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Notes, Quotes and Slants
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Pirate
Notebook No. 125
Wednesday, June 4, 2003
By Denny O'Brien
Staff Writer and Columnist |
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BCS or bust for East Carolina
©2003 Bonesville.net
Now that the Atlantic Coast Conference outlaws have
completed their Tour de Big East and Big East boss Mike Tranghese is fresh
out of bullets it is just a matter of time before the implosion of college
athletics commences.
That Miami, Boston College, and Syracuse will saddle up with
a new gang is imminent. What happens to the remnants of the Big East or
the nation's conference landscape, for that matter isn't abundantly clear,
though the scenarios are aplenty.
"The fact is, something is going to happen," East Carolina
coach John Thompson said. "There is going to be another shakeup similar to
what happened with the Big XII and the Southwest Conference.
"Everybody is trying to position themselves for whatever
reason. We will be a player in that situation. How do we fit in all of that?
We've got to be ready to do the best that we can. All that we can do as a
staff is to keep winning."
Unfortunately, conference expansion isn't dictated by wins
and losses, strong tradition, or passionate fan bases. If that were the
case, Temple, Rutgers, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Central Florida
wouldn't be mentioned ahead of East Carolina in many scenarios that call for
a restructured Big East.
But in the reality game of conference expansion, where
under-the-table deals likely are formed between major television networks
and the BCS conferences, TV market size as arbitrarily defined in
sometimes grossly inaccurate fashion by Nielsen Media Research carries far
more weight than it should.
Though the Greenville market is skewed by the fact that
several sizeable Eastern North Carolina communities with mammoth ECU
constituencies have been gerrymandered into Raleigh's market domain, the TV
market factor is about the only significant drawback to which so-called
experts point when downplaying the Pirates' viability for membership in the
next iteration of the Big East.
If the Big East is able to retain its five remaining members
keeping in mind that the Pittsburgh to the Big Ten theory hasn't gone away
and decides to add only three more, prepare to enter panic mode. That
scenario could leave ECU in a legion of eight C-USA holdovers, and those
holdovers aside from ECU itself, Southern Miss and Texas Christian would
have little gridiron appeal.
That, of course, assumes neither Southern Miss nor TCU are
part of an opportunistic round-up by a mid-major league like the WAC.
Any way you slice it, in that type of climate, ECU's
almost-forgotten chip-on-the-shoulder mentality would have to be reborn with
a vengeance and survival mode would best describe the status of Pirate
football until the courts, the congress or the NCAA restore sanity to the
structure of intercollegiate athletics.
Since the inception of the BCS, East Carolina has seen its
foothold as the state's top football school steadily slip. From 1994-2000,
the Pirates prided themselves on being the most consistent program in North
Carolina, but the heavy influx of BCS Benjamins has somewhat inverted the
pecking order.
N.C. State suddenly has become a Top 25 program. Wake
Forest, once the ACC doormat, no longer is a gimmee. North Carolina, despite
a disastrous 3-9 campaign in 2002, inked one of the nation's top recruiting
classes in February.
If East Carolina isn't somehow aligned with traditional
rivals Virginia Tech and West Virginia in a conference configuration with
direct BCS access, the gap could easily widen.
When the cards are reshuffled and dealt, the potential side
effects of a negative outcome could trickle down to the hardwood where
East Carolina has made strides of late and to non-revenue sports.
Football is the wage-earner that feeds most athletic
departments. Without the positive bottom line it generates, many of ECU's
programs could sputter.
The need for a direct BCS tie whatever scenario that may
be should not be underestimated.
"I love Conference USA," Thompson said. "Maybe we can
strengthen Conference USA. I would think that we have a little conference
loyalty. At the same time, we've got to look out for our best interest,
whatever that is."
The only suitable scenario for East Carolina is one that
includes a fair slice of BCS pie.
Anything else almost assuredly would place ECU football, and
potentially its other sports programs, in a time warp heading in the wrong
direction.
One is enough
Paul Troth's name currently is listed atop the depth chart
at quarterback, but Pirates coaches haven't guaranteed him a starting spot
under center.
Heading into summer conditioning, Thompson said Troth and
Desmond Robinson are neck-and-neck, and added that he isn't concerned that
neither has emerged as the clear-cut starter.
"It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable," Thompson said. "I
believe we can win with Desmond and/or Paul or Paul and/or Desmond.
"Both of those guys had good springs. (Offensive
coordinator) Rick (Stockstill) did a great job with those guys. They
protected the football better and they got us in the end zone. They
separated themselves from the pack; they didn't separate themselves from
each other."
Troth held the upper hand in the preliminary scrimmages this
spring, completing 31-of-55 (56.4%) passes for 377 yards, six touchdowns and
just one interception. Robinson completed just 37 percent of his passes for
174 yards, but outshined the incumbent starter in the Spring Game with a
12-for-17, 182-yard effort.
If neither can put some distance between himself and the
other in August camp, Thompson hinted that he could play both but he'd
much prefer a one-man show.
"I believe we need a one-head quarterback," Thompson said.
"I'm not a two-quarterback guy. But in this situation, that's where we are
right now.
"I'm not opposed to playing both guys. Knowing Desmond,
knowing Paul, I think it will help both guys. Cincinnati doesn't know who to
prepare for which is good for our team. What's best for our team right now
is we've got two guys still competing."
News, notes, thoughts...
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Troth has plenty to keep him busy over the summer. Pirates
coaches want the junior quarterback to shed ten pounds to get down to a
slim-and-trim 220, which they feel is his optimal playing weight. Troth
already has improved his foot speed, which was evident in the spring game
when he scampered 14 yards on a naked bootleg. Dropping an extra ten would
greatly enhance his chances of retaining the starting job.
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The Memphis Commercial Appeal recently published a
story in which the appeal of several programs that potentially
could be Big East targets was examined. Attendance figures were among the
factors measured. East Carolina, which has a long history of putting large
numbers of passionate fans in the seats at home, away and at bowl games,
finished a distant second to Louisville last season. Memphis, Cincinnati,
Marshall and South Florida all were within 3,000 per game of ECU's
official attendance numbers in 2002, and it was the first time in years
the Pirates fell below the magical 30,000 mark. Questions have been raised
about what appeared to be ECU's suddenly ultra-pessimistic method for
tallying attendance at some home football games last year. Hopefully,
low-balling attendance figures while some programs against whom ECU is
currently being measured were wildly exaggerating that vital statistic
won't come back to haunt the Pirates cause when the realignment dominoes
fall.
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College football preseason magazines are beginning to hit
newsstands. Athlon is one of the first publications out and had a
fairly interesting breakdown of C-USA. East Carolina is predicted to
finish 9th, just ahead of Houston and Army. That the Pirates return one of
the more experienced teams in the league and figure to improve on last
year's 4-4 conference finish makes the prediction a bit puzzling.
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Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium is a facility of firsts for
Thompson. In 1990, he coached his first game as a defensive coordinator in
Greenville with Louisiana Tech.
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Former ECU baseball assistant Kevin
McMullan has landed in the Atlanta Braves organization. McMullan, who was
endorsed for the East Carolina job by former coach Keith LeClair,
currently is in Orlando working with some of the Braves' younger
prospects. He is slated to join the staff of the Braves' Rookie League
team in Danville, VA, later this summer.
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02/23/2007 01:52:49 AM |
