Coming off one of the most productive seasons in school and ACC history, NC State quarterback Mike Glennon still gets plenty of questions about the Wolfpack’s upcoming season. Most are about the opener against Tennessee or who he’ll throw the ball to with three of his top five targets gone from last year’s 8-5 team.
But questions about Russell Wilson, Glennon’s predecessor who transferred and led Wisconsin to the Big Ten title and the Rose Bowl?
“Who?” Glennon asked.
Yep, there are fewer of those, to the point that Glennon can joke about it. Wilson’s public split with coach Tom O’Brien in Feb. 2011 was a big deal last season, Glennon’s first as the starter after a three-year wait. But not this year.
“Yeah, it will definitely be different,” Glennon said. “Just to get that over with this past year and not have to worry about it this upcoming year.”
Glennon was never preoccupied with Wilson’s exit; neither was O’Brien, who decided last spring that two seasons of Glennon as the starter would be better than one from Wilson, who ended up being an All-Big Ten selection for Wisconsin.
Glennon actually graduated last May and could have transferred, like Wilson, and started elsewhere for two seasons.
“There were no distractions for us, it was (the media) that were distracted,” O’Brien said.
Glennon put away any doubts about his game by leading the Wolfpack to an 8-5 record, after a 2-3 start, and a second straight bowl win. His 31 touchdown passes rank second in school history, behind Philip Rivers, and he joined Rivers and Wilson as the only quarterbacks in school history with 30 touchdowns and 3,000 yards (he finished with 3,054).
Glennon was particularly good at the end of the season, with 11 touchdowns and only two interceptions in the final three games — an upset of ACC champion Clemson, the school-record comeback over Maryland and the Belk Bowl win over Louisville.
Against Maryland, he threw for a school-record five touchdowns and led a 27-point comeback in a 56-41 win.
O’Brien, who projects Glennon as the latest in the line of NFL quarterbacks he has coached, was impressed with the strides Glennon made during the spring.
“He’s no longer worried about anything (with the offense) because he has played it; he knows it; he understands it,” O’Brien said. “He can spend more time on the little things and the fundamentals that can make a better quarterback.”