“Dabo Swinney pees sitting down,” “Go to hell Carolina” and “#Packby90” are just a few of the phrases that have graced signs on the 105 Friendly Apartment building this football season. 

Everett Blake, a third-year studying mechanical engineering, and Billy Ryder, a third-year studying business administration, are the students behind the weekly signs. They were inspired by a similar sign they saw on social media before NC State’s first football game of the season against East Carolina University. 

“I think Barstool or [NC State] Chicks posted a sign on the [Hillsborough Street and Friendly Drive] roundabout,” Blake said. “We saw it and we were like, ‘Dude, we could do so much better.’ But looking back at it, that first sign [we made] was so bad.”

Since the first, the pair has totaled 12 signs, one for every game of the season. Blake said they are surprised by the responses they have received.

“We’re just surprised it blew up as big as it did,” Blake said. “We thought our friends would notice it, and maybe we’ll get on [NC State] Chicks once in a while. It’s really cool that random people are seeing it and waiting for it. Yik Yak likes to explode over it sometimes, and I think Yik Yak is the one that makes me feel the best because it’s random people saying they can’t wait to see it.” 

Ryder echoed a similar feeling of shock when he learned about the popularity of the duo’s weekly signs, hearing about it from family, friends and colleagues.

“One of my coworkers drives down Hillsborough every day,” Ryder said. “He’s in high school. And he said to me, ‘These people put up a sign every week.’ It was funny — he was talking to me, and he had no idea it was me [that made the sign]. I was like, ‘Dude, me and my roommates, we made those signs.’ And my parents’ friends will text me, or my parents will call me and say, ‘Hey, our friends liked the sign.’ They’ll see it from their kids who go here on  Snapchat or Instagram.” 

Blake and Ryder have evolved their techniques to create higher-quality signs as the season has progressed, striving for even spacing and readability. 

“Now, we usually measure out the spacing of how big each line of words is going to be,” Ryder said. “Most of the time, we try not to go beyond like 13 letters to a line because they just get really skinny. We measure how much space each line gets, and we stencil it with pencil first and then we just go over with whatever colors. We’ll do a sketch on paper first, just kind of as a game plan for it.”

As for the phrases on the signs, Blake and Ryder said some schools are easier to make fun of than others. They also said they try to one-up themselves each week with the phrase they choose.

“I don’t think there is so much pressure from everybody else, it’s more pressure on ourselves,” Ryder said. “We just want to outdo it each week, try and think of something better.”

Blake and Ryder said the sign-making process usually takes around three hours. They start on Wednesday evenings around 10:30 or 11 p.m. and finish around 3 a.m. They said painting is the most time consuming aspect. 

Chase Greeson, a third-year studying business administration and Blake and Ryder’s roommate, said he enjoyed watching the signs get made every week. 

“My favorite part was staying up until 3 a.m. watching Billy and Everett paint the sign while we were all hanging out in the living room,” Greeson said. 

They usually hang the signs the next morning once the paint has dried. Blake explained the unconventional method they use to hang the sign on the outside of the building. 

“Thinking it over was really tough,” Blake said. “But we basically take these rubber rings and make it like a weight on the sign. And then I’ll stick my head out that window, Billy sticks his head out this window, and I throw it to him.” 

In the spirit of college student innovation, the pair also uses Ziploc bags full of mulch they grabbed from Hillsborough Street to weigh down their signs. They sometimes solicit help from pedestrians. 

“We might yell down at a person or two to help us like, ‘Hey! Are we centered?’” Blake said. 

Blake and Ryder said they plan to continue the signs for important games during basketball season but will not be living in 105 Friendly Apartments during next year’s football season to preserve the weekly tradition.

“We might just leave a note somewhere in the apartment and be like, ‘Hey, this is what we used to do. You should keep it going,’” Blake said.