|
|
|
From the
Anchor Desk |
 |
Pirates' goals on the line in November
By
Brian Bailey
©2013 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
In some ways the football season is a marathon.
In others it’s a September through November sprint.
This Pirate November features five games in 2013. The team's momentum hangs in the balance as East Carolina heads to Miami to take on Florida International.
ECU goes into the game as a three-touchdown favorite. The Pirates are coming off a very solid performance as that same type of favorite in the route of Southern Miss last week at home.
The Pirates will then come back home as a favorite to beat both Tulsa and UAB before finishing the year with road tilts at North Carolina State and Marshall.
Despite the Thundering Herd’s loss at Middle Tennessee, the matchup at Marshall looms as the East Division championship game, unless MTSU holds serve and there is a tiebreaker involved. Still, the Pirates control their own destiny, and that’s really all you can ask for during this final month of the football season.
With a win this week the Pirates become bowl eligible.
“It’s very important for us to be bowl eligible,” said ECU coach Ruffin McNeill at his weekly press conference. “We’ve missed it one time since I’ve been here, but I haven’t missed it many times during my coaching years, personally. It’s more important for the team and the university. That is one of our goals.”
This Florida International team is just 1-6 on the season. I confess that I don’t know a lot about the Panthers. I have seen former Pirate coach Skip Holtz’s Louisiana Tech Bulldogs from earlier this year. Skip’s team isn’t very good in his first year, but the Bulldogs beat FIU last week 23-7.
Pirate quarterback Shane Carden understands the Pirates are big favorites again. He knows his role and the role of his offense in games like this.
“We just have to worry about ourselves,” said Carden. “We have to execute the little things and the big plays will come.”
Carden said he enjoyed the Saturday off — until Saturday came and he wasn’t playing a game.
“When I was watching all of the other teams playing, I really missed it,” he said. “I think we are all ready to get back after it.”
The Pirates handled the role of big favorites very well in the win over Southern Miss. Coach McNeill says his team has to keep focused and not listen to the negatives or the positives.
“I keep harping on that,” explained McNeill. “I think what happens, and whether it’s a negative or a positive, you tend to look at that. If they believe in me and trust me, like I think they do, they’ll only be concerned with what I tell them. I’ll tell them when they do well, I’ll tell them when they need to work on something, and I’ll tell them I love them in between, because I have no hidden agenda but to make sure they’re successful here.
"It’s hard, but I keep preaching it because it’s important that we grasp it. I think the noise can get them off base about what goals they have. It’s a never-ending battle but I emphasize it daily.”
That emphasis will continue.
Maness looks to bounce back
Seth Maness wishes he had one pitch to Johnny Gomes back in his pocket.
The pitch came in game four of the Fall Classic. Maness came in to try and get Gomes to hit a ground ball. But Maness had a sinker that didn’t sink. The pitch got up, and then out of the park.
It was the key play in a 4-2 Boston win that evened the World Series at two games apiece.
Maness was obviously shaken when he spoke to reporters after the game. He told the mass around his locker that pitchers have to have “short term amnesia.”
Maness will need a short memory. Hopefully he will get another chance, and soon.
I’m not rooting for either team, but I’d love to see Maness get a ground ball double play to end the series. It’s been fun watching the former Pirate, who now has to bounce back when called upon.
BB