I’ve already talked about the series finale of LOST. If losing LOST wasn’t bad enough, Monday was the series finale of FOX’s 24. So two of my favorite TV shows of all time coming to an end in the span of 24 hours. See what I did there? Anyway, I’ll always be reminded of 24 because my default cell phone ringtone is the original CTU phone ring (download here). Some of the other things I’ll miss most from 24: Jack Bauer, an infinite number of moles inside CTU, the manpurse, Chloe O’Brian, never needing bathroom breaks, the vast array of interrogation techniques, Aaron Pierce (the biggest travesty of the show was he didn’t appear in the final season), getting from one side of LA/NYC/DC to the other in one commercial break (a.k.a. 5 minutes), and of course the countdown clock.
I’ll pass on comparing the 24 characters to NC State football because, let’s be brutally honest, nothing compares to the absolute badassness that is called Jack freakin’ Bauer. Check out the facts for yourself. The good news about 24 is that it is not completely over. There is a 24 movie in the works so I look forward to that. For now though, I’m really starting to look forward to the 2010 NC State Football season. We are now under 100 days to the start of the season and I’m getting really antsy. In honor of 24, I’ve added a countdown* to the start of the season at the top of the first sidebar. Too bad I can’t get that sick 24 countdown sound to accompany it. That just gives me the chills every time I hear it. Now if you’re sitting around the house/office and you get a little bored come over here and just watch the countdown go. I know I’ve wasted at least half my day watching it slowly tick down.
Enjoy the Memorial Weekend everybody! Make sure to remember our fallen heroes and thank all the living soldiers for the sacrifices they’ve made that allow us to live in peace and happiness. USA! USA! USA!
*Note: Thanks to fellow NC State alum Erik Rasmussen for the countdown code. The Western Carolina game time has not been announced yet, but if it follows years past it’ll be 6:00pm so that’s what the countdown is set to. I will update the countdown if needed once the game time becomes official.
So unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past month you know that Sunday was the series finale of LOST (ABC’s much ballyhooed sci-fi, drama, action, mystery, thriller … it fits into almost every genre that exists). I started watching it towards the end of season one and, even though I was ‘lost’ and confused most of the time, it became one of my favorite shows of all time. I never was one of those obsessed Losties, however. I mean I only have 4 Dharma jumpsuits, 8 cases of Dharma beer, 15 LOST posters, 16 LOST castaway action figures, subscribe to 23 different LOST podcasts, and read 42 different LOST blogs. Well none of that’s true, but even if it were I would still only be considered a ‘casual’ LOST fan. Nevertheless I wanted to bid a heartfelt farewell to the series. Now that we have ‘all’ the answers I wonder how different going back and re-watching the series would be? I might have to try that sometime.
Now why did I like LOST so much? It wasn’t because of the polar bears or the smoke monster thingy or the flashes (back, forward, and sideways) or the hatch or the Dharma Initiative or the tropical island in the middle of nowhere or even that lovable fat guy that actually seemed to gain weight while stranded on said island. All that stuff was great, but the thing that got me was LOST paralleled my own personal journey of becoming a fanatical diehard NC State football fan. I’ll try to be brief so here goes.
September 4, 1999 (my first home football game as a NC State Student) was when my plane crashed on the Carter-Finley island. Sitting through Hurricane Dennis to watch the 10-0 win over the Gamecocks was the moment my eye opened (so let’s just say that I’m like Jack).
I’ve dealt with UNC fans (the ‘Others’) and fought against the evil UNC biased media (mysterious polar bears/smoke monster). I’ve also interacted with the Wolfpack Club (Dharma Initiative), been trapped in many of their fund raising initiatives (research stations) including those LTRs (hatch). I’ve even had to write that membership dues check over and over and over to keep everything intact (hatch numbers).
There’s been players like Philip Rivers, Jerricho Cotchery, Dantonio Burnette, Mario Williams, etc. that came along that were absolute dynamite and critical to my journey (Locke, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, etc.). There were also those players like T.A. McLendon, Marcus Stone, etc. that I had high hopes for that just fizzled out and were ultimately forgotten (Mr. Eko, Walt, etc.). There is my soulmate Mrs. DFCF (Kate) and even though we technically met and started dating in high school, she didn’t really discover who I was until that first NC State football season and she still chose to stay by my side. I will say our relationship is nothing like Jack/Kate, it’s more on the level of Sawyer/Juliet … except for that whole going Dutch part. Mrs. DFCF never got that memo.
