This ranks in the top 10 of dumbest things I have seen on this board, and that is saying a lot.

(06-30-2019 05:50 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 03:37 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 03:29 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 03:22 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Good point I should have known better than to ask an even semi-serious question about a troll post. That's my fault. I know the internet better than that. Carry on trolling.

troll threads seemed to be created after the UConn announcement not surprised.

Well just out of boredom I participated in this thread and mentioned that under a doomsday scenario for ECU where the AAC got gutted to the studs I could see ECU wanting to form some sort of east coast FBS league. Terry Holland talked about it for years so I don't think the thought process is completely idiotic. Of course, I know the whole start of this was to troll, and ken d being from Raleigh is almost certainly some sort of ACC homer trying to troll advocate getting ECU into a league with it's "institutional peers" and my mistake was asking that idiot a question about how he possibly thought leaving an intact AAC for that would help. That's my fault not his he was interneting properly and I wasn't.

You're not just rude, you're clueless. I don't have any one team I root for. I have fondness for a lot of them, but none more than ECU. I'm not "from" Raleigh. I moved here because I was lucky enough to marry a North Carolina native who was an ECC alum. Her family's ties to the school go back more than a century, as her mother was a grad of ECTTS in 1918.

There was no trolling here. I expressed an opinion in a hypothetical fantasy about where I thought ECU would be best suited. I don't expect it to ever happen. I believe ECU made a bad decision driven by fans whose motives were understandable, but IMO misguided and unwise. It's not the first time I've seen that happen to ECU. And if threads like this are any indication, it won't be the last.

Ken, the problem was that you pointed out how ECU has been declining the past few years and thus bruised a few egos.

ECU is in a conference with teams it’s been with for the better part of 30 years. It’s not like this is new. I don’t get the proposal.

(06-28-2019 07:07 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  Is it time for ECU to exit the AAC to form an East Coast Conference
1. ECU
2. UCONN
3. UMASS
4. ODU
5. Liberty
6. Charlotte
7. ASU
8. Georgia St
9. Buffalo
10. Marshall
***********

11. Georgia Southern
12. Coastal Carolina.

This is one of the joke threads, right?

The whole premise of this is that ECU has any leverage to do any of this or would want to leave the American for... whatever the hell this is. In fact, I don't think any of the schools you listed would want any part of this.

(06-30-2019 10:57 PM)Mister Consistency Wrote:  This is one of the joke threads, right?

The whole premise of this is that ECU has any leverage to do any of this or would want to leave the American for... whatever the hell this is. In fact, I don't think any of the schools you listed would want any part of this.

I only raised Marshall because at the MAC board we occasionally see various unrealistic notions rooted in the idea that Marshal SURELY MUST HATE their current conference situation, which in turn it mostly based on the optical illusion of looking at the CUSA conference map and all of those schools out west ... which ignores the fact that their Eastern Division is a perfectly fine fit and with division-focused scheduling, that is who they see the most often.

It's also not clear why Buffalo would take on that travel ... if they had the spare change for that, they'd probably be better off investing it in their BBall and FB while continuing with the much lower cost travel in the MAC.

(06-30-2019 08:42 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  ECU is in a conference with teams it’s been with for the better part of 30 years. It’s not like this is new. I don’t get the proposal.

I didn't see this as a proposal. I have no reason to assume ECU wants to go anywhere, and would be very surprised if they did. But the hypothetical was "what if ECU wanted to leave the AAC?" What would they want their new conference to look like?

In that context, I think they would want to be in a conference in which, if they won its championship, they would have a decent shot at an access bowl invitation. And if they didn't win, they would be playing and developing rivalries with schools in their region with whom they had a lot in common. The schools I suggested are all medium sized publics that will never be among the elite public universities in their respective states.

If it were up to me, I would also want to be in a conference in which I could be successful. ECU is proud of its football tradition, but IMO tends to remember the good years and filter out the bad. Over the past 20 years, they have won 48% of their games. In the 20 years before that, dating back to the FBS-FCS split, they also won 48% of the time. As AAC members, only 36% so far over five seasons. What will their 20 year average look like in the AAC? What does success look like for ECU?

