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PIRATES' CHEST GMAC Bowl Feature No. 2 Bowl a Test
for Fans as well as Players By
Johnny Moore
Pirates' Chest Publisher
©2001 Pirates' Chest
 Post-season college football bowl games are
important for many reasons. They reward
a team for a successful season and stretch the careers for deserving
senior members of that team for one more game.
But more importantly, they serve as a huge recruiting tool and provide an
opportunity for extra preparation time for the future.
The
East Carolina Pirate football team will be playing in its third consecutive
bowl game on December 19th when it faces the Thundering Herd of Marshall in
the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, AL. This game is possibly more important to the
program than it is to this particular team.
While it is the third straight visit to a bowl game, it is the fifth bowl
trip in head coach Steve Logan's 10-year tenure at the school. Prior to
Logan taking over as the head man for the Pirates, ECU had been to just
seven bowl games in the school's history.
Top prep players like to see they are joining a successful program that
will be either in a bowl game or in the hunt to play in a bowl game every
year. It is a huge recruiting plus to have a streak of bowl trips to your
credit.
"Thirteen years ago, I came here as an assistant football coach and this
event and the things that have come about in the last six and seven years in
particular were unthought-of, unfathomable for this university in the
football arena," said Logan. "This is another huge piece of fabric to sew
into the quilt that we've been putting together here over the years."
Logan is also very pleased to have another opportunity to take a team to
Mobile and play better than the 1999 squad which lost to Texas Christian
28-14.
"We are really proud to be back here," Logan told a gathering at the GMAC
Bowl announcement party in Mobile. "It's a chance to come back and win this
thing. We've got a fun team to watch. This team may be the death of me. Nine
of our 11 games literally came down to the last play of the game. We've won
some and lost some. We are awfully exciting to watch."
And while this team is exciting to watch, much of what will be done with
this team during the month of December will be more of a preparation for the
2002 season than just getting ready to play Marshall. Bowl practice sessions
give coaches a big jump on spring practice and extra field time with the
younger players that will become the heart and soul of the team next fall.
The Pirates went back to the practice field on December 6 as they
prepared for both Marshall and the future. Their first real practice since
November 23rd consisted of two phases, 90-minutes of beginning to put in the
basics for Marshall and then a 45-minute scrimmage with the younger players.
"We're out here in full pads with the youngsters and we'll get in some
35-to 45 snap scrimmages for six days," explained Logan. "We're beginning to
teach them some of the basics of our offensive and defensive systems. It'll
have an affect when we have spring ball right after National Signing Day.
There'll be a carryover and we can just pick up and go on rather than having
to restart."
While the Pirate coaches and players look toward the future, this past
season still sits uneasy in everyone's mind. This wasn't the season or the
bowl game the Pirate's had hoped to see their team in this year. With
season-ending losses to Louisville and Southern Mississippi the Pirates, who
once had aspirations of capturing the Conference USA title, were just hoping
their winning record would get them into another bowl game.
Logan has been quick to defend his 6-5 Pirates going to a bowl game.
"I knew this day was going to come," he said. "In 1996, we went on the
road and beat Miami, North Carolina State and South Carolina, had an 8-3
football team, and sat at home. I knew that at some point we would be a 6-5
team and get a bid. That year, I believe I counted five or six teams that
went to a bowl at 6-5 while we sat at home. We're part of the system now and
it's a compliment to Conference USA.
"This is one of the most competitive football teams we have had here,"
Logan continued. "We did not make or create enough breaks for ourselves and
we were beaten by two, beaten by three, beaten by five. It's a very good
football team and I will make no apology to anyone. We're proud of our
accomplishment this year.
"If you look at our schedule, I believe eight of the 11 teams we played
have winning records this year. It's one of the toughest schedules that
we've played, which has gone quietly unnoticed by the media. I thought we
responded well and won some games on the last play of the game. We lost some
games on the last play of the game. What comes around goes around and it's
time now for us to benefit from being part of the system."
And while the Pirates did qualify for a bowl with a 6-5 record and the
conference had the tie-ins, ECU Director of Athletics Mike Hamrick has
identified another factor that helped the Pirates gain a post-season berth
for the third year in a row.
"One of the significant reasons why we're playing in this bowl game is
because of our fans and our supporters," said Hamrick, who will have some
mixed feelings in this bowl game since he is a 1980 Marshall graduate and a
two-year letterman at linebacker. "We're proud or it. We hope that they once
again step up and follow this football team. We will have 7,000 tickets to
sell. Two years ago, we estimated that we took between 5,000 and 6,000
Pirate fans."
Hamrick is banking on the faithful to live up to that reputation for
buying bowl tickets and showing up in force.
"We have to do that this year. If we don't, our program will suffer a
major setback, in my opinion. But I don't believe that will happen. I
believe our fans will follow us."
Send an e-mail message to
Johnny Moore of the PIRATES' CHEST.
02/23/2007 02:02:56 PM
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