By
Denny O'Brien
©2009 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
Harris Poll
For the fourth year in a row, Denny O'Brien is a member
of the
voting panel
for the Harris Interactive College Football Poll,
commissioned by the Bowl Championship Series. As a
service to readers of this site, O'Brien's ballot will
be published in this space each Monday throughout the
season.
The
Harris Poll is a component of the BCS Standings.
The BCS Standings also take into
account the USA Today Coaches Poll and an average of
several
computer service rankings.
A senior
columnist for Bonesville.net, Bonesville The Magazine
and The Pirates' Chest, O'Brien was nominated to the
Harris Poll panel by Conference USA.
View the entire 114-member
panel.
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Denny O'Brien's Harris Poll Ballot
(Ballot cast
11.22.09)
1. Texas
2. Alabama
3. Florida
4. Texas Christian
5. Cincinnati
6. Georgia Tech
7. Boise State
8. Pittsburgh
9. Ohio State
10. Oregon
11. Oklahoma State
12. Iowa
13. Penn State
14. Virginia Tech
15. Ole Miss
16. Oregon State
17. Louisiana State
18. Stanford
19. Clemson
20. Southern Cal
21. California
22. Brigham Young
23. Utah
24. North Carolina
25. Nebraska
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View this Week's Complete
Harris, AP & Coaches Polls |
View this Week's
BCS Standings |
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East Carolina athletics
director Terry Holland often touts the fan base as being the Pirates’
most valuable asset. And he is mostly right.
When you rank the football
constituencies in Conference USA, ECU clearly tops the chart with no
other program in sight. Travel to any other random C-USA haunt and
you’ll discover just how wide the attendance margin is between East
Carolina and its league rivals.
An afternoon in every
other conference stadium makes Dowdy-Ficklen seem like the largest, most
deafening Southeastern Conference venue.
That hasn’t gone unnoticed
by Holtz, who has spent most of his career on the sidelines of many of
the nation’s most revered football cathedrals.
“I’m grateful and thankful
to the Pirate Nation and the faithful fan base that we had, for the way
that they came out and supported it,” Holtz said following the Pirates’
37-21 victory over UAB Saturday.
“So many people stayed until the end.
“After having the
opportunity to play on the road, you really learn to appreciate our fan
base. You really learn to appreciate how loyal they are, how they
support this program, the atmosphere they create. They do just a
phenomenal job.”
When Southern Miss comes
out of the locker room on Saturday, it will be the the most intimidating
stage on which the Golden Eagles have stood in any C-USA game this year.
But that truthfully could be accomplished if ECU drew just a shade over
half capacity for a showdown against its historical Kryptonite.
Just as East Carolina fans
have developed an expectation that their team should routinely defeat
schools from BCS automatic qualifier conferences, they also should
commit to attending games to the degree that fans at Virginia Tech and
West Virginia do.
If we’re going to consider
this a comparison of apples to apples, it should go beyond the product
on the field and into the representation in the stands.
Shouldn’t it?
That includes games that
land on dates that can introduce a logistical inconvenience, as well as
against opponents that don’t necessarily resonate with the more casual
fan. Especially when so much is riding on the outcome against Southern
Miss.
“There are a lot of smiles
and there is a lot of excitement in that locker room right now, with
everything that we’ve been playing for and with everything on the
table,” Holtz said. “As we said, each game gets bigger as we turn and go
through this.”
Saturday will mark the
most important game at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium this season. Heck, maybe
ever. And if the Pirates find a way to beat their longtime nemesis, it
will set the stage for an even bigger game a week later.
Both would be arguably
bigger than N.C. State’s first trip to Greenville in 1999, a convincing
23-6 victory for ECU. Ditto for when the Pirates
defeated North Carolina in 2007,
West Virginia last season, and
the list of other signature games ECU has played in front of its home
crowd.
The question is whether or
not the 12th man on Saturday will look closer to 43,000 than 35,000.
Historically, home games
on Thanksgiving weekend have been a difficult draw for ECU. Most of the
student body doesn’t return to campus until late Sunday, while many
alums and other fans are still visiting family or getting a jump start
on Christmas shopping.
Last season the Pirates
drew 38,098 for a post-Thanksgiving game against
Texas-El Paso, easily a record
for a holiday game in Greenville. But that’s over 4,000 short of the
stadium capacity and would be an unacceptable turnout with so much on
the line for ECU this Saturday.
Fans often refer to games
against AQ opponents as measuring stick opportunities for the ECU
program. They usually respond by filling the stadium beyond the listed
capacity in hopes of witnessing another historical win by their Pirates.
But for the fan base,
games against in-state or regional opponents hardly rank as tape measure
events.
A true testimony that
ECU’s fan base has reached BCS quality would be a capacity crowd against
a C-USA opponent when the students are away. That seriously shouldn’t be
an issue when that opponent is the program that many fans verbalize as
ECU’s true rival, and when there is a tangible reward for winning the
game.
Two seasons ago East
Carolina easily sold out its midseason game against a
one-win N.C. State bunch. The
game was ultimately meaningless outside of pride and water cooler
fodder.
This Saturday’s game
against Southern Miss for the C-USA
East Division crown and a chance
to host the title game is much bigger. And that’s stating it lightly.
We’ll find out soon whether or not ECU fans truly embrace the
opportunity in front of them.