(06-30-2019 08:14 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 05:50 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 03:37 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 03:29 PM)SuperFlyBCat Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 03:22 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Good point I should have known better than to ask an even semi-serious question about a troll post. That's my fault. I know the internet better than that. Carry on trolling.

troll threads seemed to be created after the UConn announcement not surprised.

Well just out of boredom I participated in this thread and mentioned that under a doomsday scenario for ECU where the AAC got gutted to the studs I could see ECU wanting to form some sort of east coast FBS league. Terry Holland talked about it for years so I don't think the thought process is completely idiotic. Of course, I know the whole start of this was to troll, and ken d being from Raleigh is almost certainly some sort of ACC homer trying to troll advocate getting ECU into a league with it's "institutional peers" and my mistake was asking that idiot a question about how he possibly thought leaving an intact AAC for that would help. That's my fault not his he was interneting properly and I wasn't.

You're not just rude, you're clueless. I don't have any one team I root for. I have fondness for a lot of them, but none more than ECU. I'm not "from" Raleigh. I moved here because I was lucky enough to marry a North Carolina native who was an ECC alum. Her family's ties to the school go back more than a century, as her mother was a grad of ECTTS in 1918.

There was no trolling here. I expressed an opinion in a hypothetical fantasy about where I thought ECU would be best suited. I don't expect it to ever happen. I believe ECU made a bad decision driven by fans whose motives were understandable, but IMO misguided and unwise. It's not the first time I've seen that happen to ECU. And if threads like this are any indication, it won't be the last.

Ken, the problem was that you pointed out how ECU has been declining the past few years and thus bruised a few egos.

No, it's that he thinks the AAC has anything to do with the decline. If we had remained in the extremely gutted C-USA and made the exact same personnel decisions (running off Terry Holland, firing Ruff, hiring Mo, extending Compher after it was obvious he was a failure) the exact same decline happens and actually much much worse since financially we'd be in much worse shape and really wouldn't have been able to afford to buy out of the mess we created. If we were still in C-USA right now Compher would probably have to be our AD still because there wouldn't have been the money to make him go away. Mo might very well still be the coach because there wouldn't have been the money to fire him. Attendance would have dried up even worse because the play would have been bad and the opponents even worse. ECU declined because ECU leadership failed, and the only reason all the failures were able to be cleaned out essentially all at once was because of the extra money being in the AAC afforded us.

(07-01-2019 07:19 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 08:42 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  ECU is in a conference with teams it’s been with for the better part of 30 years. It’s not like this is new. I don’t get the proposal.

I didn't see this as a proposal. I have no reason to assume ECU wants to go anywhere, and would be very surprised if they did. But the hypothetical was "what if ECU wanted to leave the AAC?" What would they want their new conference to look like?

In that context, I think they would want to be in a conference in which, if they won its championship, they would have a decent shot at an access bowl invitation. And if they didn't win, they would be playing and developing rivalries with schools in their region with whom they had a lot in common. The schools I suggested are all medium sized publics that will never be among the elite public universities in their respective states.

If it were up to me, I would also want to be in a conference in which I could be successful. ECU is proud of its football tradition, but IMO tends to remember the good years and filter out the bad. Over the past 20 years, they have won 48% of their games. In the 20 years before that, dating back to the FBS-FCS split, they also won 48% of the time. As AAC members, only 36% so far over five seasons. What will their 20 year average look like in the AAC? What does success look like for ECU?

That whole conference you proposed is an "ECU should accept its place" notion. ECU has never accepted its place and the second they do is the second I stop supporting the university. If they had accepted their place they'd have never become a University, never gotten a med school, never gotten a dental school, would have just stayed in the SOCON when the original 1A/1AA split happened, etc. ECU is with the schools with whom they have a lot in common with, schools that don't just bend over and accept the scraps they are given.

(07-01-2019 11:07 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 07:19 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 08:42 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  ECU is in a conference with teams it’s been with for the better part of 30 years. It’s not like this is new. I don’t get the proposal.

