A few years ago, when Chuck Amato was Jerricho Cotchery’s head coach at North Carolina State, he told NFL teams the wideout had enough speed to make plays downfield, despite concerns to the contrary.
“Every time we throw the ball downfield, for some reason, for a slow guy, he comes down with the football all the time,” Amato said he told those teams.
Amato coached Cotchery, now in his sixth season with the Jets, and quarterback Philip Rivers, now a Pro-Bowler with San Diego, for all four of their years at N.C. State. This weekend, Amato’s two former players will face off in San Diego when the Jets play the Chargers for the right to head to the AFC title game.
Amato, who coached the Wolfpack for seven years and then spent the last three as an assistant at Florida State, is at least happy they won’t have to be on the field going head-to-head.
“Good thing they both play offense — personally they’re not going against each other,” he told The Post in a phone interview yesterday. “I’m going to root for San Diego when they’re on offense and I’m going to root for the Jets when they’re on offense.”
Too bad Amato didn’t have an opposing quarterback and receiver in last Sunday’s 51-45 overtime thriller between the Cardinals and Packers.
Amato recalled how quickly Rivers rose on the N.C. State depth chart.
“He was the leader of the offense at the end of [his first] spring,” Amato said, “and at the end of our summer workouts, he was the leader of our football team.”
As for Cotchery, Amato said he told NFL teams something else about the receiver, who, like Rivers, was drafted in 2004: “If you don’t take him, you don’t want to win. The kid is a winner. He is an absolute winner and if you don’t take him, he’ll go somewhere and he’ll beat you.”
As he’ll try to do to the Chargers — and to Amato’s other former star — on Sunday.