After losing to Tennessee in the first game, NC State coach Tom O’Brien says his team is ready to get back on the field against Connecticut.<\/p>\n
“It’s a very senior team on defense. They are starting seven seniors, and four or five of them are redshirt seniors,” he said during the weekly media teleconference. “Got a lot of experience on that side of the ball. I think last week they only gave up 53 yards offense, and didn’t allow UMass to cross the 50-yard line. So they playing great defense right now.”<\/p>\n
The Connecticut offense has less experience but they are experienced on the line.<\/p>\n
Q. Coming off last week, what are the COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>When you look back, Q. How much of that loss concerned COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>No, every loss Q. Coach, how has the attitude been on COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>I think they’ve been Q. With the start that David Amerson COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> That’s a good Q. I know some coaches prefer to go COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> No, I’d certainly rather Q. Does a longer trip like Connecticut COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> No, I think you know Q. Going back to Amerson, especially COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Well, I don’t know if it Q. Looked like Quintin Payton really COACH O’BRIEN:<\/strong> Well, he had a good Q. I’d like to ask you about Mike the COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>The last one was at Q. Are there particular things about COACH O’BRIEN: <\/strong>Well, as I said before, After losing to Tennessee in the first game, NC State coach Tom O’Brien says his team is ready to get back on the field against…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-n-c-state-wolfpack","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-81-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4212","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=4212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4214,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4212\/revisions\/4214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nareas of improvement you’re focusing on
\nheading into week two here?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthere are five big plays on defense that counted for
\nhalf the yardage, and long passes, long runs.
\nThose are things that we have to get corrected.
\nWe turned the ball over five times on offense. One
\nfumble and four interceptions. So those are things
\nthat we spent a lot of time trying to correct.
\nYou can’t take ten plays out of the game,
\nbut those ten plays dictated the final. So we have
\nto make corrections in those areas and give
\nourselves a chance to win here on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\nyou or do you look at it and say I think
\nTennessee’s going to be a lot better than
\neveryone expected this year perhaps?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nconcerns me. You have to be concerned right now
\nthat we had a chance to do something and we
\ndidn’t make it work. I do think that Tennessee,
\nthey feel they’re a heck of a lot better team,
\ncertainly, with that quarterback in there and their
\nskill level and the change in defense than they
\nwere a year ago. But that’s still no excuse for the
\nway we played.<\/p>\n
\nthe team since the Tennessee game?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nfine. They were a little bit down on Sundays. We
\ngot them back together and looked at the tape and
\nmade corrections. But they’ve been focused the
\nlast two mornings. We already practiced this
\nmorning. They’ve been focused a little better today
\nthan they were yesterday and they’ll have to be a
\nlot better tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\nhad last week, is there any concern on your
\nend about his confidence level or whether it
\nwill make him less effective as the season
\ngoes?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nquestion. Hopefully he’s going to answer that here
\nin the next couple weeks. I think one of the great
\nthings about it is if you are a great player,
\nespecially as a quarterback or if you are as a
\ncorner, you’re going to get beat. But you have to
\nhave amnesia and forget about it and come back
\nand play from that point on. So it’s a good lesson
\nfor him to learn, and we’ll see how he reacts this
\nweek on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\non the road because they feel there are less
\ndistractions and people prefer to be at home.
\nWhat is your feeling on that? Does the length
\nof the road trip matter at all? Connecticut’s a
\nlonger flight and a longer trip than a lot of ACC
\ntrips for you guys.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nplay at home. We have a great home-field
\nadvantage, we have a great crowd and our fans
\nare tremendous. I think we have a distinct
\nadvantage playing at home.
\nMaybe there are more distractions one
\nway or another. But certainly once the ball is
\nkicked off, I think home-field advantage is an
\nabsolute, especially as far as we’re concerned
\nhere at state.<\/p>\n
\npresent any other challenges or problems for
\nyou or does it not really matter?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nlooking at the trip that Duke has to take, I did that
\nat Boston College and had to go to Stanford. That
\nmakes a difference when you cross time zones.
