There are a lot of East Carolina football fans sitting on pins and needles this week. Once again Coach Skip Holtz is the target of schools with coaching openings. The difference is this time he has expressed interest in a job at South Florida. It appears he may be packing up his moving van.
If Skip was a visitor to The Corner I would get down on bended knees, begging him to stay For the first time in the nearly 20 years I have watched East Carolina gridiron action there is a program in Greenville. Before there were just teams who came together on Saturdays.
It is no wonder Skip draws interest every year. He has built a team that now has national recognition at a school that has difficulty establishing an identity.
He likely realizes his growth potential is limited because East Carolina has never gotten what it has so obviously deserved. When the Atlantic Coast Conference expanded they ignored the most obvious candidate and chose teams requiring long travel trips to Miami and Boston, with a very limited fan base. They ignored a team that would bring thousands of purple and gold clad fans out each time there was a game.
The Pirates have long been the "red headed step child" of college football in North Carolina. That may well be what costs them one of the best coaches in the country. We can only hope the draw of Greenville keeps him around a little longer. Losing him will be a major step back for the Pirate program. It will happen sooner or later, the later the better.
Well it appears if the purple and gold are on the bridge to no where. This loss of a coach, unless a top shelf guy comes in which is highly doubtful, will put the pirates up the creek without a paddle. Or should I say up the river with a tear in the sails.
ReplyDeleteAnd Skip wasnt that good of a coach, just good enough to win conference usa, or as I like to say the conference of Unusually Sorry Athletes. So with his move to the big east he will show his lack of coaching skill and will have USF as one of the worst teams in the coming years...so in time maybe EZU, I mean ECU will get the ole' skipper back.