Okay, I'm taking off work today so here's a longwinded post for my pitch on why ECU should get the nod.
If the recent tectonic shifts throughout the landscape that is intercollegiate athletics has taught us anything it is that sitting on one's hands makes one weaker. Some conferences have too often been operating under the misguided belief that it is shrewd to wait for better opportunities than what's currently available. Predictably, in my biased opinion, ECU has better attributes to offer the Big XII than any of the other candidates.
Many of the so-called experts and pundits fail to simply look back at recent history. When Louisville, Cincinnati, and USF were brought in out of Conference USA back in 2003, many were calling for the AQ tag to be relinquished by the Big East. However, for the most part those schools were in the top half of the Big East's pecking order in football.
The brandishing of the P5 tag could do wonders for a team like ECU. In fact, ECU is a more developed and refined product then those schools were in 2003. Cincinnati was essentially a Conference USA doormat with ECU holding an all-time 12-6 advantage to this day. The ECU-Louisville series was usually heated and basically even over the years and USF didn’t even have a football program until the 90s.
Now, Louisville and Cincinnati have Big East conference championships and BCS bowl games under their belts while USF at one point rose to #2 in the national polls. Louisville is in the ACC, nuff said.
TCU has had a similar rise to success although it was more merit based in terms of what they accomplished before jumping to a 'power' conference. Nonetheless until they went to the MWC they were essentially on ECU's level (ECU was 2-1 against TCU head to head as C-USA members).
Notwithstanding all of the success attained by these 4 schools, ECU still has consistently outdrawn Cincinnati, USF & even TCU in attendance and on television screens and is almost right on par with Louisville in those two categories.
Just think about that, ECU still outdraws TCU despite not having as good of an on the field product here lately and despite playing C-USA & AAC teams over the last few years. One can only imagine what ECU (who averages nearly 50,000 a game in a G5 conference) could do if they received the resources and exposure that intrinsically accompanies P5 status.
I see a lot of posters talk about how USF, UC, UCONN, UH & SMU were once in a 'Power' conference as a method of persuasion to convince us that they may be more deserving of P5 inclusion or to show that they were more slighted by recent developments. What they fail to mention is that prior to the early 90s the CFB landscape was flooded with powerful independents and ECU was right there with them. We often played and beat many D-1 Independents in our region of the country like South Carolina, Miami, Syracuse, VT, Penn St., Pitt, FSU, WVU, Louisville, etc. In fact, we nearly joined a conference with many of those schools in 1990 that would have been one of the toughest conferences out there if it had come to fruition (see below).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Confe...conference
Many people would be shocked to discover that in the early 90s right when WVU, Virginia Tech & South Carolina were jumping from the independent ranks and into the Big East and SEC respectively, ECU actually had the better football program of those schools and was arguably the best football program in the Carolinas and Virginias during that period. ECU held a 4-3 series lead at that point against VT and had won two years in a row over the Hokies and ECU actually beat South Carolina 4 out of 5 times in the 90s (WV's Don Nelson led teams of the early 90s were nothing to brag about either). Moreover, the Pirates were just recently coming off an 11-1 season where they finished ranked #9 overall and had beaten the likes of South Carolina, Syracuse (a team that beat Ohio Sate and SEC champ Florida and finished #11), Pittsburg, Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, and an NC State squad in the Peach bowl that also finished the season ranked (a team that finished 2nd in the ACC that year).
If ECU had gotten the big break that the Hokies, WVU and South Carolina did back then it would be hard to argue that ECU wouldn’t be in a comparable position to where those schools are now. Before Big East inclusion, Frank Beamer was holding on by a thread with a 17-26-1 over-all record. Like Greenville, Blacksburg isn’t exactly a booming metropolis. Like Virginia Tech, WVU & South Carolina, ECU is a football first institution with a passionate fan base.
The old myth about media markets not being up to par for ECU is absolutely ludicrous and bogus and is really attributed to the misguided algorithms and philosophies of a Big East basketball conference that destroyed itself with such fiction and procrastination. If their logic was sound then the Big East would still be a 'power' conference and the SEC wouldn’t be one as it was founded by and currently thrives with football first schools, with rabid fans, in small southern college towns. Granted that many of those SEC schools are the flagship schools of their state with longstanding tradition but that doesn't change the fact that ECU has more longstanding football tradition than any other candidate and is exactly what the Big XII needs in order to grow revenue: a football school, in a new region, with tons of fans, that has a vastly underrated growth potential. It's not about what market you can claim, it's about interest level, butts in seats, and viewership in new areas of the country.
ECU already draws more eyes to TV screens then NCSU does in NCSU’s own hometown of Raleigh. ECU comes in as a close 2nd behind UNC in viewership in Charlotte despite having 4 ACC teams in between them and that city. ECU is the fastest growing institution in the state and is currently the third biggest university in North Carolina (i.e., lots of alums that care).
In the current NCAA landscape, football is the undisputed champion in terms of revenue and fan interest. The Big XII seems to be scared of the public perception that would go along with adding a few G5 programs. What their leadership is failing to understand is that instead of looking at the eagerness of teams like ECU to join as a weakness it should recognize that it needs a school that wants to be there that badly and that brings what Big XII football is all about: passion, excitement, an administration committed to do whatever it takes, and a traditionally solid fan base that is thirsty for football prominence and is truly already the best football program in our state despite the intrinsic disadvantages we face (we have beaten the ACC 5x in a row now including beating NCSU 2x, blowing UNC out the last 2 years and a win over VT). In fact we have a 9-6 record against our biggest rival NCSU since 1983.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Caroli...te_rivalry
No other eastern candidate can even claim to be the football power of their respective state and no other candidate has the history ECU has of consistently playing and beating big time programs over the last 25 to 35 years. We also have a long history with WVU (their fans love coming down to Greenville and we're the only G5 program that they have willingly played home & home over the years) and we would be the backbone of an 'eastern wing' that would generate more interest and money.
It's kind of crazy that ECU even has a legitimate claim of being the football power in a top 10 populated state 17 years after the advent of the BCS system that was created and designed to keep teams like ECU out of such discussions. The fact that ECU takes a backseat to nobody in our state is a testament to our large loyal fan base and is a true indication of our value and potential as a P5 prospect.
The strength is in numbers right now. The Big XII’s best option is to take ECU now and they should also bring in UC, UCF and Memphis.
What other option does it have other then to wait to be further picked apart by the vultures and scavengers that make up this post-apocalyptic Darwinist college football world that we are living in today; a system that violates the Sherman Antitrust Act by monopolizing America’s favorite sport with the primary goal of limiting competition (but we’ll save that rant for another day).
At this moment, the Big XII cannot do better then adding an ECU program that almost sells out every game, is about to increase its capacity to 60,000, has been to bowls 8 out 9 years, traditionally plays national powers tough, is in an emerging market, and has an SEC/Big XII-type state of mind, accomplishing all of this in a G5 world on the outside looking in. Just imagine what is capable if ECU gets to eat at the big boys table, we would certainly make a play as the predominant team in our entire region (Carolinas/Virginias) once again and we would bring much needed value to the Big XII.