I didn't see this as a proposal. I have no reason to assume ECU wants to go anywhere, and would be very surprised if they did. But the hypothetical was "what if ECU wanted to leave the AAC?" What would they want their new conference to look like?

In that context, I think they would want to be in a conference in which, if they won its championship, they would have a decent shot at an access bowl invitation. And if they didn't win, they would be playing and developing rivalries with schools in their region with whom they had a lot in common. The schools I suggested are all medium sized publics that will never be among the elite public universities in their respective states.

If it were up to me, I would also want to be in a conference in which I could be successful. ECU is proud of its football tradition, but IMO tends to remember the good years and filter out the bad. Over the past 20 years, they have won 48% of their games. In the 20 years before that, dating back to the FBS-FCS split, they also won 48% of the time. As AAC members, only 36% so far over five seasons. What will their 20 year average look like in the AAC? What does success look like for ECU?

That whole conference you proposed is an "ECU should accept its place" notion. ECU has never accepted its place and the second they do is the second I stop supporting the university. If they had accepted their place they'd have never become a University, never gotten a med school, never gotten a dental school, would have just stayed in the SOCON when the original 1A/1AA split happened, etc. ECU is with the schools with whom they have a lot in common with, schools that don't just bend over and accept the scraps they are given.

I didn't "propose" any such thing. In response to other posts suggesting who ECU might want to align with if they themselves chose to leave the AAC, I expressed my opinion that they would be better served by aligning with schools other than UConn, UMass, Army, etc.

I never said moving to the AAC was the cause of ECU's recent decline. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that anything has changed that would make them something they have never been, which is an above .500 football program. If that's good enough for its fans, God bless them.

(07-01-2019 12:10 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 11:07 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 07:19 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 08:42 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  ECU is in a conference with teams it’s been with for the better part of 30 years. It’s not like this is new. I don’t get the proposal.

I didn't see this as a proposal. I have no reason to assume ECU wants to go anywhere, and would be very surprised if they did. But the hypothetical was "what if ECU wanted to leave the AAC?" What would they want their new conference to look like?

In that context, I think they would want to be in a conference in which, if they won its championship, they would have a decent shot at an access bowl invitation. And if they didn't win, they would be playing and developing rivalries with schools in their region with whom they had a lot in common. The schools I suggested are all medium sized publics that will never be among the elite public universities in their respective states.

If it were up to me, I would also want to be in a conference in which I could be successful. ECU is proud of its football tradition, but IMO tends to remember the good years and filter out the bad. Over the past 20 years, they have won 48% of their games. In the 20 years before that, dating back to the FBS-FCS split, they also won 48% of the time. As AAC members, only 36% so far over five seasons. What will their 20 year average look like in the AAC? What does success look like for ECU?

That whole conference you proposed is an "ECU should accept its place" notion. ECU has never accepted its place and the second they do is the second I stop supporting the university. If they had accepted their place they'd have never become a University, never gotten a med school, never gotten a dental school, would have just stayed in the SOCON when the original 1A/1AA split happened, etc. ECU is with the schools with whom they have a lot in common with, schools that don't just bend over and accept the scraps they are given.

I didn't "propose" any such thing. In response to other posts suggesting who ECU might want to align with if they themselves chose to leave the AAC, I expressed my opinion that they would be better served by aligning with schools other than UConn, UMass, Army, etc.

I never said moving to the AAC was the cause of ECU's recent decline. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that anything has changed that would make them something they have never been, which is a below .500 football program. If that's good enough for its fans, God bless them.

ECU is about to bounce back. One thing going for ECU is fan support. The biggest detriment has been leadership (particularly recently). ECU can write their own future and I believe the trajectory is a positive one now but ECU fans will have to endure through opinions like your own until it is proven on the field this fall.

ECU has always been ambitious and that has hurt the overall winning percentage (.525) at times, particularly in the 80s when we played FSU, Miami, South Carolina, Penn St, WVU etc. regularly and started leaving the App states, Richmonds & W&M's behind. Once again, ECU has been ambitious in joining the AAC but leadership is more to blame than anything else this time around. Ruff's 2014 team was as talented as any when it came into the league. ECU is now competent from top to bottom and is actually in a nice position to flourish in a rising conference that has created some buzz. ECU is in a very good position. With the fan base behind the school and all the renovations, money and facility upgrades in the works, ECU has set itself up well to continue to play a role in the highest levels of collegiate athletics.

