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College Sports in the Carolinas
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View
from the 'ville
Friday,
July 29, 2005
By Al Myatt |
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Sequestered football staff
plots the future
©2005 Bonesville.net
Skip Holtz and the first-year East Carolina
football coaching staff have been having an organizational hideaway this
week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
"We've been going down the whole checklist,"
Holtz said. "From recruiting to the kicking game."
The staff will convene again next Monday
through Wednesday as offense and defense to further plan for the 2005
season.
"The hideaway is normally a 3-day process,"
Holtz said.
There is more to cover this time around
because most of the coaches are new to ECU and each other. In years to come
the preseason assembly will evolve into adaptations and adjustments as
opposed to total structuring of the months to come.
Sessions this week have included a seminar on
how tickets will be distributed for players and how coaches will file
expense reports. Trainer Mike Hanley made an appearance to update the staff
on recovering players and medical treatment protocol.
"We're doing the whole nine yards," Holtz
said. "A lot of it seems trivial but we don't want to be going into the
first game and have an issue come up that we haven't dealt with."
Lunch is catered so the Pirates can maintain
the focus on the job at hand.
Holtz is attentive to staff suggestions as
well.
"We've got guys from Minnesota and Illinois
and different places and they are telling us how they did things there,"
Holtz said. "With the places they've been and the success they've had, it's
an opportunity to draw from their experience."
Holtz has been involved in numerous hideaways
at his various coaching stops.
"We've done some in press boxes and different
places," he said. "We want to get away from the distractions and phone calls
so we don't get interrupted."
As head coach at UConn, Holtz took his staff
to the beach. But he decided to save ECU the expense of bringing the coaches
to a resort for an extended period this year.
The Pirates are holding their preseason
retreat just across the hall from the football offices in the Pat Draughon
Room on the second floor of the Ward Sports Medicine Building.
"You can get a pretty good deal on two nights
(at hotels) during the week when we get (the hideaway) down to three days,"
he said. "But with so many families involved in moving, I didn't think it
merited a trip out of town. At this point there's more value in getting
people settled."
Holtz was hopeful earlier in the week of
wrapping today's session up around noon but said that would depend on how
much remained to be covered at the catch-all meetings.
D.J. Scott enlists for duty
Collegesports.com lists offensive lineman D.J.
Scott of Clay High in Green Cove Springs, Fla., outside of Jacksonville, as
ECU's solitary commitment for the 2006 signing class. ECU may not yet have
quantity in terms of commitments but Clay coach Jim Reape is sold on the
quality of Scott's work ethic and potential.
"He's a very hard working kid," said Reape,
who noted that Scott had attended 33 of the high school's offseason
workouts, eight more than the coach had established as a guideline.
"He shows up and does whatever you ask him to
do," Reape said. "He's one of those that if you tell him to run through a
brick wall, he's going to try and do it."
At 6-foot-6 and 291 pounds with a
5.3-second/40 yards and a 320-pound bench press, Scott could seemingly make
an impact on a brick wall, but an impact in a car accident last October
slowed him down. He missed the latter portion of the season with a lacerated
spleen. Reape said Scott was at 261 pounds when he returned to work in the
weight room last January.
Scott has visited Clemson, South Carolina and
West Virginia. Florida encouraged him to come to their summer camp. Those
programs had a wait-and-see approach, which differed from that of ECU, which
deployed defensive backs coach Rick Smith, a 1971 Florida State grad, as
primary contact.
Reape said Scott was also impressed with ECU
offensive line coach Steve Shankweiler and Coach Holtz in the recruiting
process.
"He really liked the way he was treated by the
guys at East Carolina," Reape said. "There were ACC and SEC schools
interested but East Carolina was the most straightforward in letting him
know they wanted him. They looked at his film and shook his hand. They
wanted him from day one."
