Here is an update on how State’s non-revenue sports are doing so far this school year plus a few other tidbits at the bottom.
Men’s Cross Country
• Finished 2nd in the ACC Championships
• State has finished at least 3rd in the ACC for the past 20 years, including finishing 1st or 2nd in the ACC in 18 of those 20 years
• Virginia won their 2nd consecutive ACC title and has won 3 of the past 4
Tonight in Reynolds Coliseum, the NC State volleyball team snapped a 56 game ACC losing streak with a 3-1 win over Boston College. Witnessed in person by myself and good friend and fellow stat major ruffles31, the Pack now stands 1-0 for the season in the ACC and 7-9 overall. Congrats to Coach Stubbs and the ladies!
NC State’s athletic department is currently taking votes for a sing-along anthem to be played between the third and fourth quarters at Carter-Finley Stadium. You can find the article and vote here.
Let’s take a look at the 3 songs mentioned in the first paragraph of the gopack.com article. First, “Sweet Caroline” was played at Red Sox games because Fenway’s music director had heard it played at other sporting events and would play it at random late in the game if the Sox were winning. The fans soon began to anticipate the song as a good luck charm and is now a tradition.
How do NC State’s ACC winning percentages and conference finishes compare to the other schools in the conference during Lee Fowler’s tenure as AD from 2000-01 to 2007-08? Below are winning percentage statistics in ACC play for the 13 sports that have win/loss records and average finish for the 8 sports that do not have win/loss records.
Notes:
• These stats are ONLY for the 21 ACC sports in which NC State competes. They do not include ACC sports in which State does not have a program (lacrosse, field hockey, rowing) or non-ACC sports (gymnastics, rifle).
In previous entries, several commenters had expressed an interest in some historical statistics for comparison purposes. Below are some conference title and winning percentage stats over the last 22 years for the past five Athletic Directors at NC State.
Notes:
• For the 1989-90 season, Jim Valvano was AD until October, Harold Hopfenburg was interim AD until April when Todd Turner was hired. For this analysis, since he was AD for the majority of the season, Hopfenburg will be considered the AD of record for 1989-90.
• ACC championship stats are only for the 20 sports in which all 5 ADs fielded teams (Softball is excluded).
“My goals have always been to be in the top three in the conference. If you’re in the top three you always have a chance to win the championship. That’s an obvious goal as well. Minimum goals, we don’t want to be in the bottom-half of anything.. the bottom-half in any sport.”
–Lee Fowler, PackPride.com, 5-22-08
“Our minimum should be middle of the conference, not last in the league”
–Lee Fowler, Technician, 8-31-07
These statements lead to three questions.
Disclaimer: Only facts and statistics will be stated below, you the reader can draw your own conclusions and opinions.
Did NC State’s athletic programs make progress and do better this school year than they did last year? One metric (and certainly not the only one) is to look at regular season conference standings.
State competes in 21 different ACC sports plus gymnastics (EAGL) and rifle (SEARC & GARC). In the 2007-2008 school year, 6 out of those 23 programs finished higher in their conference standings than they did the year before, 11 finished worse and 6 maintained the same standing. All 12 ACC schools compete in the sport unless indicated.
Disclaimer: Only facts and statistics will be stated below, you the reader can draw your own conclusions and opinions.
Listed below are the overall ACC records for NC State’s team sports (teams that have a won-loss record) for the eight year time span Lee Fowler has been AD (2000-01 to 2007-08).
Revenue Sports
• Football: 28-36 (.438)
• M Basketball: 60-68 (.469)
• W Basketball: 63-57 (.525)
• Baseball: 109-104 (.512)
Both of the high profile revenue sports, Football and M Basketball, have losing records in ACC play.
Both W Basketball and Baseball have winning records in ACC play.
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.
Perhaps some of you got the same e-mail I did recently from GoPack.com about their latest Rivers/Holt auction item.
Nevermind that “Rivers to Holt” seems a bit silly to me considering Philip and Torry never played together. But is it too much to ask for the official athletics website to correctly spell the name of our mascot?
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