During the ACC Spring Football Coaches Teleconference Q&A, N.C. State football coach Tom O’Brien said he’s satisfied with his team which finished spring drills without any new injuries.<\/p>\n
“We only had two guys not participate, scholarship guys. That is the least amount of injured that we’ve had coming out of spring,” he said. “We’re looking forward to getting ourselves ready to play a great game against Tennessee.”<\/p>\n
Q. Coach, could you go a little more COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>Well, the program is COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Well, I think this is the Q. For those of us who are old enough COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> We think so. I think he Q. The spring prospect us listed him at COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Yeah, I believe so. Q. I wanted to ask you about David COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Well, that’s left to be Q. Is there anything he could do COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>He’s really humble Q. After the game Saturday, you COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Well, he’s in a similar Q. At what point during the off-season COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Mustafa’s on the team. Q. With Mike last year, 31 touchdown COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>Well, the thing that we During the ACC Spring Football Coaches Teleconference Q&A, N.C. State football coach Tom O’Brien said he’s satisfied with his team which finished spring drills without…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,81,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-n-c-state-wolfpack","category-uncategorized","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-81-id","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3725"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3729,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions\/3729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ninto the program and what your players benefit
\nfrom that experience and where you first saw
\nthat and thought that could be of help?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nsomething that we did two years ago. It was first
\nbrought to my attention. It was started up in the
\nNew England area, so I had some idea. Learned
\nabout Eric, a fellow Naval Academy graduate and
\nwhat he was trying to do with it. It’s all about
\nleadership training and team building.
\nI think it worked very well for us two years
\nago, so we brought him back and did it Monday
\nnight. We were on the field at 8:00 o’clock Monday
\nnight. Got off the field a little after 11:30, and were
\nin the pool 4:30 the next morning.
\nHe brings basically himself, who is special
\noperations, two other fellow Marine officers, a
\ncaptain and a major that were special operations, a
\nformer NFL player, and they run the team through
\nvarious drills and various team building exercises.
\nI think it’s a great experience for the team. I think
\nthey really enjoy it, especially once it’s over.
\n
\nQ. What did you come out of spring
\nball kind of feeling more encouraged about that
\nmaybe you were looking to learn about your
\nteam in the spring? On the flip side, what do
\nyou go into August thinking I didn’t see enough
\nof what I wanted to see positively in this regard
\nin the spring, and thinking I hope I can see that
\nin August?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbiggest thing we have to solve in August is the
\nlinebacker position. We lost four kids. We planned
\non losing two. Weren’t sure about Mann when he
\nwent, and then certainly D.J. Green was a big
\nsurprise to us. So not a lot of experience coming
\nback there at all. Have to play a lot of young kids.
\nHopefully coach Tenuta can get these guys
\nheaded in the right direction.
\nThe other position on offense is the wide
\nreceiver where we lost three kids last year that
\nplayed a lot of football for us.
\nThose are two key areas that we have so
\nsolve. I think we’re making progress in some other
\nspots. We spent a lot of time on the offensive and
\ndefensive line shuffling guys around. We have
\nexperience coming back at those positions, but
\naren’t anywhere near set on who is going to play
\nwhat position except with Wentz playing center.
\nSo those are areas that we have some
\nguys but we kept moving around and kind of happy
\nwith where we can be, then the experience with
\nsecondary showed up at spring practice with those
\nfour kids back there, that three of them are going to
\nbe three-year starters, and the other ones, a
\ntwo-year starter, going into three years, and their
\nexperience played out well in spring.<\/p>\n
\nto remember his father is an all ACC defensive
\nlineman, is R.J. ready to take that step on the
\noffensive line?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nhas NFL potential. We’ve kind of moved him
\naround. He’s played about every different spot on
\nthe line. He was a right guard, a right tackle and a
\nleft tackle. We’re trying to get settled into a
\nposition for him. But he has the skillset to play at
\nthe next level. I think that he’s going to need a
\ngood year this year to do it.
\nI’m glad he’s on our team. He’s got the
\nsame fiery personality and leadership traits as his
\nfather. He’s one guy that when we did the program
\nand the leadership drills the other night, he stood
\nout to this football team.<\/p>\n
\n313. Is that a good, comfortable weight for
\nhim?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nHe’s moving well. He had an injury last year where
\nhe had a floating body in the back part of his ankle
\nthat required surgery in the off-season. We
\nthought he was going to miss all of spring practice,
\nand he missed the first five days.
