Dressed in an all-black wind suit, coach Tom O’Brien walked from the practice facility to the Murphy Center, a distance of almost a mile, in the drizzling rain after Wednesday’s practice.
“This would be a great day in Boston,” O’Brien said, concerning the gloomy weather overhead.
The differences from his flashy-dressed predecessor, who used to be chauffeured back to the Murphy Center and would often cancel media availability whenever it rained, are and will always be fairly obvious. And with tomorrow’s Red and White game, another change in their styles will be in store when the team competes against itself in a game scenario.
In recent years, it was hard for N.C. State fans to follow the action in the Red and White game, with each team running a certain number of plays before switching off. Often it looked like the offense was getting far too many tries at a first down.
But this year’s game play will be more like that of a regulation game. O’Brien said he hopes that the realistic scenarios will help him evaluate his squad’s in-game performance.
“You can learn a lot,” O’Brien said. “They got to make the calls. They got to get lined up. They don’t have anybody out there helping them. It’ll be a test to see what they’ve really learned and how much they’ve retained and then what they do under pressure situations.”
However, there will be some measures taken that will be separate from the course of an actual game, mostly in the kicking game as the incoming junior college punter has not yet enrolled in school.
“We won’t kickoff. We won’t kickoff return. We’re trying to decide if whether we’ll punt. We won’t punt return, and we won’t punt block, but there’ll be field goal kicking,” O’Brien said. “So if we don’t punt we’ll pick the ball up and move it 35 yards.”
On Wednesday, O’Brien said the team had peaked in its intensity and had finally made enough progress on the learning curve to finish the scheduled amount of drills.
“This was probably our best practice of the year. We finally got through the script, which we haven’t gotten through until today,” O’Brien said.
“We finally got all the plays in and finished a couple of drills early. The pace of practice has picked up, which it had to. The intensity has picked up, and we hit a little better today than we had in the past.”
The new head man for the Wolfpack said he, as well as the players, has been looking forward to the chance to get on the field and compete in front of the home crowd.
“It’s fun for me because I’ll be standing on the winning sideline at the end of the game no matter who wins,” O’Brien said. “I just hope it doesn’t come down to a field goal kick because I’ll have to judge which sideline I ought to be on.”
It will give fans their first chance to see players in action such as converted tight end Marcus Stone and the ongoing three-man quarterback competition, which O’Brien said won’t be decided until August.
“It’s exciting for the players,” O’Brien said. “They like to play in a game. I’m looking forward to the crowd and everything else.”
