Coming off an emotional win over powerful Florida State, you’d think NC State would just want to heal up and get ready for the next opponent. But Coach Tom O’Brien wants to use the time wisely… and work on each individual player.

“We’ll coach everybody, scout team guys, the guys that are red shirt freshmen that — or the freshmen we’re looking to red shirt,” O’Brien said but he admits the week will also be about getting healthy. “The key to us is trying to get some guys healthy and back. We lost Forrest West for the season probably on Saturday night with a broken ankle, so he and Zach Allen both are now out for the year. Just try to get to be a better football team this week.”

Having lost to Miami and then beating Florida State, it’s been an emotional couple of weeks. Is O’Brien worried about that roller coaster ride taking its toll on the players?

“I would be if we had to play this weekend, but thank goodness we don’t,” he said. “Hopefully we can get off that and be solid the rest of the way. Certainly you would like to think that this win will give us a lot of confidence, but we’ve got six conference games left. Each game we treat as we’re playing for the Conference Championship. We’ve put ourselves back into the race by beating Florida State. I think that we can be, with our senior leadership, hopefully not be so up and down.”