(07-01-2019 01:25 PM)B easy Wrote:  ECU is about to bounce back. One thing going for ECU is fan support. The biggest detriment has been leadership (particularly recently). ECU can write their own future and I believe the trajectory is a positive one now but ECU fans will have to endure through opinions like your own until it is proven on the field this fall.

ECU has always been ambitious and that has hurt the overall winning percentage (.525) at times, particularly in the 80s when we played FSU, Miami, South Carolina, Penn St, WVU etc. regularly and started leaving the App states, Richmonds & W&M's behind. Once again, ECU has been ambitious in joining the AAC but leadership is more to blame than anything else this time around. Ruff's 2014 team was as talented as any when it came into the league. ECU is now competent from top to bottom and is actually in a nice position to flourish in a rising conference that has created some buzz. ECU is in a very good position. With the fan base behind the school and all the renovations, money and facility upgrades in the works, ECU has set itself up well to continue to play a role in the highest levels of collegiate athletics.

I agree that ECU is willing to take risks and to build a vision moving forward to get results beyond typical expectations. I also know you have a rabid fan base in football and have great facilities. However, all that synergy has to start translating to on the field results. As someone who had to endure the program killing hire of Tommy Tuberville, I believe the hire of Scottie Montgomery was similar in pulling the ECU program down but for different reasons. The American Conference needs ECU to get it going and I think you guys can. With the bottom feeder UConn out the door after next season, that just improved our overall conference strength. If ECU starts getting competitive and improving the win totals then that only makes our conference that much stronger. I remain hopeful for the best.

Why in the world would we even consider that?

(07-01-2019 05:28 PM)Mikeyp Wrote:  Why in the world would we even consider that?

After being in a conference that has been rejected by Boise, BYU, UCONN, Army, Air Force, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, & Providence, I just thought With ECU’s leadership they could build an East Coast Conference. My bad.

(07-01-2019 09:42 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 05:28 PM)Mikeyp Wrote:  Why in the world would we even consider that?

After being in a conference that has been rejected by Boise, BYU, UCONN, Army, Air Force, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, & Providence, I just thought With ECU’s leadership they could build an East Coast Conference. My bad.

Proud of Charlotte for buying their first football jock strap last year. There is a better chance of ECU dropping football and joining the big east as a basketball only member than the op

(07-01-2019 09:53 PM)TheBigEastSucks Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 09:42 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 05:28 PM)Mikeyp Wrote:  Why in the world would we even consider that?

After being in a conference that has been rejected by Boise, BYU, UCONN, Army, Air Force, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, & Providence, I just thought With ECU’s leadership they could build an East Coast Conference. My bad.

Proud of Charlotte for buying their first football jock strap last year. There is a better chance of ECU dropping football and joining the big east as a basketball only member than the op

I'm impressed Charlotte's never been rejected by a conference.

(07-01-2019 10:23 PM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 09:53 PM)TheBigEastSucks Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 09:42 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 05:28 PM)Mikeyp Wrote:  Why in the world would we even consider that?

After being in a conference that has been rejected by Boise, BYU, UCONN, Army, Air Force, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, & Providence, I just thought With ECU’s leadership they could build an East Coast Conference. My bad.

Proud of Charlotte for buying their first football jock strap last year. There is a better chance of ECU dropping football and joining the big east as a basketball only member than the op

I'm impressed Charlotte's never been rejected by a conference.

I am sadden to have to enlighten teams I appreciate like ECU, Houston, Cincinnati, & UCF that the reality is you are in a G5 conference. That’s a fact. That light at the end of the tunnel is not the sun, it is a train (rejection after rejection after rejection) that takes its toll. Texas & Oklahoma are not going to rescue you by joining the P12 conference.

At best 2 a max of 4 could possibly be added to the B12 if they expanded. Realignment caught most off guard the last time. If 4 go to the B12, ECU would have an East Conference Conference ready to be a G5 threat.

