N.C. State: A Long Way to Go

A glum Tom O'Brien walked into the press room at Carter-Finley Stadium after the 42-20 drubbing by Clemson that really wasn't that close. He said point blank what everybody knows.

"We're not a very good football team. It's pretty obvious after today," O'Brien said. "We've got to face the fact."

I thought State could be pretty good this season – not great, but pretty good. But after watching them get walloped by Clemson on Saturday, I'm not sure that another 3-9 might not be on the way. Improvement must come double-time, or that may be a reality. Eight straight league losses is hard for State's rabid fan base to take.

Clemson is good, make no mistake about that. They were fun to watch. James Davis and C.J. Spiller are as good as they come, and Cullen Harper looks poised and comfortable at quarterback. The Tigers defense is quick. Clemson's going to beat a lot of teams.

But they may not beat teams the way they beat State. Saturday's loss makes it even more evident why Chuck Amato had to go as coach. The State program was rolling like a boulder down hill under his leadership, and he wasn't the coach to change that.

For all the talk about his recruiting classes, Amato (and one thing he was very good at doing was building the hype) did not leave O'Brien with as much talent as was believed, and I'll admit I bought into it.

State can't run the ball because the offensive line can't block. Just like last year. And if O'Brien, whose B.C. teams were known for offensive line play, can't get this improved, no one can. And of course since Philip Rivers left, the quarterback play has been erratic if not worse than that.

So State can't run the ball, and on the other side the defense can't stop the run. They surely couldn't Saturday. Clemson ran roughshod.

Senior Darrell Blackman who seems to be one of State's few offensive weapons on the occasion that he touches the ball, said in a very candid conversation following the game that some of his teammates don't listen to the coaches and try to get by on raw talent alone. But there another problem, too: the players left over from the Amato era just aren't as good as they think they are.

Their raw talent is just not good enough to get by. O'Brien knows that, he said it after the loss to Central Florida.

O'Brien left a potential ACC champion at Boston College to come to State. He believes there's a bigger upside in Wolfpack land, and I think in the long run, he's right.

It took him a couple of years at B.C. to get that program on an upward trend, and eventually he will do that at State. That I do believe.

But he needs HIS players. He said it Saturday. He has to recruit. He said players were in the right position many times against the Tigers but just couldn't make plays. That means talent is just not there.

O'Brien knows what it takes to build a winner. If he could do it at B.C. he can do it at State. But he's finding out that while State's upside may be great down the road, short-term it's not going to be easy. I think he knew this in spring practice, but four games in September have made that perfectly evident.

But the start of a foundation must be built this season. There are still eight games to play, and O'Brien will have to put each brick in place one at a time. He is finding out who wants to play the way he wants to play and who doesn't. You know the old saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day."

It wasn't, and neither will this chapter of N.C. State football.

No miracle here. No packing for a bowl game in December.