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O'Brien: Pack effort in scrimmage was "pretty sloppy"

By James Henderson, Pack Pride

Aug 7, 2008

Raleigh, N.C. — N.C. State head coach Tom O'Brien met with the media to discuss Wednesday's scrimmage. Here are quotes from O'Brien's interview from Pack Pride:

It seemed like pretty good days for Harrison Beck and Mike Glennon?

"I don't know that. We have to wait and go back and look. Statistics are statistics and when you play yourself you don't know who is in there and who is doing what. We lend some credence to it but it's not a catch-all, end-all.

"My comment is it was pretty sloppy. I think we had nine offensive penalties which was no good. Some of those stats wouldn't be there because we don't mark penalties off. It makes it easy for them to keep the ball going when you set it down and keep going.

"The same thing on defense. Even though we stopped the run a little better, we still have to run the ball a little better on offense. We stopped I think a good part, we still missed too many tackles. We've got to get that taken care of. "

Have fumbles and turnovers been a problem in camp?

"We fumbled the ball a couple of times today. The defense hit the ball and knocked it out which is good. It's positive for them. It's not good for the offense. I think the main culprits have been the wide receivers."

Did Toney Baker play ?

"No. He's not going to hit for a while."

Thoughts on Josh Czajkowski kicking:

"He kicked the ball solid today. We got him in some situations. His bugaboo in the spring was over 40 yards. He had a lot of pretty long kicks today and they were solid.

"They were good, good kicks. They weren't just eeking over the crossbar.  I think he had a good day kicking. He's been practicing well and kicking well."

Thoughts on offensive line's performance:

When you look at the running stats, you still got to be able to block people a little better and be able to run the ball a little better. That's still a work in progress. Once again, it's the first effort out of the box. We're still in school, we still have to take exams next Monday and Tuesday. This isn't like a normal camp. We're kind of feeling our way through this thing right now."

Did you like the physical play on the offensive and defensive lines?

"Yes. We hit pretty good. There was a lot of solid contact there. I think we were a little sluggish, a little tired, but there was effort."