we were not ready to move the the AAC and we have been a dismal failure in the AAC. Not only that, but we would not be winnning in CUSA or the Sunbelt over the last 5 years. Anyone who thinks we would is cluless. That's the state of ECU football. I'm not saying we should have not moved. It was the logical thing to do. But when we moved we were exposed as not being ready and the situation has only gotten worse. Ruff didn't do terrible in the AAC but he also didn't recruit to the level of other teams in the conference. He probably wouldn't have lasted more than 1 more year but firing at the time we did was absolutely stupid and accelerated our decline.

For those dreaming of us joining a P5 conference, you need to imagine what it would be like. Think twice as bad as it is now. We haven't been able to recruit up to the AAC level so it's logical we would not be recruiting up to the P5 level. We have proven to be one of the weakest links in the confererence. Their decision to finally invite us after every other team they might want was not interested, has proven somebody knew ECU was a risk.

I don't know what the answer is. I don't know when it will get significanty better. I don't know how smaller programs with less history and success have now blown right by us. I'm not saying we should leave the conference. We shouldn't. But after 7 years in the AAC, what have we got to show for it? We had a winning season our first year in the AAC. We went 5-3 in the AAC that first season. The 5 AAC teams we beat had the following number of wins: 1, 4, 2, 3, 2. Since then we have been clobered in the conference and our overall record has been abysmal. We can run down the "lesser" conferences. It sounds real authoritative coming from a team that has won 14 of the last 54 games we have played.