Thursday, October 16, 2008

No rallying cry this time for Pack


N.C. State went 4-2 in the second half of the 2007 season.

After a 1-5 start, coach Tom O'Brien (above, in headset) used the final six games as a "new season," a rallying cry to motivate his team.

The wipe-the-slate-clean approach worked, to a certain extent, for O'Brien in 2007 but he won't be going back to it this season.

Even though the situations are similar: State's 2-4 and, like last year, is coming off a bye before the start of the second half of the season.

"We're 3 minutes away from being a 3-3 football team," O'Brien said.

Last season, O'Brien was able to use the bye week to bench some players on defense and inject new life into the lineup, given the number of injuries and available scholarship players (46), O'Brien said there is no opportunity for a shakeup.

He'll skip the second-half slogans, too.

"Our rallying cry is to get better each and every week," he said.

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