I even missed one home game (left the island) vs. Middle Tennessee State on November 19, 2005 and quickly regretted that decision and returned to the island immediately never trying to leave again. I’ve seen the seemingly invincible AD Lee Fowler (island care taker Jacob) get eliminated and failed miserably at trying to make a huge impact by starting this blog (detonating that hydrogen bomb). Also somehow along the way the smoke monster took over TOB’s body and is trying to ruin everything. Seriously, this guy won 8/9 games every year at BC … something’s definitely taken over his body, right?
I could go on and on about how my journey has paralleled the LOST journey, but the one problem is I’ve yet to get to that enlightenment phase. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to accept that NC State football is not perfect and my fandom will never die. Can I just put my house on the market already and move to the sideways world where NC State football is always winning championships?
Yeah I know this post was crazy and probably confusing (it’s not like that on purpose … promise), but it’s my tribute to LOST. I’m sure everybody could make some sort of parallel between their life’s journey and that of LOST. That’s what made the show so great. I will miss it, but I have a funny feeling that some spinoff or remake will pop up in the future. Until then … Namaste!
So Spring Practices for most schools ended over a month ago and I’ve been crunching numbers ever since to come up with these rankings. Not really, I’ve just been slack. Actually I’ve been caught up in all the conference expansion talk. Just by mentioning that I should get twice as many page views. What can I say … I’m a page view whore. Moving on. A lot of people give total conference rankings, but what good does that do. It doesn’t matter if the top 4 or bottom 3 are all from the same division, what matters is who will be meeting in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium on December 4th for the ACC Championship Game. Without further ado here is my rankings with as little commentary as possible so I can fool people into thinking I actually know what I’m talking about.
Atlantic Division
Boston College – Easy schedule, good defense, and they just know how to win.
Florida State – Great QB, but terrible defense and new coaching staff will underachieve.
Clemson – Athletic defense will be very good, but without C.J. Spiller they will struggle to score points.
NC State – Great offense + horrendous defense = exciting games – actual wins.
Wake Forest – New focus on running game will hope to soften the hangover from Riley Skinner’s departure.
Maryland – The Fridge’s farewell tour will be painful and ugly.
Coastal Division
North Carolina – Defense wins championships and this is a NFL caliber defense.
Virginia Tech – They always have high expectations and always seem to live up to them.
Miami – I just watched ESPN’s 30 for 30 called The U and I think they start returning to past form.
Georgia Tech – Too bad they’re not in the Atlantic Division, they’d easily win it this year.
Duke – They’ve gotten a lot better, but they are still Duke and this is not basketball.
Virginia – Mike London will make the Wahoos good, just not this year.
I’m wrong a lot even though I hate admitting it, as I’m sure Mrs. DFCF would be glad to tell you, but this is one instance where I would love to admit being wrong. Maybe that is partly why my rankings look the way they do. Anyway, this is how I see the 2010 season going. And if BC and Carolina were to meet in the ACC Championship Game I would give the edge to Carolina. Am I actually predicting the Tarheels to win the ACC football championship this year? Damn, I guess so. On that note it’s time to end this post and remove the fist lodged in my gut.
I searched far and wide on the interweb for a cool picture from a past NC State Commencement Ceremony and this is the best I could find. I’m disappointed that not nearly enough people decorate their mortarboards (I never did it either so I’m guilty myself) or at least it’s impossible to find any pictures of them. Nevertheless, today the Class of 2010 has it’s chance to make history. Here’s my top 5 ideas with corresponding pictures for best ever mortarboard designs (my Photoshop skills are awesome!):
#5 - A 3-D exact scaled replica of Carter-Finley Stadium.
#4 - An iced down Coors Light mini keg … to help get through those boring speeches.
#3 - A dozen cold, crusty, week old Krispy Kreme doughnuts in remembrance of the Krispy Kreme Challenge.
#2 - Small wax figurine in honor of two of the most famous NC State fans. Bonus points if you can make it do this.
#1 – Since there is a growing faction in Wolfpack Nation that really wants it … a live wolf mascot (just a miniature one of course).
