DENNY O'BRIEN: Sorry, Skip — I'll take coaching over talent

Pirate Notebook No. 253
Friday, September 16, 2005

By Denny O'Brien

PIRATE TALK

Replay Thursday night's Pirate Talk with Denny O'Brien and guests Donnie Kirkpatrick, Reggie Pinkney, Stan Cotton and Billy Weaver:

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No disrespect to Skip Holtz, but I slightly disagree with his assessment of East Carolina's 24-21 victory over Duke.

My rationale for the win leans more towards the teaching and preparation by the experienced ECU staff. More than anything, that appeared to be the overwhelming difference in the Pirates' performance in all three phases of the game.

Holtz prefers the party line. True to his profession, he deflects any praise for himself and attributes the happy outcome to the intense play and execution of his players.

"There is a lot of credit to go around in this thing," Holtz said following the win over the Devils. "There are a lot of people who made this thing happen, but the players are the ones who deserve the majority of the credit.

"Coaches, we don't make a block; we don't make a tackle; we don't throw a pass. We get an opportunity to stand over there and watch them execute. This team is fun to watch play because they play hard."

True, neither Holtz nor his assistants made their way into the box score. And the only passes you will see thrown by anyone from that group are during practice and pregame drills.

Even so, crediting that season-opening victory to anyone not wearing a headset would be forgetting the confusion and overall lack of confidence with which the same personnel performed over the past 23 games.

"It comes from preparation from the coaches," quarterback James Pinkney said. "They just prepared us very well for the game and that helped me out (against Duke).

"This is a good coaching staff — the best coaching staff I've been around since I've been here. They just called good plays. That's what put us in position to make the plays."

Coaches don't make plays, but they certainly make players play better. At least the good ones do. And no unit demonstrated that theory better against Duke than the East Carolina secondary.

Zack Baker, Pierre Parker, and Kasey Ross played as if they attended Duke's offensive meetings in the week leading up to the opener. The Pirates' secondary never appeared fooled by the Devils' attack and had no trouble reacting to quarterback Mike Schneider's progressions.

Granted the Blue Devils are hardly prolific on offense, but when compared to performances against comparable opponents over the past two seasons, ECU appeared light years ahead on defense. In similar scenarios, the Pirates were more likely to surrender 500 yards, not 300.

The difference now is not an overhaul in personnel, rather a staff astute enough to fit each piece into its appropriate spot in the puzzle. That included shifts in positions for several players during the spring to plug holes and maximize the skills of the talent on hand.

Not that this is a new trend in college football. For years, coaches have designed their systems around personnel to utilize specific strengths and mask potential weaknesses.

It worked at Utah under Urban Meyer and appears to be working at Notre Dame under Charlie Weiss. But for whatever reason, that theory was never present at East Carolina during John Thompson's brief tenure.

That abysmal period was marked by players who often appeared out of place and largely confused about their role within the system. Alarming results on game day typically produced overwhelming changes in the practice regimen and preparation.

It's certainly no stretch to suggest that players lacked confidence and lost faith with the ECU staff as a result.

Though there is only one game by which to judge, all indications thus far are that the players have a strong belief in the staff and what it is trying to achieve. By keeping their approach simple and focusing on basics, the Pirate coaches have seen in improvement not only in the development of their players physically, but also in the areas where they have been the most fragile — emotionally and mentally.

Wins and losses aside, tackling the latter was the most critical issue when Holtz took over. And the 180 the program has taken there is what produced a victory over Duke.