It crossed my mind that EZU's recent football down slide began partially when they fired Ruffin. It's always bad luck when you fire a former Mountaineer assistant coach.
Seriously, though, they seemed to screw the pooch when they moved to the American Conference. It's the "too big for their britches" syndrome.

Does anyone know when Ruffin coached at ASU?

moonshine wrote:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruffin_McNeill

Wow, didn't recall him having two stints at App.

I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

They were a good team with Ruffin, they were not without him. Don't think it had to do with the AAC, who there has a better program than ECU over time?

I don't believe it has anything to do with the move to the AAC. Outside of UCONN, Temple and Navy, it's essentially a redux of former CUSA teams that ECU has competed against in the past. I'd probably point to the fact that they've had 5 new programs move up to FBS within their footprint over the past few years. With the extra scholarships being offered from the new programs that takes an additional 50 players away from the pool that ECU had access to since they were one of the only G5 programs in the area.

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Didn't make it to the dance Buzz's second go round.

NattyBumppo'sRevenge wrote:They were a good team with Ruffin, they were not without him. Don't think it had to do with the AAC, who there has a better program than ECU over time?

Good point, but I might remind you that it has only been within the last decade or so that ECU's overall record has been above .500 since they moved up to I-A (FBS). Adjusting to a new conference is almost always a challenging ordeal. It was for us at first during the transition.

I wouldn't trade our program for ECU's especially since we have built ours the right way, not by letting everyone who could barely read or write on to the football field in the past.


My mistake, Jerry, but we did get further in the conference tourney though didn't we?

Made the finals. Lost to Wofford.

hapapp wrote:Made the finals. Lost to Wofford.

What was the farthest we got in the SoCon tourney under HF?

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Fancher was one game over .500 in his career at App and never even played for a SoCon championship. While that is the best we've had in a while, I certainly hope no one would call that pretty successful.

NewApp wrote:

hapapp wrote:Made the finals. Lost to Wofford.

What was the farthest we got in the SoCon tourney under HF?

Semis. Lost in overtime to College of Charleston on what was DJ Thompson's worst career game.

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Not saying they should have fired him, but pointing out that the decline started before McNeil left, not after.

appst89 wrote:

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Fancher was one game over .500 in his career at App and never even played for a SoCon championship. While that is the best we've had in a while, I certainly hope no one would call that pretty successful.

My guess is the people who consider Fancher successful are the ones who only really care about football and are fine with basketball being mediocre.

Fancher's best team lost in the semis when Donte Minter missed a foul shot at the end that could have won the game. We lost in OT.

http://www.soconsports.com/ViewArticle. ... LID=812781

appst89 wrote:

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Fancher was one game over .500 in his career at App and never even played for a SoCon championship. While that is the best we've had in a while, I certainly hope no one would call that pretty successful.

You answered your own premise when you said it was the best in quite a while. I mean no disrespect when I say "have we been .500 under the Jason Capel and Coach Fox era?" I mean geez, there are several on here who are already saying the benediction on Coach Fox. I personally think Fox deserves at least 3 more years..no less..considering what he inherited.

EastHallApp wrote:

appst89 wrote:

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Fancher was one game over .500 in his career at App and never even played for a SoCon championship. While that is the best we've had in a while, I certainly hope no one would call that pretty successful.

My guess is the people who consider Fancher successful are the ones who only really care about football and are fine with basketball being mediocre.

Until the athletic department and administration put as much emphasis and funding on basketball as they do football we are going to continue to be mediocre for the most part.

I'm all for giving Coach Fox the time needed to develop his team. He has a five year contract and there is no reason not to honor it. It is ironic that the team he inherited has been the best team he has fielded to this point.

We have played five of our 7 conference games on the road. I'm hopeful that when the schedule bounces back to more games in Boone that we see some better results. We also are yet to play any of the other bottom feeders.

NewApp wrote:

appst89 wrote:

NewApp wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:I wouldn't say it began when they fired him - that was just one year ago, after they went 5-7. But it certainly got worse this year. I have wondered the same thing about them joining the AAC. I'm not sure yet if they can't handle the competition or if, more likely, they just picked a bad time for their program to go in the tank.

I hope the heck we don't fire Satterfield in the unlikely event we happen to go 5-7 one year. But you never know. Heck we fired Houston Fancher when he was pretty successful and haven't recovered yet in hoops, save the one year Buzz Peterson took us to the dance with Houston's recruits.

Fancher was one game over .500 in his career at App and never even played for a SoCon championship. While that is the best we've had in a while, I certainly hope no one would call that pretty successful.

You answered your own premise when you said it was the best in quite a while. I mean no disrespect when I say "have we been .500 under the Jason Capel and Coach Fox era?" I mean geez, there are several on here who are already saying the benediction on Coach Fox. I personally think Fox deserves at least 3 more years..no less..considering what he inherited.

My premise is that one game over .500 is not pretty successful even if it is the best we've had. That just means we've been bad.