Thursday, August 13, 2009

Small dose of Glennon just right for Pack

Ever since Mike Glennon’s redshirt freshman season ended, his status has been a huge topic of speculation among N.C. State fans understandably excited about his potential.

The guy is 6-foot-6 and has a cannon for an arm. His teammates say he is even deceptively fast on his feet. He may be the second coming of Matt Ryan, who N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien helped mold into a fantastic dropback passer at Boston College.

Nonetheless, O’Brien has it right when he describes his plans for Glennon’s playing time. O’Brien says Glennon will play a little. The plan is to get him in for one or two series during the first half of the opening game against South Carolina.

A series or two in each game will be just enough to get Glennon the experience he will need in case Russell Wilson gets hurt and Glennon is thrust into action. If O’Brien uses Glennon any more than that, he will be taking his best player off the field.

After spring practice, O’Brien asked his assistant coaches to rank N.C. State’s top 20 players on offense and defense. After O’Brien compiled the aggregate rankings, linebacker Nate Irving, who’s now injured, led the defense followed by end Willie Young.

Wilson was the highest-ranked player on offense, and rightly so. The guy was the first-team All-ACC quarterback last season as a redshirt freshman. He threw 17 touchdown passes and just one interception in 275 attempts.

He made his most amazing plays – including a breathtaking, 29-yard touchdown run against Miami – with his feet. Even though he missed some spring practice because he was playing baseball, there’s no reason to suspect Wilson won’t get even better this season as a sophomore.

Even so, the backup quarterback always is a popular figure on campus. Glennon’s coaches have nothing but positive things to say about him. And fans are longing to see what Glennon can do because they have heard so much about him.

They will get to see him. But just a little.

That’s the way it should be, because Wilson is unquestionably the best player on the N.C. State offense.

Ken Tysiac

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wilson is too good to not play

they will keep glennon from tranfserring by saying he might play some.....but don't count on it.

i was at that miami game and wilson is a player.

Anonymous said...

Glennon may actually prove to be at least as good, if not better, than Wilson.

After USC, the Wolfpack entertains Murray State and Gardner Webb - expect Glennon to get about 50% of the snaps in those two games.