ECU has had a bizarre and chaotic run of things in this century—I say bizarre because really there’s no excuse to ever be as bad—twice!—as the Pirates have managed. ECU is in a crummy conference, sure, but ECU is also in some pretty ideal recruiting territory. You have to work hard at self-sabotage to become as terrible as the Pirates are now.
ECU has made two of the worst coaching hires of any FBS school in this century: the first one was John Thompson, who took over for Steve Logan and promptly threw all progress over a cliff.