\nThe furthest flight — and that was one of
\nthe advantages being at North Carolina and
\nBoston, we always took three hours or more flights.
\nWhen you take a flight and go three time zones, I
\nthink that really affects you playing and certainly
\naffects you coming back. I’m thinking Boston, after
\nwe played Stanford at 7:30 their time, we got back
\n9:00 o’clock Sunday morning or something.<\/p>\n
\nthe two big plays, was it a matter of him simply
\ngetting beat or was there not help that was
\nsupposed to be there? Was it a secondary
\nproblem as opposed to an Amerson problem?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nwas an Amerson problem or the fact that
\nTennessee’s pretty dang good. Their skill level is
\nhigh. Their play, they’re certainly a different team
\nwith that quarterback in there than they were at the
\nend of last year. When he was in there, I think
\nthey were averaging 40 points a game the first
\ncouple of games of the year last year. They
\naveraged ten a game when he was out of there.
\nSo I think he makes a big difference. I think it may
\nhave been more of a skill problem and them
\nexecuting than us not executing.<\/p>\n
\ncame through for you in that game. One of
\nyour inexperienced receivers stepping it up.
\nDid he surprise you had anyway what he did in
\nthat game? Do you think that’s something he
\ncan carry through the season?<\/em><\/p>\n
\npreseason camp. I think that’s one of the things
\nthat Michael (Glennon) is not afraid to throw the
\nball, and he does a good job and he did a good job
\nespecially on the first one that he threw to Quintin
\nof aiding the rush, which he hadn’t done a year
\nago. They had left him running wide open down
\nthe boundary. The best catch he made was
\nMichael threw it backside shoulder on a takeoff
\ndown the boundary, and Quintin went up and used
\nhis height which we’re used to seeing when we
\nhad Jarvis Williams here. So he has to give us
\nthat. I think not only will he now because it’s a
\ngreat confidence boost for him, but certainly for
\nMike that he knows that he’s got somebody that
\nwill go up and get the football like that.<\/p>\n
\nquarterback. The four interceptions are kind of
\nuncharacteristic for him. What kind looking at
\nfilm — was he making bad decisions or was it
\nthe pressure on him that forced those? Can
\nyou give us an explanation?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthe end of the game, so that’s a throw out. We’ll
\ntake that one out of there. The first one they made
\na great play. They baited him into it, and it’s
\nsomething he has to learn from and go to
\nsomething we can’t do. The second one, I think,
\nwas a bad decision. He didn’t see the whole
\ncoverage and didn’t recognize what was going on.
\nThen the third one was a great play. He may have
\nunderthrown the corner a little bit. You don’t
\nunderthrow a corner. You don’t underthrow a post.
\nSo we can do better at that.
\nBut I think two of them you have to give
\nthe kids at Tennessee credit too. They made
\npretty good plays on the ball.<\/p>\n
\nUConn that concern you that seeing on film, if
\nyou had a chance to watch much to this point?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthey only give out 50-something yards and shut out
\na team. Didn’t let them across the 50-yard line on
\ndefense. They have Paul Pasqualoni, who has
\nbeen a defensive guy for a long time, coordinated
\nin the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys and the
\nDolphins before he came back. I’ve known him
\nsince my days at Syracuse and Boston College.
\nDon Brown’s coordinating there. Their defense is
\nvery well coached. (They) do not make a mistake.
\nThey have one kid, (number) 48, the
\ndefensive end was a hundred-meter champ when
\nhe was coming out of high school in Connecticut.
\nHe gets a lot of pressure on the quarterbacks.
\nThey’ve got senior quarterbacks that play well.
\nThen when you play a team and they’re having the
\nsuccess they had. They had a new quarterback in
\nthere that kind of protected him, the junior college
\nkids that more conventional. Then they bring in
\n(number) 11, the wildcat who is a whole new style
\nof offense when he’s in the game. So they make
\nyou prepare a lot offense.
\nThose are the things that are a major
\nconcern. To be able to make you move the
\nfootball, make first downs and hopefully cross the
\n50-yard line against that defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"