Seems like it wasn’t so long ago that State’s football team punched America’s sweetheart in the mouth in the Gator Bowl (thanks Sean Berton), or that men’s basketball beat UConn at the buzzer to make the Sweet 16 or that Kay Yow led the Wolfpack Women to the Final Four.
But much like Falls Lake, State’s postseason appearances dried up this school year. While 
baseball is still in progress (and should make the NCAA tournament), the other three revenue programs failed to make a bowl game or the NCAA Tournament. That puts State in a category as one of five BCS schools to have that distinction.
Of the 66 BCS schools (including Notre Dame) in 2007-08, eight schools participated in all three of the major post season events:
- • UConn
• West Virginia
• Purdue
• Oklahoma
• Texas
• Texas A&M
• Georgia
• Tennessee
31 schools participated in 2 of the 3 post season events.
22 schools participated in 1 of the 3 post season events.
5 schools missed all 3 post season events:
- • NC State
• Northwestern
• Washington
• Ole Miss
• South Carolina
NC State is also one of six BCS schools that did not go to a bowl and also didn’t make the men’s tourney each of the last two seasons. Interestingly, there was one school in each conference.
- • NC State
• Syracuse
• Northwestern
• Iowa St
• Washington
• Ole Miss
Hopefully sports will imitate life and TOB, Sid and Kay will bring some much needed rain back to their programs.
SFN Notes:
(1) Related recent link regarding ACC & National Championships
(2) It would ‘performance’ like this that paints NC State with total irrelevancy to the rest of the country and generates comments like Rocky Top Talk’s in this entry. You will see that when SFN was being named best ACC Blog on the internet, that one of the reasons we were considered to be so impressive was that we did such a great job covering such a poor performing program.
Competent team? Uh, no, and that’s what makes StateFans Nation’s consistent quality all the more laudable.
I’m confident about the future football…
football is going to keep us in business (It’ll keep Fowler his job)
SFN: No way that TOB provides much support to the case for Fowler. The BOT, and everyone this side of the Blue Ridge Mountains are aware of Fowler’s (lack of role) in ALL of the events that brought us TOB.
(1) Fowler didn’t want to fire Chuck. Effectively, Fowler didn’t fire Chuck. The BOT executed a series of quick maneuvers that ultimately resulted in forcing the firing of CTC.
(2) Fowler had little to nothing do with the results of football coaching search because (a) we hired Chuck Neinas to execute the searcha and (b) Tom O’Brien came to us and publicly proclaimed his interest because of our FANS (because we are ‘that kind of place’) and the facilities those fans had financed. He didn’t say one thing about our excellent “leadership”. That’s about as easy of a decision as one can has despite the tremendous interest in the job.i>
(3) Want more evidence? It isn’t often that you get a PUBLIC statement by the Chair of the Board of Trustees who basically cuts off the *#&$ of the AD like this one:
^ What you guys are saying is how I felt about football last year and how I felt about basketball as well.
I’ve reached the stage that I’ll believe it when I see it.
Agree with Chop. There will be some rain dances at CF in the coming years.
Because, in the long run, it all starts at the top, I have no hope that Wolfpack sports will ever challenge for championships in any sport under the current BOT/administration/AD regime. Football IMO has the best chance. But even TOB cannot bring in top players consistently without support from the top.
These are just incredible statistics. I know that WV Wolf has even more of them…but we need to wait until all of the major conferences finish their baseball tournaments to unveil some of his deepest analysis!
Lee Fowler - “I’m proud of turning NC State into the Iowa State of the ACC!”
i can no longer believe…sadly.
WV Wolf - Thanks for doing these entries. They are very interesting.
“Of the 66 BCS schools (including Notre Dame) in 2007-08, eight schools participated in all three of the major post season events:”
I believe NC State did this as recently as the 2005-06 year and it was hardly hailed as much of an achievement. Our biggest failure is in having signature successes in any sport of note. The best way to make this point is by looking at your earlier entry showing that NC State had won 14 ACC championships since Lee Fowler hiring. The most surprising stat to me in that entry was that Wake Forest had only won 6 ACC championships during the same period. The difference is that Wake won 1 football championship and 4 national championships (field hockey & men’s soccer). In the past 12 years, we have come within 1 game of winning 5 ACC championships in men’s basketball but we didn’t win any. Coming in second feels like being the first loser.
