Today, the News & Observer is really focusing on the Bunting situation with a couple of articles, one of which is – “Clock ticks on Bunting”.. Additionally, this entry @ AOL highlights some recent articles.
Although it doesn’t surprise me that the world is FINALLY talking about the obvious…it continues to fascinate me how “hot” Chuck Amato’s seat has supposedly been (if you listen to the national media) while John Bunting has been able to skate by with a free pass from scrutiny with significantly worse performance than CTC.
It would be different if NC State fans REALLY were clamoring against Chuck Amato in large numbers that were disproportionate to any other fan base’s unhappiness, but the truth just does not support the onclusion that the media continues to juxtapose. Somebody says it…so it must be true!
As I stated almost two months ago in an entry that is very relevant to this entry, Coach Amato
has legitimate justification to be frustrated with the inconsistent recent media coverage of local programs. (Looks like the rest of the world is only two months behind what you see on SFN.)
This is no small issue as the coverage and focus as most definitely played a role in recent recruiting success at Carolina and decreased recruiting success in Raleigh. I am very pleased that we are finally getting a little ACCURATE focus on topic. It will be interesting to see if Carolina can hold together their strong recruiting class by signing day in light of some of the recent developments. The following are some key comments that I made in the previous entry.
The media’s inaccuracies and inability focus on the truth are starting to have a negative impact on the NC State program as it is various members of the media – at a level that is infinitely more intense than Wolfpack fans – that have insisted on writing articles about Coach Amato being “on the hotseat” while simultaneously (inaccurately) criticizing Amato for foolish reasons.
Think about this for a moment.
There is little to no doubt that John Bunting will be fired as UNC-CH’s football coach after this season if he turns in a performance that is just an average year for him. How much publicity is this topic getting? While Chuck Amato has succeeded in becoming one of the most successful football coaches in NC State history and has succeeded in elevating our program far above all other programs in the area, the media has decided to swarm like (uneducated) vultures on CTC’s job security.
The result? UNC-CH is experiencing one of the best recruiting classes in their history while NC State is experiencing our second slight downturn in a row from the standards of CTC’s first four recruiting classes.
Reality check…NC State’s program has quickly become an NFL factory while UNC’s has experienced more player turnover and attrition than is close to explicable. The success that Chuck Amato has generated at NC State dwarfs the overall success of what John Bunting has generated at Carolina in only one fewer season.
Yet, the media makes a huge deal of our successful coach being on “the hotseat” while Carolina’s unsuccessful coach gets NO public pressure or scrutiny and thereby allowing him to mislead recruits into thinking that his job is safe. Wouldn’t you be a little ticked at the idiocy and blatant disregard for reality?