Well now that the important stuff is out of the way I want to send out a hard earned and well deserved Congrats! to the NC State University Class of 2010. Good luck to you all in the next chapter of your lives. Go out and change the world … just don’t get drunk on your birthday and lose the next iPhone in a bar. You’ve been warned.
I will be attending the ceremonies today since my little brother will be getting his degree. Congrats bro! It won’t be the same next year looking down on the Carter-Finley sidelines and not seeing you. Hurry back!
I’ve been purposely avoiding the big elephant sitting in the corner of the college football room. That elephant being conference expansion. The expansion rumblings coming out of the Big Ten are getting louder and louder by the day. It is definitely going to happen, it’s just not clear as to how many schools they plan to add. Everything I’ve been reading, though, says they plan to expand to at least 14 teams with their preference being a 16 team super conference. There are even some reports circulating around the internet that the Big Ten has already offered expansion spots to Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Rutgers. Some other schools that have been reported to be on the Big Ten’s radar are Texas, Pitt, Maryland, UConn, and Syracuse.
If the Big Ten does expand to more than 12 teams surely the SEC will expand to match them so both conferences will keep their big dog statuses. The SEC expansion talk hasn’t gotten anywhere near the media attention that the Big Ten expansion has because the SEC is happy where they’re at. The have the luxury of just sitting back and seeing how things unfold. Speculation has been all over the place as to who the SEC might target if they do choose to expand. Some think they would go further west and look at schools like Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State. Others think they would strengthen their southern base with some combination of schools like Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina.
I can’t see the future (and if I could I would be living in a huge mansion in Las Vegas instead of wasting that power on this stupid blog), but I think the SEC would combine those two trains of thought by adding Texas, Texas A&M, Florida State, and Miami. Those four schools would fit in well performance wise making the SEC the power football super conference and they also would add some big TV markets (a.k.a. MONEY) which in the end is what this conference expansion is all about.
The reason I’ve been avoiding this conference expansion talk so far is because I was hoping that it would go away. I just don’t like the idea of 16 team super conferences because in the end all it’s going to be is two mini 8 team conferences that send their champs to play each other. At least for football purposes, this is a football blog so what do you expect, you will only see the teams from the other division once every eight years. I guess that helps correct unbalanced scheduling which is the main gripe about 12 team conferences, but if you’re never going to consistently play the teams from the other division what’s the point? Call me a hater, but I don’t like it.
With the Big Ten and SEC the main players calling all the shots, all the other conferences are left to sit back and hope for the best. It’s not like the ACC can be proactive like last time when they raided Boston College, Virginia Tech, and Miami from the Big East. If it does go down like most people expect (16 team super conferences) then it looks like it will again be the Big East that suffers most as the ACC would probably look to Big East schools like UConn, Syracuse, Louisville, West Virginia, Cincinnati, and South Florida to try and keep up with the Joneses. The timetable for conference expansion has definitely been moved up from what the initial reports were saying so it will be very very interesting to see how this whole thing plays out over the next several months. DFCF will be here to pontificate his thoughts throughout the whole process so make sure to check back when the shit hits the proverbial fan.
NC State legend David Thompson posing for a picture with Mama DFCF
Just wanted to wish all the Moms out there a Happy Mother’s Day … especially Mama DFCF! So I was sitting at dinner Friday night with Mrs. DFCF and trying to figure out what to get Mama DFCF for Mother’s Day. Since she has no real hobbies that can sometimes be a tough task. We thought about some new clothes, but let’s face it clothes are boring. We thought about an iPad, but I’m not sure Mama DFCF would know how to turn the darn thing on and then dealing with that touchscreen … forget about it. [Love you Mom, that's only 5% true and 95% for comedic value.] We thought about a car seat because she’s gonna need it for grandkids … you know like 5 years from now!
Then it hit me. What’s the ultimate Mother’s Day present? Well to be featured on davefromcarterfinley.com of course. So Happy Mother’s Day! Love you Mom!
Now that Spring Practice is over a lot of media outlets are releasing their reviews and post-Spring rankings. In the grand scheme of things these rankings mean very little since we actually play games and decide this stuff on the field. Nevertheless, these rankings are very important as they often shape public perception of a program and definitely influence high school recruits.
