TheWolfpacker.com - O'Brien hopes for a break

November 2, 2009

Matt Carter
TheWolfpacker.com Editor

NC State head coach Tom O'Brien said during his weekly press conference Monday that he is hoping that a break will finally come his team's way after a miserable month of October. Click on the link to listen to Monday's press conference.

A transcript is provided below.

Tom O'Brien Nov. 2 PC (14:24)

What are your plans on the offensive line without R.J. Mattes?

"Andy Barbee will start off there at guard there. He ended up finishing the game on Saturday. We'll take Zach Allen and put him over behind him. Then put Henry Lawson behind Julian at left guard."

How well was R.J. Mattes playing? It seemed like he was having a pretty solid year.

"Yeah he was our best first-year guy, a guy we were really excited about. He's a natural tackle which is where he'll go back next year, but he helped at guard and he stepped in there, accepted the challenge and kept getting better and better every game. That's another one of those tough losses for us."

How do you work around the injuries?

"You can't work around it. You have to understand what's going on. The kids are fine. I think they are excited about the opportunity to come back home and play a football game. That's who you worry about the most. I think they've kind of accepted the fact they've been dealt a bad hand. There's nothing they can do but fight their way out of it, so we are going to continue to fight and play hard and be the best team we can.

"We thought it was bad last year. It's three times as bad this year as it was last year. It's got to end sometime before I die here. I don't know, one or the other. I hope I'm the next one hurt the way we're going. I'll take a hit for the team if it'll keep somebody else healthy."

Is there a date on his surgery?

"He has to wait. I don't want you quoting this because I'm not a doctor, but I believe they have to wait because they have to stop the internal bleeding because if they don't and it goes to the bottom part of the leg when they do surgery they got all kinds of other problems. That's what I was told. Take it for what it's worth. But it will be probably I would expect around the first of December I would expect before they do surgery. Generally it's four weeks."

Is there anybody that stood out in the FSU game that made progress?

"I think the two kids in the boundary corner, C.J. and Jarvis, I think they both as the game went on looked like they were much more comfortable doing what they were asked to do. I think that is huge for us. Hopefully we are going to keep the same group back there. Hopefully we are going to get better this week as we go forward.

"I think Dwayne Maddox had a little tough time going to middle linebacker which is understandable because all the reads are so different, but he gave us great effort this year. I think he'll be hopefully much better this week getting everybody lined up going in the right direction. Those are all things that we can take as positives for those guys out of the football game.

"I think a guy like Clem Johnson, I believed played his best game of the year for us back there. If he can build on that and we can build on it, maybe we can get, the biggest thing is to get consistency and continuity. That's been one of the major problems right now on defense."

Was the offensive line a bright spot?

"Yeah, and where you talked about the problems we've had on defense with consistency and continuity, we've had that on the offensive line. They've been getting better and better as time goes on because it's the same story. The more they work in concert with one another the better they get. Andy went in and did a nice job, but he's filled in before earlier this year. He's been in there, but certainly playing against Maryland, they've got two guys that are combined 640 pounds at tackle and a 255-pound middle linebacker so we're going to have to be pretty good up the middle on Saturday."

Can you talk about Alex Wujciak?

"He's the middle linebacker. They've changed the schemes. They'll blitz. They'll blitz more than any team we've played this year. That's their calling card. It's a tremendous amount of pressure, try to confuse you, takeaways, especially get you in a third down situation.

"Don Brown, I've known him since he was at UMass all those years, does a great job figuring out the protection and overloading you. They lead the conference in sacks. They've actually gotten better on defense the last two weeks, and now they've had an open week to prepare. Might look like 50 guys are coming at us come Saturday. That's one of the reasons why you would rather have the continuity on the offensive line right now."

Can you elaborate more on Jarvis Byrd's first game?

"I think he was excited for a kid coming out of Pahokee, Fla., to go to Florida State and play that game. I think he showed really good poise. He wasn't polished by any stretch of the imagination, but he competed. The one third down pass, a little too much cushion, but he came in, made a heck of a tackle and got the guy down right away and that's something that we need desperately out of that position. Hopefully he can build on that and we can build on it this week cause Maryland will test them deep. They like to throw the ball deep."

