Times are pretty good these days if you’re an N.C. State fan. And they could be on the verge of getting a lot better.
Known
for their long-suffering loyalty to the red and white, Wolfpack fans
have endured some positively awful basketball and frightful football
over the last couple of decades. The non-revenue sports haven’t
excelled, either.
Baseball has underachieved more often than not, and many of the other sports have experienced little success.
Going
back to 1994 when Mike O’Cain was at the helm, Wolfpack football has
gone 107-99, including 59-77 in ACC play, and finished nationally ranked
just twice. In 2002, NCSU finished No. 13 after winning 11 games – the
only time the program has reached double figures in victories – and last
season it finished at No. 25.
Chuck Amato’s penalty-laden,
on-field mediocrity and foot-in-mouth syndrome era eventually cost him
the job in 2006 after seven years at his alma mater. The base forked
over mega bucks to expand and renovate Carter-Finley Stadium, but it saw
little payoff.
But consecutive bowl victories in football and a
Sweet 16 appearance in basketball have changed the outlooks at “State,”
and for good reason.
Football coach Tom O’Brien struggled in
getting the ship humming after jumping to Raleigh from Boston College
five years ago. His last eight BC teams won bowl games and he had
coached several NFL quarterbacks, including Matt Ryan, who was still at
BC when O’Brien took the NCSU job.
Senior quarterback Mike
Glennon is a certain NFL prospect. The Pack has the ACC’s best
secondary, a darn good offensive line, and has the inner cycles that
make programs efficient is working in proper order.
The
season-opener versus Tennessee in the Chick-fil-A Classic in Atlanta
could springboard NCSU to one of its best seasons ever. That potential
is real.
On the hoops side, the decade after Jim Valvano left in
1990, aside from an NCAA trip the following year, was the worst in the
proud program’s history. N.C. State had become a joke in the ACC until
Herb Sendek at least made things respectable with five consecutive NCAA
trips. But he was run out of town after the fifth such year because fans
tired of his hybrid Princeton offense and numerous other factors. It
was time for a change.
Sidney Lowe helped lead NCSU to a national
title on the court in 1983, but he was a disaster as its head coach
from 2006-11. Apathy for a program that also won a national title in
1974, went unbeaten in 1973 (ineligible for postseason), claims the
ACC’s greatest player ever in David Thomson as well as the Father of the
ACC in former coach Everett Case had grown to a shocking level.
Since
1992, N.C. State has a hoops record of 357-310, including a rancid
126-206 in ACC play with six trips to the NCAA Tournament. This includes
last season’s 24-win team that reached the Sweet 16.
But Mark
Gottfried will enter his second season at the helm with a team probably
picked to win the ACC and as a second-tier Final Four contender. The
Wolfpack’s incoming recruiting class is ranked among the top-five by
just about every service, and optimism for N.C. State basketball hasn’t
been this high since the 1980s.
Then toss in the many Olympic
sports teams that are improving and the nationally-ranked baseball team,
which is led by a pair of freshmen, including arguably the nation’s top
pitcher in Carlos Rodon. The baseball Wolfpack is hosting an NCAA
regional site and is a dark horse to reach the College World Series in
Omaha.
Not coincidentally, many of these strides have taken root
since Debbie Yow was named athletic director two years ago. Yow proved
when running Maryland’s department for 16 years that she understood how
to cultivate a culture of winning and uniformity.
Fractured and
falling behind the rest of the ACC under its previous leadership, N.C.
State is now the athletic department collectively moving forward the
fastest. For a change, good times are indeed ahead for the red and
white.
