The ACC's new coaches all face unique challenges

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PINEHURST, N.C. -- The way Derrick Morse sees it, the ACC is much stronger than it is getting credit for following a season in which two of its most high-profile teams -- Florida State and Miami -- combined to lose 12 games -- and unlikely conference champ Wake Forest finished as the league's highest-ranked team at No. 18.

All you have to do, Morse says, is look at the upheaval in the conference's coaching ranks -- four new head coaches this season -- as proof positive the ACC hasn't taken a step back in any way.

"You have coaches getting fired and getting hired; it shows how tough the conference is," said the Miami senior center, whose team is among those under a new coach this season. "If you don't get the job done you're getting out of there because someone else will."

Monday, the changing of the guard was on display as new coaches Butch Davis (North Carolina), Jeff Jagodzinski (Boston College), Tom O'Brien (North Carolina State) and Randy Shannon (Miami) made their appearances at the ACC Media Days at the Carolina Hotel.

There are two rookie head coaches (Shannon, Jagodzinski) and two who have built reputations as solid, no-nonsense leaders (Davis, O'Brien). With each arrival comes a unique set of challenges:

• At North Carolina, Davis faces the tasks of instilling confidence at a program that has suffered through nearly 10 years of mediocre results, and he'll have to pull it off with an inexperienced group that has just seven scholarship seniors. Davis will also be monitoring his own health after as he continues to battle back from cancer.

He has energized a fan base that is usually thinking basketball by the time football season kicks off and has worked to build the trust of his players through example.

"His rapport is amazing," senior defensive end Hilee Taylor said. "From Day One he's talked and he's backed it up. You can tell he's a genuine person. He loves his players and we're ready to run through a wall for him. His personality is contagious. He's a consistent guy. There's not much more you can ask for out of a head coach."

Said Davis of his approach: "Players have to trust you. Part of that is the enthusiasm they see you coaching with."

Davis says he has finished his treatments, and while he says it's too early to say he's cured, he "has been given a full-go from his doctor."

Perception will be Job One for Davis, because with inexperience so rampant on the roster, Davis' first season at Chapel Hill will be about how the players adapt to him and the new system. Wins, it seems, will still be few and far between at UNC.

• O'Brien, who left Boston College after 10 years, brings a proven track record of winning to the Wolfpack after averaging 8 1/2 wins a year in his last eight seasons with the Eagles.

He takes over an NC State program that has had two losing seasons in the three since Philip Rivers left for the NFL, including a 3-9 record in '06 that included a seven-game losing streak (its worst since 1959) to end the season.

What O'Brien brings to Raleigh is an iron fist, a welcome change after the flashy bravado of Chuck Amato, whose last team suffered from undisciplined play, averaging 7.17 penalties a game (106th nationally).

"We've established the way we're going to run the program on what's acceptable behavior and they're going to have to abide by it or they won't play," O'Brien said.

O'Brien's exercise in orderliness has an objective and it isn't lost on his new players.

"It's intimidation on purpose," said senior defensive tackle DeMario Pressley. "He's just quiet and he gets straight to the point. He's like an arrow: there's no messing around. 'This is what I want, and this is how it's going to be.'"

With the Wolfpack largely picked to finish last, or close to it, in the Atlantic division, O'Brien's main objective is defying those expectations, and with his reputation for consistency, that may not be a far-fetched goal.