A little sad in a way, no?
- Speaking of 1997 or rather the subsequent fall out in the form of Carl Torbush but did anyone see WVU blow it against Colorado last night? Bill Stewart was promoted to head coach at the behest of the players after Rich Rodirguez left for Michigan because that ALWAYS works out well. History has held and the Mountaineers are 1-2 so far with the last loss coming by way of exceptionally bad playing calling by the WVU braintrust depite having over two minutes left in a tie game and the ball starting on their own 20. Why you call two running plays for weak yardage to start that drive is a genuine mystery. All I can say is any low major coaches should get their resumes polished up because there is a job to be had in Morgantown in 2-3 years. For Stewart’s sake I hope he only gets fired once though.
- The Wall Street Journal featured Wolfpack Club director Bobby Purcell and discussed how NCSU beats out many prominent schools in money donated to the athletic program. What do they have to show for it in wins? Not much. This brings forth a rather salient point concerning the difference between the overall success of UNC athletics versus the constant mediocrity(or worse) in Raleigh. Like most things in life, throwing money at a problem alone does not resolve anything. An organization needs compentent leadership with a vision for success. As I have stated many times, Dick Baddour struggled mightily with the big hires early on but ultimately those mistakes were erased. Aside from that his leadership and management of UNC athletics has been above board. All UNC teams pursue excellence or someone loses their job. The general media and marketing operation is one of the best in the country. The NCSU adminsitration is blind as a bat in this regard and really should clean house to bring in people know what they are doing. Just another moment of pride that UNC is doing it right from top to bottom.
- Back to West Virginia for a moment. The Mountaineers are now 1-2 and look fairly ordinary. How does this change the perception of ECU? The Pirates were hailed as big time when they beat VT and the trounced WVU because people thought WVU was a top ten team. Now ECU struggled to beat Tulane and WVU might have issues making a bowl game now. Could it be Frank Beamer was spot on in his assertion about UNC being better than ECU? We will know more tomorrow. Also, the Big East sucks in ways I am not going to even try to describe.
- Let me say that should UNC beat Virginia Tech the fan should not storm the field. Yes it will be a big win but we should really act like we have been here before, because we have, it has just been 11 years.
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I always find it interesting how much pride State folks have in the fact that they pour money into an athletics dept. that doesn’t do its job. I’ve often wondered if they aren’t part of the problem. I know it would be hard, but if a lot of those fans simply stopped the cash flow, believe me, it would be noticed. How long do you think Lee Fowler would keep his job if suddenly alumni cut donations by 50% or more and let it be known they wanted a change at the top? Not long I expect. But does that happen? No, the fans keep doling out the dollars and smiling while the Pack keeps losing. Of course then they bitch and whine on message boards about it.
As a die hard Tar Heel, I think they should keep it up
I said as much in the comments over at 850. The fact the bottom line is flush with cash means the administration thinks Fowler is doing a good job because the win/losses do not ultimately matter to them. Never mind winning would increase revenue even more. I said good old fashioned market principles should apply and the big guns should demand a return on their investment in terms of wins and if not they will cut back their giving.
I wonder if the big guns aren’t just as bad as the administration. The folks who really get shafted are those that give a few thousand (or less) a year, which represents a significant part of their disposable income. And what do they get for that money?
This sounds a little like the financial crisis…maybe State Fans Nation should commission some negative campaign ads calling for Fowler’s dismissal
That whole site is basically an ad for Fowler’s dismissal, not that I blame them.
They are fighting a war they feel needs to be waged by someone. The media is not going to do it. The problem is they are too well connected in both tone and content to the lunatic fringe and message board mentality. That is not to say the arguments they make in this issue fall in that category but some of the other things they post, especially when they attack UNC or the way they go about criticizing other issues gets them too easily dismissed as just another group of insane internet fans.
If UNC beats VT tomorrow, I think rushing the field could be justified. It wouldn’t be that big of an upset, but it would provide validation that the program is on its way back.
Interesting that mine is the first comment NOT about NCSU’s financial paradox. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were obsessed :*)
Intelligent and analytical, yes. Obsessed? Not as obsessed with our rivals that we post on their message boards. When NC State is not playing UNC, I generally don’t have anything against them and will even root for them as a fellow state-supported school. However, the athletic teams’ records under Fowler (as posted on 850 the Buzz) are abysmal. Fire somebody already, if you want to be more competitive.
I have tried to offer some solutions over there at Statefansnation. I like the tri-rivalry here. It has diminished in regards to them, and I really enjoyed growing up watching competetive matchups between UNC & NC State.
What makes the Stewart situation really, um, “interesting” is the fact that WVU admins thought well enough of him to formally give him a six-year contract (for $800K this year and an increase of $50K over that every year after) after the loss to ECU. They’re not going to be able to get rid of Stewart without ponying up a pretty penny, and judging by the way they dealt with Rich Rodriguez, they’re probably not going to eat up a lot of that contract when it comes to firing Stewart early. West Virginia fans should get used to the misery and irrelevance UNC fans lived in when Carl was the coach here.
In the game last night, I thought Stewart’s problems were less play-calling on the 2-minute drive (really, all that team can do is run — Pat White has no arm, and the whole team has no receivers worth speaking of) than it was the way he butchered the clock at the end of the game, the whole punting thing on the previous drive when his team was in Colorado territory with the clock ticking down (and his defense playing well), and not changing the call to fit your personnel — on the most important down in the game in OT, they chose to run a vanilla sweep with their backup RB while Noel Devine, their best player, stood on the sidelines with an equipment problem. Just a comedy of errors in Morgantown right now.
P. S. – Colorado fans looked ridiculous storming the field and tearing down the goalposts last night — all they did was beat an overrated #21 team that looked mediocre in every way. That’s why I would agree that UNC fans shouldn’t storm the field if they (knock on wood) post a victory on Saturday — to the rest of the nation, we’d probably look similarly ridiculous, since our opponent is unranked and pretty much nondescript on the offensive side of the ball.
I agree that it doesn’t qualify a “storm the field” reaction. But, I can identify with the college kid’s reactions, and in no way blame them if they do decide to do this. This victory would be monumental for UNC. Not only do they beat VT, they also go 3-0, which a 3 game winning streak has been scarce for UNC, and how much more exciting is it to start the season as such.