The State of State Part Three–Meet The Standards

AD & Department Baseball General NC State Administration NCS Basketball NCS Football Non-Revenue Rankings & Lists Stat of the Day58

“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.

1. Are NC State’s athletic programs meeting Lee Fowler’s goal of top three in the conference?

The following statistics are for the 21 ACC sports plus Gymnastics, which competes in the East Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL). Softball did not begin play until the 2003-04 season. Historical data for Rifle could not be found (see note in Part Two).

top-3-table.jpg

In the 2007-08 season, 81.8% of State’s athletic programs did not meet Fowler’s goal of top three in the conference.

The following programs finished in the top three of the conference in 2007-08:
• M Cross Country
• W Cross Country
• M Outdoor Track
• Gymnastics

For the eight year time span that Lee Fowler has been AD, 27.2% of State’s athletic programs met his goal of top three in the conference.

Two sports have finished in the top three in the conference every year under Fowler:
• M Cross Country
• W Cross Country

One sport has only missed finishing in the top three in the conference once under Fowler:
• Wrestling

Two additional sports have finished in the top three in the conference at least half of the time under Fowler:
• W Basketball
• Gymnastics

Top three finishes for the four major revenue sports:
• W Basketball—4 out of 8 years
• M Basketball—2 out of 8 years
• Baseball—1 out of 8 years
• Football—0 out of 8 years

In five out of eight years at least 30% of State’s athletic programs failed to finish in the top three in the conference.

For the eight year time span that Lee Fowler has been AD, 72.8% of State’s athletic programs did not meet his goal of top three in the conference.

The 2007-08 season is a decline from the 2006-07 season high mark in which 36.4% of State’s programs finished in the top three.

Eight sports have never finished in the top three in the conference under Fowler:
• Football
• W Soccer
• M Swimming
• W Swimming
• M Tennis
• W Tennis
• W Outdoor Track
• Volleyball

Three sports have only finished in the top three in the conference once under Fowler:
• Baseball
• M Soccer
• W Indoor Track

2. Are NC State’s athletic programs meeting Lee Fowler’s minimum standard of middle of the conference?

top-half-table.jpg

In the 2007-08 season, 72.7% of State’s athletic programs did not meet Fowler’s minimum requirement of middle of the conference.

The following programs finished in the top half of the conference in 2007-08:
• Baseball
• M Cross Country
• W Cross Country
• M Outdoor Track
• M Indoor Track
• Gymnastics

For the eight year time span that Lee Fowler has been AD, 41.0% of State’s athletic programs met his minimum requirement of middle of the conference.

Two sports have finished in the top half of the conference every year under Fowler:
• M Cross Country
• W Cross Country

Two sports have only missed finishing in the top half of the conference once under Fowler:
• Wrestling
• Gymnastics

Five additional sports have finished in the top half in the conference at least half of the time under Fowler:
• M Basketball
• Baseball
• M Golf
• M Outdoor Track
• M Indoor Track

Top half finishes for the four major revenue sports:
• W Basketball—5 out of 8 years
• M Basketball—4 out of 8 years
• Baseball—4 out of 8 years
• Football—3 out of 8 years

In five out of eight years at least half of State’s athletic programs failed to finish in the top half of the conference.

For the eight year time span that Lee Fowler has been AD, 59.0% of State’s athletic programs did not meet his minimum standard of middle of the conference.

The 2007-08 season is part of a two year decline from the 2005-06 season high mark in which 59.1% of State’s programs finished in the top half.

Five sports have never finished in the top half of the conference under Fowler:
• W Soccer
• W Swimming
• M Tennis
• W Tennis
• Volleyball

Two sports have only finished in the top half of the conference once under Fowler:
• M Soccer
• M Swimming

3. Are NC State’s athletic programs avoiding finishing last in the conference?

Over the eight year time span, 23 teams (13.3%) in eight different sports have finished dead last in the conference (not counting ties for last).

In 2007-08, three teams (13.6%) finished dead last in the conference:
• M Soccer
• W Soccer
• Volleyball

Volleyball has finished dead last in the ACC in each of the 8 years. Other multiple last place programs are M Soccer (5 times), W Soccer (3 times) and W Tennis (3 times).

About WV Wolf

Graduated from NCSU in 1996 with a degree in statistics. Born and inbred in West "By God" Virginia and now live in Raleigh where I spend my time watching the Wolfpack, the Mountaineers and the Carolina Hurricanes as well as making bar graphs for SFN. I'm @wvncsu on the Twitter machine.