Annual Contributions(BCS rank) / annual budget / capital funds raised from 2002-2006
NC State $27,254,723(14th) / $44,170,000 / $125,625,000
Northwestern $9,000,000(54th) / $35,000,000 / $15,000,000
Washington $19,100,000 (30) / $56,000,000 / $80,000,000
Iowa St. $19,600,000 (27th) / $33,600,000 / $0
South Carolina $28,200,000(13th) / $52,659,000/ $14,000,000
Ole Miss $13,200,000 (43rd) / $34,400,000 / $32,000,000
Syracuse $10,300,000 (52nd) / ? / ?
http://vcafo.org/support_bulletin/2007/2007-19.pdf
So of these schools on the list we are 2nd in annual donations and 1st in capital funds raised by a wide margin. Of the schools on this list:
*Washington fired their AD, Todd Turner, this past December after only 3.5 years on the job
*South Carolina’s AD has been on the job for 3 years
*Northwestern hired a new AD last about 3 weeks ago
*Iowa State hired a new AD in September of 2005
*Syracuse hired new AD in December of 2004
*Ole Miss - hired new AD in May of 02 - was also Ole Miss AD from 95-98.
Only two ADs on the list have tenures longer than 3.5 years.
Annual budget numbers aren’t all that relevant without knowing how many sports each school competes in. No time to research that right now.
I think we’ve got an outside shot at a bowl this year. I think this year’s team has a ceiling of six or seven wins and that would get us somewhere. Of course, one or two injuries at critical times and we’re a three-win team all over again.
But next year, I think we’ll be stronger and I think we’ll continue to see steady progress. I think you’ll see recruiting classes consistent with the past one each year and as we weed out the last of Amato’s classes and replace them with quality pieces, the effort on the field will get stronger.
In basketball…well, everyone knows how I feel about the future of our basketball team. I think we’ll hover around .500 and maybe once every three or four years, we’ll get into an NIT field.
Sidney Lowe is never going to be fired. In 15 years, we’ll be playing our games at a half-filled Dorton Arena and Lee Fowler (who will also still be here) will be wondering why the three fans with season tickets are complaining. Afterall, we almost won a game that time against Campbell’s JV girl’s intramural squad. We fielded a team…what more do you idiots want?
If Lowe doesn’t have results by year 3/4 then he should be fired. Any less than that and there will just be too many pissed off fans for Fowler to ever try to keep him. Push Fowler enough and he will fire people, it seems.
I appreciate the compliments, I was a stat major at State so I enjoy this kind of stuff.
“I believe NC State did this as recently as the 2005-06 year and it was hardly hailed as much of an achievement.”
Exactly. It shouldn’t be that big a deal for at least one of those three teams to make the post season (92.4% of BCS schools did so this year) and we couldn’t even pull that off.
Interesting find here. That’s a depressing list of 6 teams. What are the chances though that one team is from each conference in the listing of the drought infested universities? It would be one thing if our AD was new and he/she was cleaning house. It is another thing to be on this list when our AD has been in place for 8 years.
So, can we say that this data shows that due to AD tenure, we have worst revenue program in the BCS conferences for the past two seasons? I think so.
South Carolina and NC State are long lost twins seperated at birth. Its why I think this year’s football game will be fun to watch.. or scary (sad) to watch.. can’t decide.
NC State has history on its side.. but both programs in recent years seem to fail to meet expectations. Heck, look at the basketball game this year.. SC was picked LAST in the SEC and State beat them by 1. Corso predicts SC to win the SEC East.. wow.. so I wouldn’t be surprised by a 3 point field goal to win it.
Some random SC facts to back up my “seperated at birth” claim:
SC hired a former Fl State assist as football coach (Brad Scott), SC hired an assist from a major program from another conference (Eddie Fogler), SC hired a football coach that coached for a team in the SAME DIVISION (Steve Spurrier), SC has not had a fball or bball head coach leave for “a better opportunity” in decades..
just some random thoughts…
I’ve got a question -
As wonderful of all these stats showing our athletic shortcomings are, are the efforts at all turning up the heat on Fowler? Surely there are some posters who are plugged into the WPC and administration that can shed some light on this for us.
I can tell you that the WPC isn’t very happy with this blog, as they think all that it does is focus on the negative. (SFN - don’t shoot the messenger - we all know the difference between facts and “negative” - I was just relaying what I know.)
SFN: Don’t you love the WPC’s focus? Instead of working to make improvements and changes…and instead of taking any kind of accountability for the sad reality that is our department…they worry about supposedly insiginificant internet blogs and tell their constituencies how ‘bad’ we are. Unfortunately for them…’we’ ARE them. I’m willing to bet a majority of our readers are WPC members. You do the connecting of the dots.
