So Tom O'Brien comes out and says this:
"As I said to the team on Sunday, the first thing they've got to recognize is they're not as good as they think they are," O'Brien said. "I mean, a lot of these guys have an overinflated image of who and what they are."
Which prompts Section Six to muse:
Amato was able to permeate the TA McLendon attitude into every corner of the football program. Impressive. One might think that certain things take care of themselves, that events on the field will alter perspectives to the point where they better reflect reality. For instance: a seven game losing streak. An appropriately humbling experience, no? No. I guess the entire team was in denial last year.
I'm not sure the guy in red shoes and gaudy sunglasses can take all the blame for this. It's just possible the players over the summer picked up a newspaper. Or flipped to ESPN, or dropped in on a message board or a blog. Because no matter where they went they would have read things like this:
While I don't dare guess whether or not NC State sorts out its QB problem, the team has the overall talent necessary to be effective offensively, and I think there will be significant improvement on that side of the ball now that a new coaching staff is in place (now featuring less incompetence!). NC State was more unlucky than it was bad in 2006, so if it can manage a more reasonable turnover margin (which is likely), a winning season and a bowl game are possible.
Those were the common themes - the coaches were awful, the team was talented, if luck had gone their way things would be different. If you keep hearing that why woudn't you think a 2006-level effort would reap rewards in 2007?