Wolfpack have the best total defense in the nation, allowing an average of 201 yards. But that stat is at least partly misleading because the schedule includes two games against outmanned Football Championship Subdivision teams Murray State and Gardner-Webb.
Still, those factors have N.C. State two games above .500 for the first time since finishing 7-5 in 2005, an unusual but welcome position for a program that in recent years has been plagued by slow starts.
“The confidence level is way higher,” defensive tackle Leroy Burgess said. “It doesn’t seem like you’re digging out of a hole, (instead) just maintaining what you have and keeping that positive energy and that drive to keep doing better.”
Next up: the conference opener at Wake Forest, who in 2007 became the only instate team to beat O’Brien in the two-plus years since he took over the Wolfpack.
“Certainly after winning the game Saturday, as bad as we played and as many mistakes as we made and still won the football game, we’re very cognizant of the fact that that isn’t going to work this week,” O’Brien said. “There’s a lot of things we have to correct and pay attention to, heading to Winston-Salem this week, and we’ll see if we can get them corrected so that we give ourselves a chance to win.”