FanPost

The past and future of Wolfpack Football

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I have been thinking about my expectations for the NCSU football program recently. It started after reading some rather spirited comments between BTP members after one of our more disappointing losses. There was some Doeren-disparaging that I wanted to dispute, not because I am a strident defender of the man or his abilities, but because it felt somehow disconnected from reality in a way that I couldn’t quite place. I started to break down the arguments on both sides and I arrived at two fundamental questions that I would like you to ask yourself before you read any further:

  1. What is the true state of the Wolfpack football program?
  2. What is reasonable to expect from that program in the coming decade?

I started by breaking down what I considered to be the most quantifiable and objective ways to measure football program strength. I settled on Historical on-field results, Football Spending, and Recent Recruiting Success. I did more research than I care to admit and I will try to present my findings with as little commentary as possible.

HISTORICAL ON-FIELD RESULTS

I started by taking a look at the on-field results (overall and in-conference). I went back to 1983 because I wanted to keep it somewhat relevant to what football looks like today (that is also the year GT became a football member of the ACC and that seemed important for some reason). Ties were counted as .5 in both the win and loss column.

Here are the most pertinent facts:

  • The average overall record is 6.3 wins and 5.7 losses.
  • The average conference record is 3.5 wins and 4.2 losses
  • State has been over .500 in-conference only 10 times
  • Only twice have there been consecutive seasons over .500 in-conference (92-93, and 86-89)
  • There have been 10 seasons with 8+ total wins (5 occurred prior to 1995)

I decided to take games against cupcakes out of the equation. I considered any D2/FCS schools and any small schools that we paid to play a home-only game as cupcakes.

  • The Pack have gone 41-2 against cupcakes (losses to Furman in 84 & 85)
  • The average overall record is 5 wins and 5.7 losses against non-cupcakes

FOOTBALL SPENDING

The chart below provides numbers for the football spending per-scholarship football player as reported by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. I included numbers for State as well as numbers for UNC, the two most successful ACC football programs (FSU and Clemson), and the averages for the power-5 conferences.

Per-FB Scholarship

% above NCSU Spending

NCSU

$179,809

FSU

$253,474

41.0%

Clemson

$248,915

38.4%

UNC

$212,768

18.3%

ACC

$207,096

15.2%

SEC

$262,468

46.0%

B1G

$213,987

19.0%

Pac12

$214,179

19.1%

Big12

$228,319

27.0%

RECRUITING SUCCESS

Below is information for the last 5 recruiting classes for NCSU, UNC, CLEMSON, and FSU. I kept it to 5 because that should cover most or all of the players that could be on each team this year. Included are the averages for the national rank of the class, the number of 5-star recruits, and the number of 4-star recruits for the 2010 through 2014 classes. All data is pulled from 247sports.com.

Team

Class Avg.

5-Star

4-Star

NCSU

51.2

0

1

UNC

25.8

0

4.2

Clemson

16.6

0.8

8

FSU

5.4

3.2

9.6

So what is the true state of the NCSU football program? These metrics paint a picture of a school that is struggling to be mediocre. It wins just under half the time when playing a division 1 program. It is solidly below .500 in conference play. It spends around 20% less on football than an average P5 school. It consistently pulls in below average talent when compared to other P5 football programs.*

So if that is the true state of the Wolfpack football program, what is reasonable to expect from that program in the coming decade? What is reasonable to expect now? I’m not going to venture a guess, but I would like to hear thoughts in the comments from any of you who feel so inclined. I will offer these comments for you to consider while you ponder you answers:

  • Moving up a level in college football is more difficult than most people truly understand. The upper-echelon programs spend nearly (or more than) twice as much on football than does NC State. There are at least 30 programs that outspend us by more than $40,000 per-scholarship player. They do this by taking in contributions that are often 3-4 times what is given by Wolfpack donors and cashing in on media and branding contracts that dwarf anything that makes it to Raleigh (Texas brought in almost as much money in media and branding as NCSU did in all sports revenues combined). There is a lot of money spent here and the donors/advertisers/media companies expect return on the investment.
  • It cannot be understated how much the powerful programs dominate recruiting. Recruiting is hardly a regional matter anymore The big programs get the guys they want and the smaller programs choose between what's left. Even if a school like NCSU does land a big fish with offers from schools like Bama, it is usually only after that school has landed an even bigger fish at the same position.

*(I know this paragraph, and maybe the whole article, seem like it was written by this guy. It wasn't. Or was it? It wasn't.)