By By BRIAN HAINES
Sports Writer
GREENVILLE – After two straight competitive, yet slightly discouraging losses to tough non-conference opponents, East Carolina will look to snap its losing streak this Saturday when it begins its Conference USA title defense against the University of Central Florida.
The Pirates (1-3) are hoping that clashing helmets the last two weeks with the Big East’s West Virginia and the ACC’s North Carolina has toughened them up a bit in preparation for their Conference USA opener.
After the team’s most recent loss, a 31-17 defeat at the hands of the No. 24 Tar Heels, Pirates’ coach Skip Holtz challenged his team to not hang its head and rise to the occasion.
“I’m really proud of the way these players competed; I know it’s important to them. When you walk into that locker room afterwards there were some tears in a lot of guys eyes,” Holtz said. “But as I said to the guys last night, ‘if we don’t like where we are, we have the option to change it. If we don’t like where we are, and don’t like what we have been doing to this point, we can come in and study more film, and we can do what we have to do to continue to improve the football team.’”
Playing against those quality opponents has exposed some of the Pirates’ flaws, such as a struggling running game, a meager passing attack and lack of depth at the safety position. However, on the positive side none of the games were blowouts, as ECU had a chance to win its last two contests at the start of the fourth quarter.
“In the last two weeks we have played some pretty tough football teams,” Holtz said. “With all the mistakes we’ve made in both games, with eight minutes left to go (against WVU) and with three minutes left to go (against UNC), it was a one-score game. We were right in it late in the fourth quarter, if only we could have gotten a break somewhere along the way.”
The Pirates’ play has left many with mixed feelings, wondering is the glass half empty or half full. Can this team be as good as last season’s, or is it heading down that slippery slope known as mediocrity?
That question will be better answered this Saturday when ECU kicks off against Central Florida (2-1, 0-1) at 3:30 p.m. at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
The Pirates are averaging a modest 22 points per game, but could easily boost those numbers if they could get any kind of production in the second half of games. So far this season, in six second half quarters of play, ECU has scored only three points.
Holtz said the offense needs to do a better job from top to bottom.
“When you look at the mistakes we have made, we have to do a better job of running the football,” Holtz said. “We have got to turn and create some big plays from an offensive standpoint. That’s one of the things that is really lacking right now.”
As a team, ECU is averaging a pedestrian 102 rushing yards per game, while throwing for only 166 passing yards per contest.
Defensively, the Pirates have allowed 30 points per game, a stat that doesn’t necessarily reflect the effectiveness of the unit. The defense has played relatively well, but a poor offense leaves it on the field way too long at times. That, and the apparent lack of depth behind the starters has appeared to wear down the defense at times.
Then there is the long ball.
The absence of starting safety Levin Neal, who missed the last two games due to an ankle injury, has proved extremely costly for the Pirates. Neal’s replacement, red shirt sophomore Derek Blacknall, has been burnt several times for big plays, which has soured the statistics of the ECU defense.
“The elephant in the room as far as defense goes is the big pass. That’s the thing we have to begin to eliminate,” Holtz said. “Defensively, we have played 130 plays the last two games, we have given up 940 yards and 500 of them have come on 16 plays. … I’m hopeful that having both Levin Neal and (CB) Emmanuel Davis (shoulder) back this week will give us a little bit of experienced personnel back there and, hopefully, we can shore some of those things up.”
Neal and Davis are officially listed as questionable for Saturday.
The Pirates’ defense faces a Knights team that hasn’t exactly lit up the scoreboard either. Surprisingly, UCF’s offensive production is eerily similar to ECU’s. Both teams average just over 100 rushing yards per game and pass for roughly 160 yard per contest. The Knights average 23 points per game, to ECU’s 22.
The Knights come into Greenville after topping reigning MAC champion Buffalo 23-17 last weekend, and would love to exact payback on the Pirates’ for their 13-10 overtime win last season in Florida.
Holtz said he was impressed with the size of the UCF squad, as well as the team’s new quarterback, Brett Hodges. A senior transfer from Wake Forest, Hodges is the Knights’ second leading rusher, and could create problems for the ECU defense in the same manner that WVU’s Jarrett Brown did.
“He is a guy who can beat you with his feet and beat you with his arm,” Holtz said of Hodges. “When you look at the mobility, it’s kind of like West Virginia, that hurt us. It’s a concern going into it, but we have to make sure we do a better job of keeping the edge to the defense. We have to keep him hemmed in and don’t let him run east and west where he can turn and buy time and create big plays.”