(07-01-2019 09:42 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  

(07-01-2019 05:28 PM)Mikeyp Wrote:  Why in the world would we even consider that?

After being in a conference that has been rejected by Boise, BYU, UCONN, Army, Air Force, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova, & Providence, ...

The confidence of a poster rooting for a team relatively new to CUSA is quite bold and refreshing ...

... longer time CUSA supporters would know that the CUSA was also "rejected by Army", and was reportedly also rejected by UNLV, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado State and Air Force when the proposed "Association" of the MWC and CUSA fell apart.

No amount of trash talking of the AAC can resurrect your original proposal. It is quite clearly in the deeper end of the pool of DavidSt conference realignment proposals in terms of ignoring the actual interests and motivations of the individual schools in the proposed alignment.

(06-30-2019 03:05 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(06-30-2019 02:54 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-29-2019 07:11 PM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(06-29-2019 02:59 PM)ken d Wrote:  If I were ECU and wanted to create a new conference, it would look more like this:

Appalachian State
Western Kentucky
Marshall
Georgia Southern
Middle Tennessee
East Carolina
Old Dominion
Coastal Carolina

Lol! Best one yet

Well, you can laugh, but those schools are listed in order of their ten year average Sagaring ratings. ECU is quickly challenging the bottom of that group. Did you know that in every year since joining the AAC ECU's power rating has gotten worse than the year before? That's five straight years - that qualifies as a trend.

What's worse, the Pirates' average football attendance has declined by about 30% during that time. That's also a trend, and not a good one. Of the 11 remaining members, only SMU has a worse rating since ECU joined the AAC. Maybe it's time to face reality.

The teams I listed have a lot in common, institutionally, and they have a relatively tight footprint. In time, ECU could become competitive in such a conference, and form rivalries that could bring fans back into Dowdy-Ficklen. That conference, if it formed, would rank in strength right behind the AAC, more or less even with the MWC, but clearly stronger than the MAC, CUSA and Sunbelt.

Or, they could choose to stay in the AAC and continue to leak oil until recovering their former stature becomes just a dream. Who would be laughing out loud then?

I'm going to actually ask a serious question for this dumb post even though I know I shouldn't. How would paying 10+ million that we don't have to join a league that realistically would be paid next to nothing help ECU "recover former stature" exactly? ECU's problems are self-inflicted. Made an idiotic decision to force out Terry Holland because a few idiot donors didn't think he did enough to get us into the Big East and didn't like that he wanted to make changes within the Pirate Club. Hired an idiot AD in Compher who made an idiotic decision to fire Ruff and then compounded that by hiring a loser coach in Mo. The AAC has nothing to do with ECU's issues over the last 5 years.

The funny thing is, I think Terry Holland would have probably found a grouping like that darn attractive. Dont get me wrong---I dont think Holland would have left the AAC for that group, but had Holland been unsuccessful at getting ECU into the AAC----he would have almost certainly preferred KenD's east coast conference to the leftover CUSA conference.

(06-28-2019 07:07 PM)Rabonchild Wrote:  Is it time for ECU to exit the AAC to form an East Coast Conference
1. ECU
2. UCONN
3. UMASS
4. ODU
5. Liberty
6. Charlotte
7. ASU
8. Georgia St
9. Buffalo
10. Marshall
***********

11. Georgia Southern
12. Coastal Carolina.

Ummm... yuck.

The reasons for our decline in performance are partly self inflicted and partly because the other teams in the AAC have been really strong recently. We made a poor coaching move at about the worst possible time. The decline in attendance can be attributed to that, not just the losing. Fans expressed their displeasure with the administration continually shooting themselves in the foot (John Thomson then coach Mo, which was even worse IMO). Hopefully we're putting that behind us now. Recruiting seems to be up in FB and BB. I was encouraged at the players Mike Houston swayed to our side at the last minute during the this past recruiting cycle and he seems to be doing well this cycle so far. ECU was fortunate to get in the AAC, all sports, and I just hope we can start holding up our end of the bargain in football and take this opportunity to pull our basketball program out of the dumpster.