Did you try to come out and run the ball?

"We wanted at Florida State, with their explosive offense, was to try to control the ball a little more. We're going to have to run the ball a little more and keep the clock going. Toney Baker did a great job. Florida State, you can't block them all sometimes, you got so many guys up there, but they couldn't tackle him. I don't know how many tackles he ran through, but he had a lot of yards after contact. That was really big for us. I think he was the major reason why we had success in the running game."

Willie Young has not had a sack in three games, but he still makes plays. How well has he played?

"I think the strength of the defense is obviously the front eight guys. Willie, he's been about a step away all the time right now. Playing against good quarterbacks that got that clock in their head and get the ball away, which is what we're facing right now, generally that's what happens that you're about a step away. No quarterback is holding the ball on us. He's been close, but as you say he's been doing a lot of other things for us. He's got to continue to keep pushing and fighting. He'll get some sacks. They'll come."

How is the team's mental psyche?

"I think they've been fine. We all keep waiting for a break. Something good has got to happen sometime. We can't keep going south forever. We just got to hang in there, and as I say we got to circle the wagons, believe in each other and come out firing in all directions. There's nothing else to do. No sense feeling sorry for ourselves."

They've had their backs to the wall before. Can this team win out and be bowl eligible?

"Well that's what the goal is, and that's what we have to try to do. We get to come back home, hopefully we'll get some home field advantage and maybe get some home field cooking and maybe we'll be better. We need something good to happen for us."

Does all-or-nothing help or is it a burden?

"If that were to happen it would've happened last week because there was no margin for error. They went down and we fought as hard we could, we just wasn't good enough to win at the end of the football game. That was the story of the game. There's no sense not to go out and have fun and go play the game. We've got four games left. We have been pretty good in November, so let's see what we can get done."

Have they accepted losing?

"That does happen, I'm not saying that it doesn't happened, but I don't think that's happened here."

What have you seen from the defense that has you encouraged?

"Like I said we got better play out of the position into the boundary. We got better play out of the boundary safety, which has been two major areas of concern for us as we've gone forward. I think Brandan Bishop was getting better as a freshman. He's going to get better because once again it's important to him, he works hard, he studies the game. You can only get better if you do those things and it's important and you play hard.

"The Michel thing kind of threw us for a loss last week because we got to go with somebody in the middle and it's hard to play middle linebacker, I don't care who you are, what you are. That's a tough position to play because you got to get people lined up. There's much more thinking at middle linebacker than there is there is at the weakside linebacker. You got to line up and go to the ball basically. Middle linebacker you got to get everybody else lined up and then get everybody orchestrated and the gaps are different.

"Because we're going back and we've done it against a pretty good football team, hopefully we can be better Saturday. Maryland's coming in here and pound the ball like they do and throw the ball well. Turner, he's the leading ball carrier on the football team. They run a lot of quarterback stuff. I remember last year we played in all that run up there in College Park, but he made the run here that went down the boundary in front of our bench that kind of broke the game on us two years ago."

You are hoping for Michel to practice this week?

"I'm always hoping to get anybody back. I've been praying but it hasn't been working."

The defense got two turnovers after not having much in the last two games.

"Yeah we hadn't been getting any turnovers, especially against Ponder. He's thrown one interception all year so we doubled up on him. One was a tipped ball. We're getting closer, we're getting closer, we just got to keep fighting and get over the hump somehow. Certainly winning the football game will help that a lot."

Can you talk about the job David Cutcliffe has done at Duke?

"I don't think there's any question David's a great coach. I've known him for a long time, from the time we were both coordinators and he was at Tennessee and I was at Virginia. We've talked a lot. He went to Mississippi. God only knows why they let him go. He's a good football coach. He's got some good football players, too. That helps. So he's done really a fabulous job."

How remarkable is it to see the job he's done after that long stretch of being so bad?

"I think he's done a good job, but I think Ted Roof did a pretty job recruiting guys, too. There's some guys on that football team that they didn't have. They may not be playing the way they are. Thad Lewis has learned a lot in four years. He's taken his beatings, but four years later he's dishing out beatings, and that's all part of growing up and that's all part of maturity and that's all part of execution. He's in a good offense for him, and that's part of good coaching, too."

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