For those of you who watched the NC State vs Duke hoops game at the RBC Center this past Saturday, you for sure saw one of the 8 times ABC showed new football coach Tom O’Brien flanked by NFL QB Chris Simms and his younger brother and college recruit Matt Simms. The first time ABC panned to the coach, there was no commentary other than Musberger saying “There is new football coach, Tom O’Brien” with what looked like to be his 2 sons. But if you are football fan, you probably recognized the Simms boys. The second time, a few minutes later, when ABC showed Coach O’Brien, they also threw labels on the Simm’s boyz which was walking the fine line of a recruiting violation. Announcing the presence of a recruitable athlete during a visit to a school is against NCAA rules. Now I’m sure NC State didn’t tell ABC to put O’Brien and Simms on the TV or the Video board, but if it somehow came out that they did, than someone is getting a spanking. Just thought I’d share.

Matt Simms who was supposed to go to Louisville, changed his mind when Coach Petrino left for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and is now being recruited again. Its not likely he ends up at NC State but its good to see coach O’Brien, who recruited Simms for BC, keeping NC State in the mix. Simms who is not rated as high as his brother (#43 on rivals), is not likely to go to NC State if you was me, with Burke, Beck and Wilson waiting in the wings and all being freshman, but its nice to see we are an option. He’ll probably end up at Oklahoma State or somewhere like that.

In another ABC related point. Brent Musberger sucks. How many times could he talk about the changing of the arena from the hockey floor to a basketball floor? I also loved how he quickly pointed out Dook was so young during the starting lineups, but passed right over NC State’s youth. At least Steve Lavin was giving NCSU a lot of praise, while Musberger repeatedly interrupted him with his “I bet you are sure glad you didn’t take this job” comments. I wish someone would have thrown a Chic-Fil-A sandwich at that chump, he was driving me nuts!