Of Pirates, Polls and Possibilities | Beautiful Day for Football

East Carolina under Skip Holtz ran off a 26-11 record against the point spread during his first three seasons -- an eye-popping 70% win rate that was almost actual piracy for gamblers who stuck with the Pirates. Add two more spread-smashing wins to the total.

Yet ECU was the only "Carolina" not receiving at least a vote in the AP and USA Today preseason poll just two weeks ago. Today, it has 762 AP votes -- North Carolina and South Carolina put together have...three. Though overlooked by the "experts," were there other signs that ECU's quick takedown of two top-20 teams (one of them a top-10) was in the offing?

When Skip Holtz took over ECU in 2005, the team had won just three football games over the previous two seasons. In his first three seasons, with fewer returning starters each year, he has nonetheless increased the win totals:

5-6 for 2005 with 17 starters back
7-6 for 2006 with 13 starters back
8-5 for 2007 with 12 starters back (and an impressive bowl win over #24 Boise State)

This year? 16 starters return. Something had to give -- and it turned out to be #8 West Virginia.

Going forward, there's not another team on the Pirates' regular season slate that should be anywhere near as tough as either of the two that they've already knocked off. On paper, by early December this team should be unbeaten and waiting to find out which BCS game they get to attend.

And scarier still: Both West Virginia and Virginia Tech could still win their respective conference championships and go to BCS games of their own. If this upstart mid-major conference team is one of the only or -- imagine this -- THE ONLY unbeaten team left in the country by then, and has notches on its belt for both the ACC and Big East title winners, what does "HAL the Hapless BCS Computer" do about seeding the national title game then?

Of course, lots of promising surprise teams have peaked too soon and their unfortunate history stands against ECU holding it together.

But right now, BCS plunder appears well within reach of the Pirates. If they play it right, East Carolina football will never again be the same. At very least, they would bust into the exclusive club with the likes of Boise State and Utah: mid-majors that are perennial threats to crash somebody's party. And a promotion to BCS conference status, via an invite from the Big East, seems more than possible as well (see: Louisville, South Florida, Cincinnati.)

But the new Pirate King -- Skip Holtz -- will become the hottest coaching rumor in college football by then. The game is all about coaching -- a good one can make a new program or save an old one. Like Urban Meyer when Utah had its run, every BCS school with money to pay him and a history for him to save will have him on speed dial.

If Irish fortunes continue to sink and ECU's continue to rise throughout the year, then I'm seeing another Holtz in line to save Notre Dame.