You’ve read the headline, so you know where I’m going with this. But before I go any further, I just want to say how sad I think this situation is. I am not detached from the reality that an entire staff could be about to lose its job, which will have an enormous impact on hundreds of family members during the holiday season. I’ll always be a human first and a sports writer second, and if N.C. State makes a coaching change, I understand how upset — how devastated — so many people will be. Like I said, this is a sad, sad situation.
With that said, it’s time for this University to move past coach Chuck Amato.
Amato is a brilliant defensive-line coach, a pretty good recruiter, a damn good fund raiser but a failure as a head coach. He’s a failure at managing the longevity and well-being of a major football program. How — in the seventh year of a coach’s tenure — does he lose to a 1-9 rival football team and expect to keep his job? Anyone who can answer that for me, my contact information is at the bottom of this column.
We can sit around and listen how Amato has built tremendous facilities and how they will soon produce a winning team on the field. We can sit around and listen how Amato promises he has great recruits coming up. We can sit around and listen to how “close” Amato and the Wolfpack are to winning football games.
Or we can call it like it is.
The University’s athletics director is named Lee Fowler, not Chuck Amato, and the AD gets credit for building new facilities. Surely no one credits Amato with the renovations a t Doak Field or Paul Derr Track.
Amato promises he has a great recruiting class coming in. No, not an excuse. In fact, it’s a bad excuse. State’s players are too good to have a 3-8 record. Any program in America would love to have Darrell Blackman, Tank Tyler, Toney Baker, Andre Brown, DeMario Pressley or Leroy Harris, to name only a few. And State is 3-8? Give me a break.
And our coach keeps telling us how “close” his team is to breaking through and winning, while, at the same time, it shoots itself with mindless penalties and silly turnovers.
Amato all but admitted he couldn’t coach this weekend when asked why his team still has so many penalties.
“I don’t know why,” he said. “You know what, there is no one who works on them [penalties] more than we do.”
Well, unfortunately, that means the coach’s message either isn’t clear or he can’t communicate with his players. If he says he’s spending more time on penalties than any other coach in America — and he’s still failing — that should be a massive red flag to the powers that be.
Before the University grants Amato another year, it needs to consider if it really wants the media circus that would be next season. The coach is already terrible with the media. Think about the terrible press that would surround our University if this team goes through this again.
At some point, someone within the University has to hold Amato accountable. Pretty buildings with fancy names are only going to placate fans and big-money donors for so long. It’s time for a winner on the field. It’s time for N.C. State to move toward the elite status Amato promised when he took over.
He has done some admirable things. He legitimated Pack football. He proved it could contend in the ACC. But since the departure of offense — I mean Philip Rivers — from Raleigh, State football has been mediocre.
It’s time, State students.
It’s time, State donors.
It’s time, coach Fowler.
It’s time, Chancellor Oblinger.
Amato must go.
You may contact Tanner Kroeger at sports@technicianonline.com or at 919.515.2411.