AD & Department Baseball General NC State Administration NCS Basketball NCS Football Non-Revenue Rankings & Lists Stat of the Day

58 Responses to The State of State Part Three–Meet The Standards

  1. redfred2 05/24/2008 at 4:34 PM #

    ^Thanks Highstick, but I have been very familiar with bluefish teeth since a certain Thanksgiving weekend back in the late ’70’s. I had fished freshwater up until then, the only fish I had caught with any teeth to speak of, were walleyes, and nobody warned me about a bluefish. It was very cold, I caught a small one, I reached in like normal and then he clamped down my thumb like a vise. Blood everywhere, and it didn’t stop bleeding for days.

    Thanks for reminding me of that Highstick. I think I just might bludgeon a “carolina” bluefish for general principles now.

  2. highstick 05/24/2008 at 6:03 PM #

    My first experience with a blue was in 74. My wife’s roommate in college was from Morehead and married a State alum who worked for the Marine Fisheries in Morehead. We went down for a weekend with the intention of doing some fishing near Harkers Island. Because of a fuel leak that Saturday morning, we postponed the fishing trip and decided to take the Cedar Island Ferry over to Ocracoke the next morning and try some surf fishing.

    We were basically trying to catch anything using standard double drop rigs when all of sudden the big blues came through. My wife hooked the first one and it was about to pull her in so she gave the rod to me. It broke off, but by then she’d hooked another with my rod. I re-rigged the first one and got it out. In a span of about 20 minutes all 4 of us hooked up with 4-15 pound blues and landed all 4 of them on 15 pound line on surf rods. We left Ocracoke with 4 bluefish totaling something over 60 pounds. It was an experience I’ll never forget, plus cleaning the things at about 2 AM back in Raleigh after we got back! No way would I put my hands in the mouth of one of those big blues!

    Fishing in the Pamlico Sound in the 70’s was fantastic! As was the bass fishing trips to Camp Bryan near Havelock. Wading with gators while pulling a string of 6 pound bass! Man, those were the days!

  3. redfred2 05/24/2008 at 9:26 PM #

    highstick, I live on the coast now, but not around Morehead City though. I’ve only fished down there a few times but on one occassion I sighted a few yearling drum tailingin shallow water, and then every day after that it was like clockwork. We’d go back and wait, then we would catch them for about an two hours straight through either side of the tide change. They weren’t huge, anywhere from eight to around fifteen or sixteen pounds, but we were actually fishing for speckled trout with 8 pound test. We probably lost about as many we caught at first, until we calmed down and took our time landing the fish. But it was some FUN STUFF!

    Are you planning on fishing in July? If so, in the surf, a boat, or what?

  4. DividedWeFall 05/26/2008 at 3:09 AM #

    First- I don’t know that we can still be considered an “engineering school” when we’re #30 in the nation- we’re the #5 Vet School so perhaps that’d be a better classification…

    And I want an ACC Championship (AT LEAST) as bad as any of you, especially in a revenue-generating sport. The fact is that “those guys down the road” are fortunate enough to be located in cities only known for their universities *cough*Chapel Hill*cough*, whereas Raleigh does NOT want to be known as a “college town”, and they let the students know it. This is why, in my opinion, STUDENT-athletes can’t wait to get the hell out of Raleigh.. you can’t have a good time without getting in trouble! A perfect example is the “nuisance ordinance” that exists here in Raleigh. Total crap.

    …and also, Facilities DO matter for the NACDA Director’s Cup; and while the Bass Fishing CLUB has had a TON of success, it matters as much as Rugby or Dance Team or Hockey or Ultimate Frisbee in the eyes of the Athletic Dept… in other words, not at all. BUT IT IS GOOD FOR NC STATE AS THEY REPRESENT US!

  5. Rick 05/26/2008 at 7:26 AM #

    “Did anyone go see any of the Tournament of Champions games tonight? If so, how did our State commits and prospects look?”

    I saw CJ Willias play. He will not help us immediately and will probably never be a high scoring player.

  6. thekind 05/26/2008 at 9:53 AM #

    Brock-
    Do you know exactly what happened to Fowler atthe ACC Tourny? Rumors have been flying that quite a few big money guys got on him pretty hard after that debacle.

    Any scoop in that regard?

    Thanks in advance and thank you for exposing Fowler for the lame leader that he is.

  7. happypackdad 05/27/2008 at 8:17 AM #

    “I didn’t know facilities competed.”

    they help recruiting a lot

  8. TTandB74 05/28/2008 at 10:25 AM #

    Fishing with clubs?
    I always had better luck with a quarter stick of dynamite. That also automatically fillets many parts of your catch. Of course, the bones that get busted sometimes stick around…

1 2 3

Leave a Reply