TRIP who has Lee fired—maybe one coach.
SMD - when you say the “Wolfpack Club” do you mean the leadership of the WPC or do you mean that vast majority of the members? There’s a huge difference.
SFN: He means the people who work at the WPC. They are told that we are bad…and, they therefore have to believe. It certainly isn’t the majority of WPC members who ‘dislike’ the blog. WE ARE the average WPC members!
If I was trying to raise money for the WPC, I wouldn’t like this site either. Basically, this site says that funds raised for the NC State athletics are currently being wasted.
Hard to argue otherwise.
It’s funny how the WPC thinks this blog is too negative, if I understand you correctly. Well, let’s take a look (and this is a VERY small sample and nothing statistically significant can be garnered from this so-called analysis). Just looking at the entries on the front page we have the following (assuming I am the Wolfpack Club):
NCSU in a Positive Light:
-Sunday Focus: Philip Rivers & Matt Ryan
-Writing on the wall for JJ; Look to Big Ced for example
-Pack Nine Providing Hope For a Title (FINALLY!)
-DaJuan Morgan joins Tank Tyler in Kansas City; D Pressley to New Orleans
-Elliot Avent Interview
-Chip Alexander Q&A with TOB
-40,000 in 2017
-Spring Game Doesn’t Provide Much to Discuss
NCSU in a Negative Light:
-Postseason Drought
-Get Your Nevada Memorabilia at GoPack.com
-NCAA & ACC Championships since 2000
-NCAA honors 712 teams, 192 schools (NC State not one of them)
-Fowler Makes His Performance a Public Issue; Sidney Lowe Q&A with Chip Alexander
-ACC Championship Weekend yields no titles for Pack
Not really emphasizing NCSU:
-Refreshing Involvement (UM)
-ACC Eyes Expanding BBall Schedule; Guess who is interviewed? (ACC)
-Barbrady mentality (UNC)
-ACC’s NFL draft success continues to be unappreciated (ACC)
-Are You on Facebook?
-Mark Phelps Hired at Drake (ex-NCSU coach)
So, let’s look at the totals:
Positive: 8
Negative: 6
Other: 6
Yeah, this blog is REALLY negative. The only two entries I had to think about where to place them were the Mark Phelps hiring and the 40,000 students by 2017. I decided that Phelps was gone long enough to make it neutral and well, the more students, the better.
It is interesting though if you look at the entries. The positive entries tend to be about individuals and not athletic teams (baseball excluded). The negative entries tend to be about the performances of our athletic teams and the overall athletic program. Then there are other entries that have relevance on this board.
So, from a WPC perspective, and I am merely putting that hat on here, as long as this blog discusses individuals and not teams, we approve of this blog.
To hone the point down a little farther - my personal impression is that the “WPC” actually means the leadership, director and BoD. The staff is in a real catch-22 and I feel sorry for them. Their job is to represent our school, so of course they can’t say “Fowler sucks” or what have you. They have to be positive in public.
So when I say that “the WPC” thinks this blog is negative, it means the proverbial “powers that be” rather than the WPC as a whole.
I would be that most SFN readers are WPC members. Hopefully, discussing our pitiful athletics record without letting up will one day bring about the change we wish to see.
The baseball team is having a fantastic season and has been featured several times here. With the exam break and some less interesting games against High Point and Campbell, there just wasn’t that much to talk about in the past week or so.
It picks back up this week though with games against Wilmington and Maryland.
Other than baseball, what exactly would people in the WPC want NC State blogs to cover? The football program has hit a 20 year lowpoint the last four years and the basketball program had one of the most disappointing seasons in the last several decades compared to expectations.
In terms of fundraising and building facilities, the WPC has done a phenomenal job as has been highlighted with how we rank in terms of BCS schools in annual donations and capital funds raised.
How many people are there that really have an impact in terms of the decisions that are made at NC State? You have the AD, the Chancellor, the top people at the WPC(maybe they aren’t involved at all?), the BOT, and maybe several other very large donors. Can there really be more than 20-30 people involved with the decisions in regards NC? I am sure these folks don’t appreciate this blog.
This blog has been negative for a while but I think it reflects the funk NCSU fans are in about the athletics program. It seems for the past 20 years we have been like like that Greek person who would push the rock up the mountain only to have it roll all the way back down. So far 4th place in ACC football is the closest we have gotten. And basketball I cannot even venture a guess.
Out of the 6 “negative” posts, 4 are just stating statistical facts. One points out the stupidity of getting our mascot name wrong and one is based on interviews with Fowler and Lowe.
