Averages

Division one college football teams in North Carolina are what I call Want-A-Bees. They want to be considered highly when you talk about their football programs and they want to be considered just as good as Alabama or Southern Cal.

Sorry brethren of the state of North Carolina football. Basketball is king in this state and every one looks at them in basketball, Duke and Carolina are in basketball what Alabama and Southern Cal are in football. Everyone across the country wants to be just like them.

We have really good football in North Carolina but just not every year. It doesn’t matter whether it is ECU, State, Carolina or Wake. This column excludes Duke. Duke never has good football, only every 40 years. The others have good teams almost great every five years and the next four never quite get back up to where they were for one year.

Do you know what the problem is? It is one of those deceases called average. Think about this. Average means average right in the middle. Back in my golfing days I shot 87 on average. On hot dry days when I could get a long roll off of a ball I might shoot 82 and if I was having a great day shoot 80. The winter without any roll on my shots I had a great day to be no worse than 92.

N C State is on the verge of having their best season in football since the year of 2002 football season and 2003 Gator Bowl. Like all average teams they are facing the pats on the back of what a great job they are doing. When that happens to an average team somewhere they slip up and fall right back to average.

If the averages hold true in a five year course every average team will have a losing season and three years of 500 football or just a little above 500. Then the breakout season.

They face Clemson this Saturday which the Pack will probably be favored but the game is in Clemson. All the witch’s brews are just right for the Wolfpack to fall after having just won a national TV game against Florida State and making the top 25 this week.

ECU, North Carolina, Wake they are all in the same boat. Having a really good team every five years is four years short of being considered to be able to wear Alabama’s shoes.

Why just this past Saturday on the threshold of greatness ECU fell hard in football. It must not be their fifth year so ECU plugs forward waiting for their next fifth year. Poor old Wake Forest the way they are playing right now looks like it might be ten years before their next good team. You watch Wake's fifth year is just around the corner or maybe four more years away.

North Carolina thought that this was going to be their fifth year and dreamed of the Orange Bowl or even more until their bottom fell out this year. Since they have missed their fifth year have they got to wait five more years before another great team rolls around?

The averages say yes they will have to wait. If this is N C State fifth year then they will win at least three of their next four games. Anything less and this was not their every fifth year.

It’s just not in the averages for average football teams.