Discussions about the football team’s offensive struggles since the departure of Philip Rivers after the 2003 season have often been about his successors not being able to run the offense well enough.
In fact, four players — Jay Davis, Marcus Stone, Daniel Evans and Harrison Beck — have started at least two games at the position since the beginning of the 2004 season.
But Roman Gabriel, an All-American quarterback and ACC Player of the Year in the 1960 and 1961 for N.C. State, said the team’s struggles at quarterback since Rivers left can’t be solely blamed on the players.
“A lot of that has to do with not just the talent because I always felt that Marcus Stone was a decent quarterback,” Gabriel said. “But the way the plays were being called, they put him under the gun.”
Gabriel was referring to a system heavily built on running and only passing on third down early in the game, then airing it out in the second half.
He also said the offense under former coach Chuck Amato had become too predictable.
“If the continuity of play-calling had been better, State might have won a few more games. At times it was almost like, ‘Let’s try this play.’ There was no companion plays,” Gabriel said. “If you’ve got a running play, then you generally have a companion play so that that looks like the same run. But it’s a pass.”
Gabriel also said part of the trouble with the offense has been a revolving door of offensive coordinators. Noel Mazzone and Marc Trestman, respectively, were the coordinators in Amato’s final three seasons, a lack of continuity which Gabriel said contributed to the team’s quarterback woes.
Now that first-year coach Tom O’Brien has brought in his long-time assistant Dana Bible, the team is now on its third offensive mastermind in four seasons.
“With Tom O’Brien, these guys have got to learn a new system and forget another system and start all over,” Gabriel said. “But I think O’Brien’s going to do a good job because he comes with good credentials.”
Before this season, O’Brien had an optimistic outlook for the team as a whole.
“I don’t see any reason why we can’t have a winning football team,” O’Brien said.
But since then, the team’s quarterbacks have thrown seven interceptions — six of them by Beck — in three games, and O’Brien has moved Beck into the starting spot Evans held for the first game. The expectations surrounding the team are now much more tempered, thanks in large part to the quarterback struggles.
Gabriel said the team needs to get back to the simple game plan it had during Rivers’s time with the Pack.
“When Philip was here, it was much like the old [San Francisco] 49er offense: throw a five-yard pass and let them run 80. Throw a 10-yard pass and let them run 20,” Gabriel said. “But they’re not doing that now.”
He especially pointed out Rivers’s freshman campaign, when Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow called plays for the State offense and running backs catching passes was an integral part of the offense.
“You look at Philip Rivers when Norm Chow was here,” Gabriel said. “There’s been nobody better than Philip Rivers.”