The Clay Blue Devils, a 3-A program, were 5-5
in a rebuilding season in 2004 following a 12-2 record in 2003, but still
managed to win their district for the second straight season. Scott will
line up at right offensive tackle on a team Reape says "has a chance to be
very good" in 2005.
Scott also will see limited duty at defensive
end.
"We'll play him in a six or seven technique on
the tight end," Reape said. "We'll play him in run situations on first and
second down and in some goal line situations. We'll play him 25 or 30 snaps
a game on defense. Of the 120 snaps in a typical high school game, he'll be
on the field for 90 of them."
East Carolina may have found a a gem on the
east coast of the Florida.
"He's matured so much physically in the last
year," Reape said. "He's really blossomed athletically. He's got the body,
the frame and the work ethic. He's ready to take off. I think East Carolina
got a steal. One of the coaches from Florida said he should come to their
camp, but he's already made his choice."
Recognizing the upside potential of players
who are on the cusp of BCS programs' recruiting lists, getting them to ECU
and developing them to the fullest is an essential ingredient for reversing
Pirate football fortunes. Gaining the commitment from Scott represents the
first step for Holtz and crew in executing that recruiting philosophy.
Holland's measuring stick
ECU athletic director Terry Holland assumed
his duties on Oct. 1 and knows realistically where the major revenue
programs stand with new coaches in position to initiate greatly desired
turnarounds. Holland said he won't be counting wins at the outset of the
Holtz era in football and the Ricky Stokes regime in basketball.
"Our first goal is to be competitive but
that's just temporary," Holland said. "In a year or two you have to move
beyond being in games and competing to focusing on winning as the goal.
"At first I think you look at formulating game
plans that accent your strengths and take advantage of an opponent's
weaknesses. You want to be able to exploit favorable matchups. If you get
beat, you don't get beat that way again. You find ways to fix things. You
don't want to get beat badly the same way again.
"I think that's what we're looking for at this
point. If you're competitive, you never know how the ball may bounce."
But Holland has been around athletics long
enough as a player, coach and administrator to know that fans want the W's —
as many as possible and as soon as possible. He characterized the ECU fan
base following his high profile hires during his first months in Greenville.
"I think we've got a core group that's very
excited and enthusiastic about what's going on," he said. "At the same time
we've got others who are sort of sitting back and waiting to see what's
going to happen. Those are the people we have to show something."
Holland knows for the overall program to move
forward in terms of fund-raising support that the more passive sector of
Pirate fans needs to be moved to action. He knows that's a function of
success.
Holland's days aren't always devoted to firing
and hiring coaches or putting together the most attractive football and
basketball schedules.
"We work on fund raising every chance we get,"
he said.
CSTV face time for Freeman, Koonce
Senior offensive linemen Gary Freeman and
senior linebacker Richard Koonce are the players scheduled to represent ECU
at Conference USA's football media day in Memphis on Tuesday.
Those with access to the College Sports
Television Network can watch a live presentation from the Memphis Hilton.
There will also be video links available at
cstv.com and
conferenceusa.com. The show featuring the
league's 12 head coaches and two players from each team starts at 11 a.m.
with the Pirates in the leadoff slot.
Fans can e-mail questions for players and
coaches at a link on the C-USA website.
CSTV and C-USA have a 6-year agreement to air
the league's football games starting in 2005.
Logan in contention for head jobs
Former ECU football coach Steve Logan is a
candidate to become a head coach in NFL Europe. He is in the running for the
open positions of two clubs in the 6-team league and each of the
destinations has its desirable qualities. Cologne (France) features the
league's best housing and cuisine while Hamburg (Germany) is one of the top
franchises in terms of attendance.
Logan has worked with NFL Europe's last two
offensive MVPs — Rohan Davey and Dave Ragone — as quarterbacks coach of the
Berlin Thunder. The spring schedule in Europe would allow Logan to pursue
the development of his broadcasting career in the states during the
traditional fall season.
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02/23/2007 12:33:18 AM
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