Statistical Facts -Postseason Drought
Common Sense -Get Your Nevada Memorabilia at GoPack.com
Statistical Facts -NCAA & ACC Championships since 2000
Statistical Facts -NCAA honors 712 teams, 192 schools (NC State not one of them)
Opinions? -Fowler Makes His Performance a Public Issue; Sidney Lowe Q&A with Chip Alexander
Statistical Facts -ACC Championship Weekend yields no titles for Pack
Bo - I imagine if the Pack was doing a lot better, suddenly this blog would be more positive.
I think if you look at how football has been covered since the arrival of TOB - the football coverage has been positive. If we see the equivalent of what we saw in basketball this year, I think you will hear a negative tone.
Complaining about the tone of this blog reminds me of one of the many classic lines in The Outlaw Josy Wales:
“Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s raining.”
I could see calling the blog negative if we were complaining about acceptable results. We’re not. We’re complaining about poor results.
that was Sisyphus who pushed the boulder up the hill.
LF would tell you we’re like Icarus. if we try to fly too high, our wings will get burned by the sun and we’ll plummet to our deaths.
Facts are facts. They are only ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ based on the perspective of the individuals.
A couple of thoughts for this and the last several related topics:
1. It is a sad joke to me that the WPC or the athletic admin try to paint SFN as “bad” for State. Reality is most people who have a dollar in their pocket have figured the internet out by now and go to it for news and views. We ARE NC State fans. Sure there are a few anti-State surfers who show up from time to time, but really I don’t have time to read other schools sports blogs and I figure most of them don’t have time to read SFN either. I read SFN most every day because I am a freakin State fan. The fact that there is negative stuff on here is because there is a lot of negative shit happening concerning athletics at our school and very damn little postive shit. When there is postive stuff it is FOR SURE put on SFN no matter how insignificant.
2. I don’t even blame Fowler anymore for the “drought”. Fowler is an incompetent idiot and all God’s children know that by now. Who I blame is the BOT, Oblinger, et al. They are the ones who put up with this lack of performance. Therefore, I am not giving any money to anything academic until we win something in football or basketball no matter how often I am called by my alma mater. Say all you want about how academics being the most important thing, but I give based on winning at athletics. Call me short-sighted, stupid, etc. Don’t really care. As I heard someone say one time, “You sure aren’t going to fill a 60,000 seat stadium to watch a math quiz”. Win a championship and see how much more academic gifts are given. They’ll probably double.
I was a WPC member increasing donations every year - but not since 2006 when Foulup drug the Wolfpack’s image through the mud. There have been countless justifications for my actions since (and before!) by Foulup and the administration (under the lack of BOT leadership.)
negative times negative is positive.
ain’t it?
We keep the pressure on. Facts are facts my brothers and sisters.
Is it Obling…BOT…or FFFFFFFF?
We’re bottom 5!
We’re bottom 5!
We’re bottom 5!
We’re bottom 5!
Yeah, and Uncle Jed wants to win because he doesn’t get a paycheck if he doesn’t win. And it’s all those crazy fans on the internet that won’t drink the cool-aid. Yeah, that’s the real problem….yada, yada, yada…
So there is criticism for negativity, but I notice there is no criticism for inaccuracies or false information which just means they would prefer a positive spin be put on bad news. Sorry, but I already live in a place like that and it ain’t all its cracked up to be. Truth and the freedom to give an honest opinion and criticize leadership are always the best ways to go.
“Facts are facts. They are only ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ based on the perspective of the individuals.”
True and false. When you constantly dwell on a negative message to the point where it gets so old that folks don’t even want to comment then that is not doing us well. We start to provide fodder for the poeple who hate us and revel in our self degradation. i.e. Durham and CH.
Yes times are bad but when we come here it seems that the emphasis is always on the negative. and yes that is perspective and we are all the individuals.
A couple of thoughts for this and the last several related topics:
1. It is a sad joke to me that the WPC or the athletic admin try to paint SFN as “bad” for State. Reality is most people who have a dollar in their pocket have figured the internet out by now and go to it for news and views. We ARE NC State fans. Sure there are a few anti-State surfers who show up from time to time, but really I don’t have time to read other schools sports blogs and I figure most of them don’t have time to read SFN either. I read SFN most every day because I am a freakin State fan. The fact that there is negative stuff on here is because there is a lot of negative shit happening concerning athletics at our school and very damn little postive shit. When there is postive stuff it is FOR SURE put on SFN no matter how insignificant.