\nSo you didn’t see many ill effects coming
\noff the surgery with his ankle. He played through it
\nlast year, but he certainly looked quicker on his
\nfeet this spring than he did at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
\nAmerson and how does he follow up a year
\nwhere I think they said it was the most
\ninterceptions in a season by anybody in the
\nFBS since 1968. In my past experience, when
\nguys have big interception years early in their
\ncareer, they don’t get many after that because
\npeople won’t throw at them. Is that something
\nyou expect to see? How do you prepare to use
\na weapon like that?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nseen what teams do. I think that happened a little
\ntowards the end of the year, but certainly in the
\nbowl game they threw at him. He got his record
\nsetting pick and played one of the most remarkable
\ninterception returns for a touchdown I’ve ever
\nseen. Then he got the last play of the game.
\nI think that may be the case, and hopefully
\nhe doesn’t get frustrated. But if that is the case,
\nthat takes away a third of the field from a lot of
\npeople, which then helps us with the rest of the
\ndefense.<\/p>\n
\nbetter? I mean, he obviously had a great year.
\nCould he improve?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nabout the situation. He’s studied a lot. As far as
\ntechnique and the thing that we’ve talked about all
\nthe time, we want to be much better fundamentally
\nas a football team in the spring, not as concerned
\nwith the X’s and O’s and concepts, but as
\nindividuals our team improves.
\nThere was a laundry list of things that
\nCoach Reed gave him that he wanted him to work
\non: Back-pedal, breaking on the ball, those kind of
\nthings that maybe he looks pretty good at, but he
\ncan be a lot better at. Those are all things we
\nconcentrated on in spring practice.<\/p>\n
\nmentioned Rodman Noel and his athleticism. I
\nwas wondering what you saw that made you
\nthink he would be a good linebacker? And how
\nmuch can you expect him to contribute next
\nyear?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nsituation that D.J. Green was in last year. Both of
\nthem had played back-up and special teams as a
\nfreshman at the safety position. The way we
\nplayed defense for years is that field linebacker
\nposition is a hybrid\/strong safety\/linebacker spot.
\nHe has a lot of the same skill sets of guys that
\nwe’ve had there through the years. He’s tall. He’s
\ngot length to him. He can run. He’s smart. It
\nmight have been a spot if E.J. was there, we would
\nhave moved him to to start off as a back-up
\nanyway. But because E.J. isn’t there, he’s been
\npressed into playing a little quicker.
\nHe has the skill set that’s required to play
\nthat position. Just a question of gaining the
\nexperience and confidence to be successful there.<\/p>\n
\ndo you think that you’ll make a decision on the
\nstatus of Mustafa? What will happen with him?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nHe just didn’t make it through spring practice. I
\nexpect him to be with us in fall practice. If he
\ncontinues, he’s doing all that’s been asked of him
\nfrom that point on.
\nSo as long as he continues and completes
\nwhat we’ve asked him to do, we should see him
\nwhen practice starts in August.<\/p>\n
\npasses, 12 picks, and more than 3,000 yards
\nway above 60%. What are some of the subtle
\nthings he needs to improve on in his senior
\nyear?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nlike most is that he finished the year strong and
\nreally used the time from the last game against
\nMaryland. I think he threw five touchdown passes
\nthere in the fourth quarter to the bowl game. He
\ngot better in the bowl game.
\nI lot of the things we stressed to him from
\nthat point on was to get back, to set up quicker, to
\ndeliver the ball and be more decisive in his reads.
\nWe’ve carried that over into spring practice. The
\nthing that’s been good for him is we’ve talked
\nearlier about the experience of those kids in the
\nsecondary.
\nWhen you have a kid like that, he’s
\nchallenged Amerson all spring. Now Amerson got
\nhim in the spring game, but that’s all part of the
\nchallenge of going best against best. Both of our
\nsafeties are three year starters. The other corner
\nis a three-year starter.
\nSo he had a great opportunity this spring
\nto go against a good, competitive secondary,
\ngetting that back foot down, getting the ball out and
\nmaking good decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"