Hell Freezes Over

I worked earlier this month in Carteret County. Nice time to be at the coast. After Labor Day - nice weather - no crowds.

View From the Hotel Room

Harkers Island

One day after work, I drove over to Harkers Island. I've lived all my life in North Carolina and never been there.

It's a pretty sizable island. Similar to Manteo. And so far, it's opted out of the Vacation McMansion Blight. There's a couple of subdivisions on the water with McMs, but only a handful.

Harkers Island reminds me of Sneads Ferry from 40 years ago. A college friend's family had a vacation cottage on the ICW. We'd go there and get liquored up watch the boats, nature and stars.

Visiting Harkers Island was like stepping back in time.

Shrimp Boats

At the end of the road - at the end of the island - is the surprisingly large Core Sound Waterfowl and Heritage Center. Unexpected surprise.

Museum

View from the Lookout

Hard to see, but way in the distance - Carteret Lighthouse.

Carteret Lighthouse

Ate dinner at one of the two local restaurants - across the street from each other.

Sanitary Seafood

It's been about 20 years since I've eaten at Sanitary Seafood. With mom and dad - met them in Beaufort. I can't remember the occasion.

While working, we had lunch there one day. Food was as good as I remember. I also went back one evening for dinner. Honestly - the best fried flounder I can ever remember having. It's hard to cook fish just right - it's so delicate it's easy to under or (more likely) over cook. This one was absolutely perfect.

Sanitary used to have no alcohol sales. In fact, they're known for their sign in the entry that says they'll ask you to leave if you're inebriated and that they'd rather lose 10 drunken patrons than to lose one sober one.

Well, Sanitary now sells beer, wine and (GASP!) hard liquor. And horror of horrors - they have installed a bar - right in the middle of the main dinning room. The owner told me they got their liquor license two years ago. Frankly, I'm surprised they were able to hold out that long.

The exit is still the same with their original cash register and comment book.

Hell has Officially Frozen Over

Exit

Some days at work are better than others. Sometimes much better.

Bill is Irked

I enjoy watching college sports.

The kids play for heart, fun and pride. I take wins and losses in stride. After all - it IS just a game - played by kids. I don't get all crazy like the message board nut jobs. I get season tickets and make donations - but - my happiness doesn't depend on a won / loss record. I have a life.

That said - State's loss to ECU yesterday has me steamed.

The Pie Rats of Pitt County Charter School were well coached and well prepared. State's offense was (mostly) well coached and well prepared. State's defense . . . was Not.

In a typical college football game you can give up 2, 3 maybe, just maybe, 4 BIG plays and still win.

State's defense allowed ECU to make the following BIG plays -

Rushing: 28 yard, 27 yards, 13 yards
Pass Completions:  18 yards, 17 yards, 33 yards, 25 yards, 39 yards

Our recruits / athletes are better and more experienced than ECU's. Giving up 8 BIG plays lay directly at the feet of the Defensive Coaching Staff.

Also - I haven't found the stats - it seemed like ECU made a lot of critical third down conversions. Certainly more than our defense should have allowed.

These are the same problems our defense had all of last year.

Defensive Coordinator Huxtable needs to be let go immediately and a member of the staff named interim DC. Coach Doeren's background is defense. He should recognize this and could assist the interim coach for the rest of the season. A new (and better, obviously) DC can be hired after the season ends.

Doing this right now will NOT make our defense worse for the rest of the season. Hell, it may even improve it. It would send the statement that Coach Doeren recognizes a major weakness and won't wait to start correcting it.

We replaced our OC from last year.

Already, our offense has improved to the point that even with the holes the defense put us in - our offense still almost won the game.

The kicking game still has some a lot of work to do. 2 missed field goals, 1 failed 2 point conversion, 1 failed fake field goal on 4th down - that's 7 or 8+ points right there.

State was projected to go a mediocre 6 and 6. We're overrated. Sigh . . . .

UNC CHeats Got Robbed

I don't stick up for UNC CHeats.

But the refs did their part in making sure Georgia won the UNC - GA game at the Georgia Dome.

In the 3rd - a couple of questionable pass interference calls went against UNC.

Then - it got totally out of hand - and darn near obvious the refs were taking sides - an 'illegal lineman downfield' call was wrong - just plain wrong. Easily seen during the play and on replay. Coach Fedora tore into the refs - and got a 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty. Fedora was whining the whole game - maybe the refs got tired of it - but the refs essentially gave two crappy flags to UNC. That completely changed the game for Carolina.

Then, in the fourth, when Carolina was making a comeback - a critical 3rd down catch WAS made and then, inexplicably, overturned on replay. The 'reason' (and by that - I mean 'excuse') was the ball was jiggling a little as the player hit the ground. Well of course it was - he was being hit - BUT - he held on to the ball and had possession AND control. Even if there was a little ball movement - it was still under control and ruled a catch. Then, overturned on replay. WTF? Replay is supposed to require 'indisputable evidence' that the call was wrong. No way there was anywhere near enough to overturn the ruling on the field.

That pretty much took the wind out of the sails for UNC. Add in a bonehead safety and poor play calling at the very end - and Georgia gets the win.

Maybe Georgia would have won anyway without the bad UNC calls - but I doubt it.

Labor Day Weekend 2016

East Carolina Alumni Association

College football season starts this weekend.

State's warm up game vs. Bill and Mary was Thursday night. We looked really good, But - it was against a  seriously outmatched team.

Next week we go to Pitt County Remedial Charter School. While EZU isn't supposed to be that good this year, it will be a much stronger team and we'll see just how much State has improved (hopefully).

State plays 3 top 10 teams and 3 top 25 teams. We should win the other 6 games and have a .500 season. We'll be improved over last year but it will take a real upset to go better than 6 and 6.

Likewise, we have to avoid any upsets - like next weekend - at EZU.