2. I don’t even blame Fowler anymore for the “drought”. Fowler is an incompetent idiot and all God’s children know that by now. Who I blame is the BOT, Oblinger, et al. They are the ones who put up with this lack of performance. Therefore, I am not giving any money to anything academic until we win something in football or basketball no matter how often I am called by my alma mater. Say all you want about how academics being the most important thing, but I give based on winning at athletics. Call me short-sighted, stupid, etc. Don’t really care. As I heard someone say one time, “You sure aren’t going to fill a 60,000 seat stadium to watch a math quiz”. Win a championship and see how much more academic gifts are given. They’ll probably double.
Amen brother, you are preachin to the choir, now turn around and tell the congregation
I´d like to highlight something most of you should not be aware (mainly because its not a big revenue sport)about another sport to follow the tradition of our “I-can´t-fire-anyone AD”: The swim “coach” has been here since the 2001, and has not been over a 4th place in the ACC (like Chuck) in a program that was nationally recognized not long ago. It´s hard to believe anyone can enjoy the sport as it should be with him around, I dare any of you to get a positive review from anyone related, to the team that is not a coach, swimmer parents included.
An insider to the BOT mentioned last week that a huge donation is ready for a complete NEW POOL, but the donor will not give it until this coach leaves. It is a shame that our team has to practice and compete in a pool that is extremely outdated. His only claim to fame (not to disrespect other swimmers, past or present) is a sprint swimmer that reached ACC greatnss, but would´ve been that fast no matter if he practiced in an inflatable kiddy pool.
Spring is here and as a State fan you have to be the eternal optimist. I think football will be fine if not next year the year after. Basketball… we have not seen yet what kind of recruiter Lowe is once he has had a couple of years to build relationships. I hope that we will be pleasantly surprised.
Although I love to see us win in the major sports, I do get a lot of Wolpack pride with any win in Football, Basketball, Marbles or Jacks (I do not think kids play that anymore).
We actually have to chance to do well in the NCAAs to finish this year.
-Both Golf teams are in.
-Several individuals in track and field
-The women in Tennis
-A couple of individuals in Men’s tennis
-The Baseball team should be in, possibly with a decent seed
Go Pack
To paraphrase Bob Uecker
“if you turn those stats around, we are in the front row!”
^^
Interesting info on the swim team. FYI, there was another coach between Easterling (the guy who won gazillion championships) and the current guy who also couldn’t get the job done.
But on the other hand, you couldn’t really find anyone to say anything nice about Easterling when he was here, either (my time as an undergrad coincided with his final years here, and my roommate walked on the swim team). In fact, Easterling was sort of eased out of the job (his “retirement” wasn’t entirely voluntary, in other words) because of some incidents of alleged abuse of team members (abusive training methods like hot weather runs without water, IIRC) and one team member who died as a result of such tactics.
I figured I’d post so we have either an Ed or an 89 in three straight posts. I do feel the drought will be ending in football in the next few years. TOB has got us on the right track. As far as BBall, the 2009 class will be huge. I thought Brown was a lock, but he seems to be wavering. Wall and/or Brown and a top PF/C will be necessities for 2009. Truthfully, I do not think J.J. going pro will hurt us — in a way, I think it may help in that a top PF or C in 2009 (Favors anyone?) may be more likely to commit with J.J. already gone and Ben being a Senior.
^EdMar……You think you need a few more yearstion to see what type of recruiter Sid is,I am afraid we have seen enough! Lets bring in more 6′4 guards who can’t play the point or the 2 posi
As far as Bball recruiting goes ESPN has top 100 recruits for class of 08 as well as 09 none of which are coming here.
What is Sid waiting for?
We really need some good news from the bball camp. A top ‘09 recruit needs to commit soon to get the ball rolling.
^ Well I don’t think I would hold my breath about an 09 recrruit I see Davidson just signed the big kid from VA for this year 08! 6′10 He was the kid ammacker was trying to lure to Harvard .
yeah, Miles Plumlee. he is gonna be good. Nope, all your gonna see from State is And1 ball as long as Sid is here.
Maybe we can get an announcer who can scream things like SPIDAH!!!!! HOT SAUCE!!!!!!! at us all game long.
Until the present leadership is changed I don’t see things getting alot better.
I THINK TOB WILL BE THE ONLY POSITIVE IN ATHLETICS.
SIMPLY-LEE’S GOT TO GO!
Hey Sid and the boys can schedule a home and home during the acc/big10 challenge with the Washington Generals!