2010 East Carolina Pirates Football Preview

2009 Results: 9-5, C-USA Champions, Lost Liberty Bowl vs. Arkansas

Head Coach: Ruffin McNeill (1st year @ ECU, 1-0 Overall)

Home Venue: Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium (50,000) Greenville, North Carolina

The Skip Holtz era will go down in the record books as one of the best in the history of East Carolina football. Capped off by winning the last two C-USA Championships, Holtz turned this team from a 2-9 doormat to the best in the league. However, Holtz has moved onto the greener pastures of the Big East as he is now the new South Florida head coach, leaving ECU to move ahead with former player Ruffin McNeil at the helm. Can McNeil keep the least experienced team in the entire conference in the mix this fall?

OFFENSE

The offense was certainly not the reason that East Carolina had such success in the past two years, as they only mustered 23 and 27 points per game in each championship season. Well, expect a major makeover this season as ECU transitions to a Texas Tech-style offensive attack as McNeil (Tech’s Defensive Coordinator the last two years) brought former T-Tech Wide Receivers Coach Lincoln Riley aboard as the new OC.

The good news is that the scheme somewhat matches up with the existing talent. The only skill position that brings back any major contributors from last season is at wideout, where 1st Team C-USA senior Dwayne Harris (83 catches, 978 receiving yards, 149 rush yards 12 total TDs) will pair with junior Darryl Freeney (48 ctaches, 718 yards, 3 TDs) to give ECU a solid tandem on the outside. Expect both to have big seasons in the new offense.

But who will be throwing the ball to them? The odds-on favorite is former Boston College starter Dominique Davis, who also has some mobility. Davis will be an upgrade for this system over former starter Patrick Pinkney, whose best attribute was the ability to not make mistakes.

Davis will also be protected by one of the conference’s better O-Lines that features three returning senior starters. While this group is going to be a solid unit, they lose two C-USA All Stars and have to learn a new blocking scheme for the expected pass-heavy attack. Finally, the tailback situation is up in the air as top returning rusher Giavanni Ruffin is suspended and there is precious little experience behind him.

Overall, there are some pieces in place for a fruitful offensive attack, namely a solid O-Line and a pair of productive wide receivers. However, there will be growing pains switching to a pass-heavy attack, especially when the quarterbacks don’t have a lot of experience. Frankly, the Davis that I watched at Boston College isn’t fitted particularly well to run a Texas Tech-inspired offense. With the dearth of tailbacks complicating matters, I think that ECU will end up with an offense that takes a while to get its feet underneath itself and that means that there will be some turnovers and painful performances along the way.

DEFENSE

Normally, I would be confident in ECU to help overcome this offensive transition with their always-solid defense. However, the Pirates only bring back two starters from last year’s stellar unit and none of them are in the front seven! Furthermore, East Carolina has to replace six players who were all-league performers, leaving a huge talent drain to overcome.

Let’s look at the positives first. The secondary returns both starting cornerbacks and junior Emanuel Davis (69 tackles, 2 INT) was a 1st Team C-USA selection last fall. Furthermore, the new starters at safety have had some experience (junior Derek Blacknall started twice in ’09), so I think that ECU should be fine through the air.

Assuming that anything remotely resembling a pass rush materializes from the front seven, of course. There is not one player in the front seven that even recorded 30 tackles last year and that’s a major concern. The D-Line was one of the league’s best last year but this season, the only player that I have much confidence in is senior DT Josh Smith (26 tackles, 4 sacks), who will anchor this unit. However, he could be the only upperclassman starter and that’s not a good sign because most underclassmen haven’t put on the bulk necessary to hold up against bigger O-Linemen. Meanwhile, the appropriately named Dustin Lineback (47 career tackles, 3 career starts) is the most experienced linebacker and will be relied upon for senior leadership.

It will be very interesting to watch ECU’s rebuilt defense this season. There seems to be enough talent in the secondary to be very competitive, but the front seven is a major concern. With so many question marks around a unit that has a lot of unproven talent, I’m not confident that they’ll be able to reach the heights of the last two seasons and a step back in both forced turnovers and points allowed seems likely.

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SCHEDULE

The Pirates also have a brutal schedule. Out of conference, they have to travel to Virginia Tech and North Carolina, both of whom are going to be ranked in the top 20 in the country this fall. The other two non-conference games see ECU hosting NC State and Navy, two teams that will be contending for postseason berths this year. On top of that, they draw Tulsa and SMU from the West, two of the teams expected to compete for that division’s title. With the three ACC opponents, Tulsa and East co-favorite Southern Miss in the first half of the schedule, East Carolina will be very fortunate to avoid a 1-5 start.

OUTLOOK

The Pirates have had a great run of success over the past few seasons and I hate to see a team fall all the way from two time league champions to the bottom of their division in just one year, but I think that is how things will shake out for ECU. They have the most inexperienced team in the conference, a new coaching staff, new systems to learn and a brutal schedule. That’s a lot to overcome and I don’t see the Pirates pulling it off. While I think that this year will be a blip in the radar, East Carolina is in for a rebuilding season and it isn’t going to be fun to watch for their loud and enthusiastic fans. The Pirates are my pick to finish 6th in the C-USA East.

PREDICTED RESULT: 2-10 (2-6 CONFERENCE USA)