Obviously a lot can change between now and September when the games finally start, like Nate Irving’s car wreck last year, but individual conference projections are usually a lot more accurate than their Top 25 counterparts (if you’re so inclined … and I know you are … here’s post-Spring Top 25 rankings from ESPN and Sports Illustrated). At least that’s the illusion that I’ve always been under. Sorry I don’t feel like putting in the research to affirm or dispel that notion so we’re going to treat it as fact. Hey I never said I wanted to be a journalist, just a delirious internet blogger. Anyway, let’s take a look at a few ACC projections.
Tony Barnhart (a.k.a. Mr. College Football) of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution released his Spring Practice review of the ACC Atlantic Division today. Click here for the article. [Update: Here's his take on the ACC Coastal Division.] His projected order of finish for the 2010 season is:
Florida State
Clemson
Boston College
NC State
Wake Forest
Maryland
Heather Dinich, the ACC blogger for ESPN, released her pre-Spring power rankings back in February with NC State at #8. This week she released her post-Spring power rankings with NC State falling to #10. Her complete 2010 rankings are:
Virginia Tech
Florida State
Miami
Clemson
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
Boston College
Maryland
Wake Forest
NC State
Duke
Virginia
I haven’t had enough time to put together my own projections or even opine about these. Maybe I’ll do that sometime this week. Things are a little slow here at work, hence the reasoning for a rare mid-day post, so what better way to waste time than blogging. Don’t worry, none of my 13 subscribers are co-workers. [Note: If you're not a subscriber what are you waiting for ... subscribe now ... it's not like it costs anything.] Hope not anyway or these mid-day posts might become less rare. I’ll also be doing game by game projections of the 2010 Wolfpack season, but that won’t be until much closer to the season so make sure to check back in late August for that. Uh-oh my boss just walked by my office and gave me that ‘what the hell are you doing’ look so I better get back to work. Ciao!
Many people have asked me why I started this blog. My response has always been that I was tired of reading NC State message boards so I wanted to create my own outlet to talk about NC State football. I was planning on saying that loosely translates to ‘I have no life,’ but that actually applies to those aforementioned message board people.
Really I have an unhealthy passion for NC State football that’s causing me to lose sleep at night and get premature gray hair. There’s a great joke I could insert here, but I’ll pass. Mrs. DFCF has already taken a local blog out of her internet surfing rotation because of a crude unnecessary joke and I don’t want to alienate one of my few loyal readers. Back to the topic. So those reasons are true, but secondary to the real reason … I want to become famous enough to be on Dancing With The Stars.
That’s Cincinnati Bengals WR Chad Ochocinco dancing the Viennese Waltz (the actual dancing is from 1:30 to 3:20) on this season of DWTS. It’s been documented that I bought Mrs. DFCF dancing lessons for her last birthday so I’ve been tearing up the ballroom floor for the past 8 months or so. Shoot, with Mrs. DFCF’s busy work/school schedule it’s the only time I get to see her most weeks. Anyway, I look just like Chad Ochocinco above … well except that I’m short, out of shape, and extremely pale … so I don’t think I could pull off that white see through shirt, but I could definitely pull off that Viennese Waltz.
I know my chances of ever being on DWTS are about as good as my chances with Demi Moore (ironically Mrs. DFCF was told by a co-worker last week that she looked like Demi … uh oh, the cat’s out of the bag). So I’ve been working on a foolproof plan that was finally set into motion today. Here goes.
Lee Fowler is now officially out as NC State Athletics Director (!scream!* … I’m as giddy as a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert). I’m sure all the talk now will be about who replaces him. Well that guy will be me for two reasons: I’m as passionate about NC State athletics as anybody out there and I can’t do any worse than Fowler. During my 5 year tenure as AD the NC State athletics program will only slightly improve (let’s face it NC State is destined to be mediocre), but I will become the orchestrator that finally gets a college football playoff system implemented (see the DFCF Plan). After becoming the most popular guy in college football, ESPN will lure me away with some big bucks. Just a mere months after joining the ‘Worldwide Leader in Sports’ I will be competing against Marisa Miller, LaDanian Tomlinson, Sarah Silverman, Macaulay Culkin, Venus Williams, Richard Simmons, Queen Latifah, Tony Danza, Kelly Ripa, Garth Brooks, and Carmen Electra on DWTS Season 16. Don’t worry, I will keep this blog up and running throughout the whole journey for all 13 of my subscribers. Sounds pretty good, huh? DWTS … Beware!
