I think ECU will have trouble with travel for some of the same reasons Ohio will- a game on a Monday afternoon, two days before Xmas, isn't very convenient. And also, they think very highly of themselves and look at playing "a lowly MAC team" in a bowl as beneath them.

(12-19-2013 11:32 PM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  

(12-19-2013 10:05 PM)NIUfilmmaker Wrote:  

(12-18-2013 06:05 PM)exCincy Kid1 Wrote:  ECU has average home attendance of 44K per game....over double any MAC school!

That doesn't mean they travel well, that means their aren't 400 local professional sports teams like in Ohio and Illinois to zap everyones attention. NIU travelled really well to the Orange Bowl, as well as ECU would I would guess.

What ECU does with attendance is impressive no doubt (and this is coming from a guy that cares little about attendance compared to on field product) but ECU does have some nice advantages playing their favor that does give them a nice hand.

As you said professional football took a long time to get to NC and it is not as big there as it is in older mid west areas like ours.

Probably more important however is the fact that most of the schools in their area of the AQ variety are rather lack luster in football for a very long time. UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, NCSU, UVA, and even Virginia Tech (until the 90s+) were not world beaters by any measure. Compared to the likes of Michigan and Ohio State they are nobody in the football world (at least in terms of winning and tradition).

I do not think though that any school could have succeeded like they have in this area even with these advantages so they are still impressive.

Going to 60k by 2016 as well

Thanks for the kind words.

...and now they finallly got out of the C-USA mess of a FBS newbie conference.

http://vimeo.com/82398788

(12-20-2013 11:49 PM)RustonCAT Wrote:  http://vimeo.com/82398788

Gotta admit, that was pretty funny. Nice little holiday video.