Picking on Preseason Predictions
The adage you can’t teach an old dog new tricks is bunk. I’m living proof of it. I’m every bit as old as most old-dog sportswriters (I’m bearing down hard on birthday No. 57, which in dog years would be No. 399) and I’d like to think in the last 10 months I’ve picked up this new trick of blogging pretty well. But there’s still an old-school edge to me that I don’t always see elsewhere in the blogosphere. For instance I’m big, really big, on available evidence. The more I know of a subject, the more I know what I’m talking about. I’m not always right, but I have a better shot at it when I spend my time around Wake watching practice and talking with coaches, players and fans.
That’s the reason I shake my head when the fans—bless their hearts, you can’t live with them and as a sportswriter you can’t live without them—go flying off the handle over calls made by a coach in a game. First off, I wonder how much actual knowledge the critic is working on. Are they watching the teams practice? Coaches plan practices, watch practices, tape practices and then watch the tapes of practices. Do they know people on the team they’re talking with? I know the coaches do. Or are they basing their opinion solely on what they see on Saturday afternoons from the 50th row on the 20-yard-line? This is not to say the fans are always half-cocked or that the coaches are never wrong. Coaches make the wrong calls, and occasionally they’ll even admit it. Jim Grobe is as quick to man up to a mistake as any coach I’ve ever been around. But I do know that he is working on as much available evidence as he can possibly accumulate, and I always attempt to take that into account when I judge the results.
The lack of available evidence is why I’ve never been much for preseason predictions. How can I know what a team is capable of until I’ve seen it play? When required by my editors at the Journal or a magazine I’m writing for to predict the order of finish, I do the best I can—which admittedly, isn’t very good. One publication I wrote for this spring asked me to pick the order of finish in the Atlantic Division as part of the assignment. I remember not being overwhelmed by anybody. I think Wake’s going to be good, but it might be too much to expect the Deacons to win the division a year after losing so much on defense. But every team in the division seems to have their issues. I’ve always been impressed with Tom O’Brien at N.C. State, and I saw last year how good Russell Wilson is at quarterback. So I picked the Pack to finish first, though, admittedly, that was before linebacker Nate Irving, its best defensive player, was sidelined by his car wreck.
Anyway, I picked State first, followed by the Deacons, Clemson and Florida State. When the magazine hit the racks, Florida State was picked to win the division. I was all right with that. I got my check. And who knows? Maybe the Seminole Wind will blow again. I’m just not sold on Christian Ponder at quarterback and I have to figure all the turmoil and distraction of the NCAA-imposed sanctions will be tough to rise above.
N.C. State had its media day yesterday, so I motored happily over to Raleigh to pick up some material for the cover story of our upcoming preseason football section. I don’t know Tom O’Brien well, but the more I’m around him the more I’m impressed. The man can obviously coach. Though he’s not as warm and accommodating as Grobe—what college coach is?—he’s got a wry sense of humor that can lighten up the mood of a room. And he’s pretty straight with his answers.
I took the occasion to ask him if he saw the same parity in the division as others apparently do.
“It’s tough to pick,’’ O’Brien said. “We went through this, `pick who you’re going to play, and pick this and pick that.’ The problem is picking teams, as you know—I don’t even know what team I’m going to have to play South Carolina (in the opener on Sept. 3). I didn’t know what team I had the third or fourth or fifth week of the season last year. So the key to everybody is to stay healthy. I think when you look at them, they probably pick the teams that have quarterbacks coming back, and that would be a great choice to start with.’‘
Translation: It beats me.