The issue definitely isn't letting in kids from the North v. the South - most of the friends I made at Wake from the North were some of the most passionate. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that we've expanded in national academic reputation faster than our national athletic reputation. If Hatch, the BOT, and Wellman aren't interested in making our AD's reputation rival that of the college's then there's no hope.
In the past, there was no real need to. We were an A+ mainly regional school, so you had people who had grown up either watching WF sports, or at least grew up knowing something about them so finding some way to connect people to the athletic department wasn't as big a deal.
I pretty much blame this on Hatch's ND-like image. #HatchOut