The rundown:
Fan base: ECU has some really passionate fans. Eastern North Carolina is dominated by ECU fans (we've got the surveys to back it up) but ECU fans are also prevalent in the rest of the state (not nearly as much once you get west of Burlington). We even draw more viewers than NC State does in Raleigh when on similar TV stations.
Football: Expanded the stadium to 50k in 2010. Average attendances have been 49,665 (2010), 50,012 (2011), 47,013 (2012), and 43,985 (2013). Prior to that we typically had decent attendance. Capacity was only 43k but we made do. The tailgating is excellent, we cook pigs, seafood, enjoy drinks, and fly a lot of ECU flags. Typically around 4-5k tailgaters linger in the lots throughout the game- when big teams like NC State or UNC come to down we may even have as many as 10-20k people (with the help of their fans of course) remain at tailgate because it's sold out/such a fun time.
FB Coaches: Ruffin' McNeill is pure class. He's an ECU alumnus who exemplifies what a true pirate should be. Very smart man, great recruiter and knows his football. That's not to say he's perfect. I'd say his downfall is that he's almost too nice. One example is our old DC, Brian Mitchell. Ruff probably kept him around a year longer than he should have and it's cost our defense. Thankfully, he made the smart, yet difficult choice. Our OC is Lincoln Riley who has had to learn on the job. He's become a great air-raid OC and Ruff gives him a lot of responsibility. He resisted the call to bigger programs after last season, but if we have another amazing year on O I think he's gone. DC is Rick Smith who will be in his second year, and we should see solid improvement.
Offense: Our O will be lead by Sr. QB Shane Carden, who some say is a darkhorse Heisman candidate. I think Carden has a lot of work to do if he wants to get real attention. Some say he's NFL bound, but I think he's been a product of the system- not to say he's not good, he obviously has a lot of talent to do what he does. He is a workhorse though and rumor has it that he's been working on his weaknesses all summer, we'll see how he looks (I have confidence in his work ethic). We also return some great WRs including former walk-on stud, Justin Hardy. Our OL is questionable, however we did get two big time JUCO commits in school this summer (had excellent offers, great tape). If they pull through, we should be okay. If not, all of Carden and Hardy's work is in jeopardy. Run game is questionable but we've got some great recruits waiting in the wings.
D: Lost a lot of starters this off season (number changes depending where you look-it's tricky but I'll elaborate if anyone's interested), We will be hurting for experience at LB and DE. Honestly, I haven't kept up with the defense too seriously because it seems like our expectations are constantly changing. Some of the fans are really divided here. I think it will take time to adjust to the AAC. It's unfortunate Rick Smith's first year as DC was in a watered-down CUSA, so the numbers may be inflated.
Recruiting: Under Ruff we've had some solid recruiting classes. A lot of talent is under evaluated in Eastern NC. I'd imagine it's the same way in CT. We're lucky that we have a great S&C coach who takes these "diamonds in the rough" and turns them into legitimate players. Under Skip Holtz we relied on a lot of JUCOS...Ruffin' has done a solid job bringing in four year players.
We can generally play with the big boys, we've won some big games, but also have quite a few "wtf" losses. It is what it is, and goes with the territory when you're a pirate fan.
Basketball:
Historically we've stunk it up in round ball. Jeff Lebo starts his fifth year this year and has brought ECU unprecedented success. However, what he's done here won't look impressive to anyone who hasn't followed ECU basketball. We've had some shotty luck with transfers, quitters, having to rely on JUCOS, getting the team to gel, etc. I'd say the guys coming in are one of the most talented teams i've seen at ECU. One freshman was a top 100 player when he committed (maybe the 2nd in history), we've got a 4* transfer from FSU (who started) coming in this year, and we've got some other talented players who've been working their way up. Last year we lacked big men and depth, this year we add big guys as well as a couple of shooters. I personally think it will take a while for this team to gel. Lebo is a smart coach, but for whatever reason forgoes the obvious choice (see Akeem Richmond's first season here). I think this will be a great team for ECU standards, but nothing special for the rest of the country. I'm thinking RPI around the 100 mark.
We've never really cared as a school, but the fans are hungry for basketball. We've grown up around Duke, UNC, and NC State fans, and it's annoying not having a solid program. We just finished a $17M practice facility and are doing minor renovations to our arena. We'll sell out for UConn, and if we're winning we'll provide a great atmosphere all season.
Baseball:
The baseball team has seen some pretty solid success in the past 15 or so years. Since 1999 we've made 12 regionals and 3 super regionals. We just hired another coach (same last name as the previous) who is an ECU alumnus with great experience as an assistant at other programs. He's been responsible for bringing in top 20 recruiting classes pretty much everywhere he has coached. We're ecstatic about his hire and are expecting to be a top 25 program. The guy is smart, and an absolute workhorse.
WBB:
We've generally had a decent WBB team. We've lost some players from last years NIT squad, but I think we should be in the top third of the conference.
Other:
One of our best chancellors ever, Dr. Leo Jenkins, saw that football and medicine were the future. We have a strong medical school here at ECU (typically ranked in the top 15 for primary care, unranked for research). Anyway, the reason our basketball has been so lame is because he placed this emphasis on football (seeing that the tobacco road school had NC basketball cornered) to build a large fan base, because he thought that would get us further than basketball would.
Speaking of Skip, we lost something like 32 letter men when he left. He wasn't a strong recruiter and left the cupboard bare. If you look at Ruff's first two seasons, you see the record wasn't so hot. I think it's a combo of our old DC and having to rebuild the team. We may be at the point where we are reloading instead of rebuilding, so we'll see how it goes from here.
I feel like I'm leaving a good bit out, but this is already too much. Bottom line is FB: should have a decent crowd all season, team will be tough but probably not world-beaters. MBKB: May have one of the best teams ECU has ever had, shouldn't be overlooked, but won't be anything special- last year we did hold Duke until the end of the game. BB: Praying Godwin has an amazing first year, we'll see. I'm thinking he will. WBB: Should be decent, possibly an NIT team.
Edit: Maybe I embellished a bit. I'll tell you that the weaknesses in every sport are going to be inexperience (in some cases, like basketball, experienced players meshing with the newer players-same with the linemen in FB--individually they're probably alright). The coaching should be solid. As a fan base we need to do more to get young graduates to join the Pirate club and increase donations. We could do a better job on recruiting (especially BB)and I'm hoping the AAC will change that. Our OC is vulnerable to poaching and if we don't make another quality hire, it could hurt. In state we do have a large presence but basketball is heavily overshadowed by UNC/Duke. We do really well from Raleigh to the coast but need to expand further beyond the NC borders.
Welcome aboard. ECU was one school I always thought would help the football side of things when the Big East was formed. You'll be welcomed more on this board then the bball board. In all honesty, you probably should stay away from there because while the AAC isn't horrible for football, it's not so great for basketball, considering what we had in the Big East.
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