Jones: Losses By 30+ Points

Chuck Amato General Stat of the Day9

I have enjoyed reading Andrew Jones’ work over the last 9 months or so. To be fair, he is as good as you are going to get for a small market newspaper and deserves credit for his work.

By the same token, don’t forget that Jones has roots of working in Chapel Hill and (understandably) wants to see the Tarheels succeed athletically. So, his recent indictment of John Bunting’s football program isn’t a big surprise…but is powerful nonetheless.

It won’t surprise many of you that I give Jones all the credit in the world for using appropriate and well researched statistics.

The number of times the rest of the current ACC teams have lost by at least 30 points since Bunting took over at Carolina:

Duke – 16
UNC-CH – 12
Clemson – 4
Georgia Tech – 3
Virginia – 3
Wake Forest – 3
Maryland – 3
Florida State – 1
Virginia Tech – 1
Miami – 1
Boston College – 1
N.C. State – 0

Before Bunting’s arrival following the 2000 season, one must go back 194 games, dating back to a 52-20 defeat at Boston College in 1984, to find 12 more 30-plus point losses for UNC. That’s one 30-plus point loss every 16.2 games compared to Bunting’s every 5.3 outings.

Chuck Amato General Stat of the Day

9 Responses to Jones: Losses By 30+ Points

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 09/26/2006 at 9:16 AM #

    What a stat for the Pack! Says a lot about what CTC has done to keep us competitive.

    Hope we can continue. The Clemson OL is awesome and scary. Huge with 4 talented seniors and their QB runs like Danzler. That game is going to show what we got.

  2. class of 74 09/26/2006 at 10:12 AM #

    Nobody has been harder on Chuck than myself, but I’ve always given him credit for his defensive knowledge and abilities as a coach. I think this stat exemplifies why you are always in the game if you can play defense. The stats we do not want to see as Wolfpackers would be on the offense since Rivers’ departure.

  3. Wolfpack4ever 09/26/2006 at 11:39 AM #

    Jim Valvano spoke of “keeping the team in position to win.” IMNSHO To win against superior talent, a coach must use the philosophy of “keeping his team “n position to win.” We thoughtlessly carp about Chuck’s close losses as some blight on his record. Perhaps it is to his credit that his loses were close. Did anyone notice which ACC team had ZERO losses of over 30 points? Yeah, that’s us.

    With all the teams that were Top 10 teams striving to regain that status, along with all the up and coming teams striving to gain Top 10 status, bringing a program into the upper echelon is not as simple as spending money on facilities. Chuck has lured some fine coaches to his program and he has lost some of them to other schools. (IMO Sour grapes had Buddy Green leave.)

    Chuck’s connections enabled him to bring in Norm Chow for one year. I pray that the current staff of “home grown” coaching talent will provide the continuity a program needs for upward movement and successful entry into the Top 10.

    Has Chuck struck out many times? The answer obviously is, Yes. Singles hitter don’t strike out, home run hitters strike out. Chuck is swinging for the fences in the recruiting game and swinging for the fences hiring Tressman. Will he strike out with Tressman? Only time and Daniel Evans will tell. The average fan, and there are some average fans amongst us here on SFN, will get alarmed at one strike. Good fans will panic at 2 strikes. Exceptional fans will give Chuck, Tressman and even Marcus Stone all three strikes.

    I rate myself a “good fan” and I see both “average” and “extraordinary” fans here. It’s easy for me to jump on the “high-hope” bandwagon after Saturday night. I only hope I can let Chuck and the team swing and miss again without jumping off prematurely and help resurrect the dormant ChuckChuck contest.

  4. Woof Wolf 09/26/2006 at 12:29 PM #

    I appreciate that good, to sometimes great, defenses are “keeping the team in position to win.� But on the other side, inadequate offense performances are keeping the team in position to lose.

    Year to date we are scoring 18.5 points per game. Last year was not much better at 20.8. These numbers are way down from the PR years.

    If we only score two touchdowns a game, we will always be in a position to lose the game because of a bad bounce or a bad call by a lying, cheating, baby blue undershorts wearing zebra.

    I’m encouraged by the win and I am hopeful the offense will improve greatly as Daniel and the team get more experience.

  5. WolfpackMan 09/26/2006 at 1:45 PM #

    Andrew Jones is a brilliant, objective writer covering the Atlantic Coast Conference. He did work for a magazine which covered the Tar Heels while living in Virginia and Wilmington, N.C….He lives within five miles of the N.C. State campus and is a family man making a living by being objective in every respect…..He takes tremendous pride in his work and tries to look at everything objectively. Andrew’s coverage is tremendous and he PLAYS NO FAVORITES, BELIEVE ME!…..In addition, he’s a genuine, caring person who doesn’t believe in the kind of yellow journalism — the road some writers take. In conclusion, he’s a true professional in every sense of the word and his coverage of the Pack is fair and balanced everytime!

  6. class of 74 09/26/2006 at 2:04 PM #

    An honest examination of the bottom five teams would tell you they are the ones that over the past five years that have had good solid defenses. Every single one of them. Look at FSU since Richt’s departure. What has remained solid? It sure has not been the offense.

  7. Cardiff Giant 09/26/2006 at 4:30 PM #

    Until we beat them for a change, our giggles over their suckdom have a distinct flavor of pathos.

  8. Wolfpack4ever 09/26/2006 at 7:35 PM #

    class of 74 Says:

    “An honest examination of the bottom five teams would tell you they are the ones that over the past five years that have had good solid defenses.”

    An “honest examination?” How about just checking the records? An honest examination sounds like manipulation of statistics to me. And only manipulation will show poor teams having good solid defenses, ugh, like Duke, maybe?

  9. class of 74 09/27/2006 at 2:27 PM #

    ^Yes an honest examination like yards per game given up and points per game, third down conversion rates those kind of things! The five teams on the bottom of the list were the best of the bunch over the past five years. Not just their record of fewest blowouts.

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