In a wide-ranging teleconference with reporters Friday morning, former N.C. State coach Chuck Amato (right) touted the program’s accomplishments during his tenure. Amato, 49-37 over seven years before he was fired at the end of the 2006 season, will visit N.C. State on Thursday night as a top assistant to Florida State’s Bobby Bowden.
-“When you’re building a program, your won-loss record, we won an average of 49 games over seven years. That’s an average of seven wins a season. That’s a lot of wins now.”
-“I was talking bringing a national championship, and why not? That’s the way it should be. That’s where excitement comes in. It doesn’t happen overnight. If Duke had fired Mike Krzyzewski after the third or fourth year? What a crime.”
-“There were games that came down to the last play that we could have won (in 2006, when N.C. State finished 3-9 with seven losses by eight or fewer points). And had we won that Wake Forest game (a 25-23 loss), we may have been the team to represent our division in the conference championship.”
-“I knew what was wrong. And it would have been fixed. But I’m not one that was going to fix things in the middle of the season. Because I’m not that way. I’ve been around Bobby Bowden too long and being the professional that he is and how he operates, and Lou Holtz, there’s right ways and wrong ways.”
-“I don’t hold grudges, because I love that university and I always will, and I’m just not that kind of a person.”
-“That’s my goal. I will be a head coach (again). And I feel like there’s going to be a team out there who wants a head coach to lead their program that has been through the wars and has got head coaching experience, has been to bowl games and has averaged seven wins a season in a very difficult league and raised excitement and energy.”
– Ken Tysiac
For more on this story, read Saturday’s Charlotte Observer
Friday, October 10, 2008
Chuck Amato says ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
As a student at NC State while Chuck was a coach, I was truly sad to see him go. And I was extremely disappointed at how he was treated by fans, the NC State Athletic Department, and the media. He is absolutely one of the nicest people on the planet and loved the university with all his heart. He got a lot of flack for his shiny shoes and sunglasses and never let it bother him. When it came down to it, he was a genuine person and coach who wanted the best for his team and the school. I still miss him!
I think Tom O'Brien is just too nice a guy for NC State and will eventually get run off like Herb did. Chuck was the perfect coach for them. Loud mouth and all about style with no substance to back it up. It's amazing to me that State fired him to be honest because he really is the perfect coach for them. Who else would give themselves a parade for finishing 4th?
Chuck would have turned things around if he'd been given more time.
Tom O'Brien is the football version of Herb Sendek.
Guys...
We all loved Chuck Amato (CA). Here's the facts though.
1. Without Philip Rivers, CA's first 4 years would have been losing seasons. Remember how many close games we won during those 4 years. Remember HOW or should I say WHO won those games?
2. CA could not keep quality assistants for whatever reason. You can't compete in Div.1 football without quality assistants. It's not only coaching but recruiting that the assistants bring.
3. There was an overall lack of discipline and structure. Too many penalties, too many mistakes.
4. We were on a fast track to becoming the WORST team in NC. Thank goodness UNC-CH was just a little worse. Even at that we couldn't beat them. ECU was beating us, WFU was beating us.
Tom O'Brien is building a PROGRAM.
He is creating a CULTURE.
When he gets it in place, NCSU will have a program that is competitive EVERY year.
The program will annually be TOP 25.
We will have some years where we will actually compete for the ACC CHAMPIONSHIP.
O'Brien is one of the top college coaches in the US. Those of us who know football can see the changes in our program already.
I would challenge you to do a little research and also find out some of the things that are happening OFF the field with the NCSU program. It's all good.
Go PACK!
sounds like chuck is still talking about how good his program was when he was at NCSU, the problem here is thats all he did, talk. even after we got beat by Akron, he was on TV sunday night talking about how good our team is. now hes back where he started and hes still talking about how good his program was at NCSU. Chuck the only thing you were good at was building stadiums, we definately thank you for that!
as for TOB, if you think hes too nice a guy to coach at NCSU then youre not paying attention. did you hear him say " Beck will be fine, as long as he figures out to throw the ball to the guys in the red jerseys" and after our first loss of his career to CFU " these guys have to learn that they arent as good as they think they are" chuck on the other hand would be pointing out the tackle the TE made on the DB after the pick. TOB will and is bringing the swagger back to our program and seeing how hard his team plays with 3rd string freshman is proof. some of yall sound more like tarholes then wolfpack!
well said, GO TOB and GO PACK!!!
Post a Comment