By Al Myatt
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GREENVILLE — It's the time of year when the design is to transform all of the offseason effort into improvement on the preseason practice field. At least that's the intent of East Carolina football players and coaches as the sequence of events leading into the 2013 season become increasingly defining.

There will be scrimmages with position battles to be decided. It's important to attack the process, as Coach Ruffin McNeill emphasizes as his fourth season at the helm of his alma mater's flagship program approaches.

It's a time to savor the sheer anticipation.

In the sense of a pending harvest, the soil has been tilled and seeds have been planted. The next few weeks the ECU staff will cultivate, evaluate and put things in place for when each snap will be witnessed by tens of thousands and results will be recorded for history.

McNeill's coaching career has spanned decades and he is looking forward to the pending battles as a warrior whose speed afoot has given way to knowledge and wisdom. This is Ruff's backdrop as he directs the focus and techniques of young men who will represent a university that prepares its students for life while cherishing its competitive forays on the gridiron with a unified spirit from the region it serves.

It's that time, and time itself can become secondary relative to objectives.

"The days are running into each other," said McNeill, indicating how the demands of preparation can obscure perception. "I had to ask what day this was already — ‘I think it’s Saturday, right?’ That’s how it gets, that’s the fun part, where you don’t know what day it is because you’re here.

"It’s football time. Our wives know it. Our children know it. My girls are home right now visiting me and they know I’ll be home when I get home. That’s how it is. We love you and they know it. They’re football kids, wives and football families. It’s an exciting time of the year for us as coaches. Especially to have the group of kids we have here."

McNeill made his first staff change after the Pirates went 8-5 in 2012 and 7-1 in Conference USA but allowed 31.6 points per game. He chose Rick Smith to be the new defensive coordinator and secondary coach.

There will be considerable interest in how the defense, which returns eight starters, performs. McNeill likes the rapport Smith has established with the staff that works that side of the ball, including defensive line coach Marc Yellock, linebackers coach John Wiley and outside linebackers coach Duane Price.

Smith isn't looking to be a dictator.

"Defensive players take on the characteristics of their staff," said Smith, who was defensive coordinator and secondary coach at Tulane when the Green Wave was unbeaten in 1998. "If their staff is together and accountable to each other and on the same page, the players feel that and see that."

As Smith has melded his refinements of the system into what the returning players already knew, he incorporated the program's existing terminology. He figured it would be easier for him to learn the differences than for the entire unit to absorb his way. There will be differences though, especially in disguising pass coverages. Smith wants to eliminate predictability from his unit while taking what the Pirates did well last season into the journey at hand. It will be a team effort, as cliché as that might sound.

"We've tried to get better at those and then we've tried to add some stuff that we have done in the past," Smith said. "We're kind of jelling the two. ... We're not going to do anything on defense that the four of us don't agree on.

"I don't want to coach the D-line. I do not want to coach the linebackers. I want to coach the secondary. Whatever I call, I don't care if they have them standing on their head. Get it done. ... It's my job to coordinate, put it together and my staff has just embraced that philosophy.

"Marc Yellock is the one on Saturdays who's going to tell me what we need to do, game-wise, to get a sack. He's going to study that. John Wiley, I consider him the running game coordinator, and he's going to tell me what we need to do up front to stop the run.

"It is truly a staff effort. ... I think it's my job to get the players to play together, understand that it's hard to beat 11 guys that are committed. ... It's the staff's job to come up with a defensive package. ... I don't consider myself a genius. I'm good at getting guys to play hard."

Smith said every defensive player passed the preseason conditioning test. The overwhelming majority of players took part in the voluntary summer conditioning program directed by Jeff Connors and the bulk of those got high ratings for their efforts. At this point in the preseason that is something Smith relishes as a positive.

"Common people do not win championships because common people aren't willing to do what they did all summer," Smith said. "Uncommon men win championships. I think we've got a lot of uncommon guys. They've worked their tails off. They've proved to me that they are dependable. They've proved to me they are committed. They've proved to me that I can trust 'em."

ECU won't go far looking in the rear view mirror at the toils of the offseason.

"We've got to understand that yesterday is history," said Smith, who coached defensive backs on the Pirates' 2008 and 2009 C-USA championship teams before leaving with Skip Holtz for South Florida. "You did a great job yesterday, but what are you going to do today? You either get better or you get worse at each practice. We aren't good enough right now to waste a day.

"The two days we've had have been very good and they should be because they're all excited and they're pumped. Now, how are they going to be the ninth day? That's they key."

McNeill expressed confidence in a large leadership group among the players that will serve to keep the program on course.

Smith has moved some players around in the secondary with the aim of motivating personnel to improve through competition. In Smith's first stint at ECU, the Pirates had several future NFL players on the defensive front. Holtz favored a ball control style that allowed the Pirates to play to their strengths on defense. Smith was asked to compare the current defensive front with the one that produced a pair of C-USA crowns.

"I don't know if we've got a guy as good as a Jay Ross or a Linval Joseph, but I know we've got more of 'em" Smith said. "We've got seven guys who are going to play up front. ... The difference is when I was here before, we didn't have any depth."

Depth appears to be an asset across the board.

The aggregate of experience includes the seven top tacklers from 2012. Junior linebacker Jeremy Grove, who was in on a team-high 83 stops, said the defensive unit is looking to do a rewrite on the blame it has received.

"We've really got a chip on our shoulder this year because all we read about is how our defense has let the team down for the past three years," Grove said. "I know we're sick of hearing that. Bringing Coach Smith in and having him as our leader — he's so passionate about the game and we love that about him. ... He brings that competitiveness out of us.

" ... You could tell working out this summer with Coach C that everyone was all in. It's very exciting to see that. We think big things are going to happen."

Safety Damon Magazu has shed about eight pounds at Smith's request. He said he can tell he's quicker but hasn't sacrificed strength.

Magazu, who was in on 80 tackles as a junior, has come back from offseason back surgery with a clear-cut goal.

"My mindset is that I'm willing to do whatever I need to do in order to win a championship," said the son of Denver Broncos offensive line coach David Magazu. "That's my personal goal and that's our goal as a team is to win a championship. I would love to go out being a champion and winning a bowl game. I think that's very important, not only for myself, but for the program — to get another championship and bring it back to Greenville."

Muscular senior Derrell Johnson is a rare four-year starter with 62 tackles to his credit last season. Johnson takes responsibility as a leader to be a role model for younger players just as older Pirates helped him to acclimate to the college game when he arrived at ECU. Johnson has grasped a means to contribute to the program's success even after his college career is completed through the development of underclassmen.

That's part of the big picture at East Carolina and nobody sees it better than McNeill, a solid defensive back for the Pirates from 1976 to 1979.

"I've been asked about the pressure (of being picked to win the C-USA East Division)," McNeill said. "Our expectations within the program are higher. Winning is what we've always been about at ECU."

That's why McNeill brought Smith back. That's why he may lose track of what day it is. That's why the Pirates love this time of year.