Inside the O'Brien saga

What was Tom O'Brien thinking? For that matter, what was Boston College thinking?
The big news of the year in Atlantic Coast Conference football isn't the surprise championship run of Wake Forest - no, it has to be, without a doubt, the departure of BC coach O'Brien to ACC rival North Carolina State.
This kind of thing - one ACC school stealing a coach from another - just doesn't happen.
Which leads us to ask ... why?
It's easy to figure out State's motivation - O'Brien is a top-notch coach who has won consistently as a coordinator (at Virginia) and as a head man.
Why O'Brien would want to leave BC generally isn't hard to figure, either - as great as it is that he has been able to win there, the facilities at BC are below-standard for a BCS school, and you have to wonder about the commitment of the athletics department at the school to football, one, and the commitment of the fan base, two, to college sports in what is obviously a pro-sports town.
On to question three - regarding what BC was thinking letting O'Brien go. And let's not kid ourselves here - they're letting him go, if the talk about how they're interested in former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie (at a substantial difference in pay over what they were compensating O'Brien) has any validity at all.
Perhaps the school was not as impressed as the rest of us were at O'Brien being able to bring in eight or nine wins every year - and they wanted more.
I think we can all identify with that. Can't we?
I mean, that's why I'm writing this story - right?
- Chris Graham