CHRONICLING ECU & C-USA SPORTS
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View
from the 'ville
Thursday, September 28, 2006
By Al Myatt |
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Improving Pirates find no
consolation in losing
Virginia in the crosshairs
of an ECU team disappointed with its failed bid to upset No. 4 WVU
©2006 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
The focus of East Carolina football seems to
have lingered on a 27-10 loss to West Virginia. Perhaps that is a function
of having played the nation's fourth-ranked team on national television the
week before an open date.
Without a game this week to divert attention
from last week's battle with the Mountaineers, maybe last Saturday's contest
can stand a little further examination.
How well the Pirates played depends on which
side of the ball you're evaluating. The defense played strong enough to give
the Pirates a legitimate upset opportunity. Offensively, a 10-point output
makes it hard to beat a lot of folks, much less a Top 5 caliber opponent.
The offense's lack of production is
bewildering to a degree, considering the unit has exceptional leadership in
the person of senior quarterback James Pinkney. In fact, there is a high
level of experience and talent among skill personnel across the board.
Pinkney managed just one score in Saturday's
game and that was on a 47-yard pass to Aundrae Allison in the first quarter
that tied the score at 7. Allison's athleticism after the catch was the
factor that produced the score. Pinkney didn't have a great game. He seemed
locked in on Allison for much of the first half.
The coaching staff probably made Pinkney
realize at halftime that he needed to diversify his targets to a greater
extent in the second half, which he did. In fairness to Pinkney, the running
game never gave the passing attack the balance needed to keep the defense
honest.
My personal feeling is that you should never
take too much out of a loss and the Pirates refused to accept the fact that
they were within 17-10 in the fourth quarter as any kind of moral victory.
"We played them close last year," said ECU
coach Skip Holtz, recalling a 20-15 loss in Morgantown.
"We didn't do what we needed to do and we
didn't get a 'W,' " said Pinkney.
Another competitive loss was not the ECU
objective but that was what the Pirates were left with after the
Mountaineers turned a short screen pass into a 60-yard touchdown for a 24-10
lead in the fourth quarter.
"It was a disappointing loss," Holtz said.
"Even though West Virginia is a great team and they came in here with a No.
4 ranking. They're a very explosive offense and their defense has only been
giving up about 280 yards a game.
"They're a very good football [team] but I was
really proud of the way our players played. I thought they played inspired.
They played hard. They played physical. It was a very physical football
game.
"Into the fourth quarter, we were hanging in
there despite our poor running game. We really struggled running with the
football and that made us a little more one-dimensional on offense, which
probably made us a little bit easier to stop."
Three turnovers and missed opportunities were
another factor that foiled an upset. Pinkney lost a fumble at the WVU 12 in
the third quarter as he tried to make a play with his feet but lost the
handle. The Pirates had a golden opportunity to recover a muffed Mountaineer
punt reception near the same spot on the Dowdy-Ficklen turf in the second
quarter but WVU was able to get possession at its own 5.
Holtz said immediately after the game that he
would need to evaluate the game tape to find out if the running game
faltered because of ineffective blocking or poor running. The feeling here
is that it was the offensive line, an inexperienced group as a whole which
remains a work in progress.
Behind a more experienced offensive front last
season, Chris Johnson ran for 92 yards on 22 carries against the
Mountaineers. Although he was hampered by a turf toe condition that he
developed late in the Memphis game, Johnson had only five yards on five
first half carries against West Virginia.
Overall, ECU invested 24 snaps in its ground
game and netted just 41 yards, an average of 1.7 yards per rush. That
doesn't move the chains.
Johnson has exceptional speed when he's
healthy but the ECU offense is still attempting to function without a power
back that can move the pile or an exceptionally elusive runner. Add the
learning curve of a developing offensive line and you have a snapshot of one
of the team's most pressing issues at this point.
Much more positive was the play of the Pirates
defense which limited the nation's No. 1 rushing offense to 153 yards, less
than half of the 348.7 yards the Mountaineers had been averaging on the
ground. ECU's defense also continued to produce turnovers with three against
WVU. Mountaineers quarterback Patrick White had not thrown an interception
in three previous games but was picked off three times by the Pirates.
ECU's defense is generally young up front but
talent offsets the inexperience and the unit has improved. Holtz reminded
media how far the defense has come in a short period since being riddled for
over 400 yards rushing in the season opener with Navy.
"I was really pleased with a lot of the
individual performances but we continue to shoot ourselves in the heel,"
Holtz said. "We threw an interception in the end zone (against West
Virginia). We fumbled on the 12-yard line going in. We still do a lot of
foolish things to get ourselves beat and we have to mature from that
standpoint."
That's a good point. Four games into the
season, ECU is 1-3 and in the three losses it's not too difficult to find
circumstances where the Pirates cost themselves opportunity to win.
But the perception of where the Pirates are
should be tempered with where the program has been. On their last trip to
Greenville in 2003, a lesser West Virginia team jumped ECU for a 27-0 lead
at half and rolled to a 48-7 victory.
The Pirates contended much longer this time
and have ample time to work on problem areas plus heal bumps and bruises
before hosting Virginia on Oct. 7. While various phases of ECU's team have
been inconsistent thus far, crowd support in the two home games has been a
constant factor.
And few fans are likely to jump ship given the
promise and intensity with which the Pirates are playing.
Desire to atone for the disappointment of the
West Virginia game, extra time to prepare, continued fan support and the
Cavaliers' own offensive struggles make the Pirates a dangerous team coming
off of an open date.
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02/23/2007 12:30:43 AM
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