Inside
Game Day Saturday,
September 29, 2012
By Al Myatt |
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Miners no match after storm
Al Myatt
©2012 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
GREENVILLE — Rain has seemed
to bring out the best in East Carolina's football program.
The Pirates prevailed in a virtual monsoon
at South Carolina in 1992 and plucked the Gamecocks again in the rain in
1996.
One of the greatest wins in program history
came in 1999 when Hurricane Floyd forced the Miami game to be moved to
Raleigh and ECU inspired its flood-ravaged region by rallying for a 27-23
triumph.
Showers accompanied wins over Syracuse in
2000 at home and again that season at Southern Miss.
The Oyster Bowl in Norfolk against William
& Mary in 1977 didn't yield a win in wet conditions but it did provide one
of the great stories in ECU lore as aging former Pirates coach Jim Johnson
came off the sideline to make a tackle.
It was an unusual Saturday night at Dowdy-Ficklen
Stadium as Texas-El Paso came in but you had to like the Pirates' chances as
a storm approached from the west.
Even before lightning rolled in and stopped
play, the East Carolina coaches' headphones went out and they had to
communicate by cell phone from the upper levels of the press box to the
sideline.
Shortly after 8 p.m., there was a public
address announcement that play would be stopped and fans were told to leave
stadium seating in an orderly manner.
Like a snow day in school, the situation
created some unique excitement. Pirate Nation was advised that it could
return from beneath the stands at 9:20 p.m.
UTEP was leading 10-7 at the time but the
Miners were no match for the Pirates once conditions got tough. ECU
retreated to the Murphy Center during the delay and scored the next 21
points after the restart.
"We concentrated on keeping our focus,"
said ECU coach Ruffin McNeill on how the Pirates occupied their time during
the unanticipated break. "We've had several practices interrupted by rain so
we have gotten used to that."
It took a while for the offense to click
when the game began again but the defense stepped up like it was protecting
buried treasure.
The Pirates had possession at the UTEP
6-yard line when play was halted. The Pirates restarted with a pass off play
action and it was intercepted by UTEP's Shane Huhn. ECU got the ball back
and threw another pick that left the Miners at their own 4-yard line.
ECU's defense stepped up again and the
offense finally got it right as Shane Carden hit Justin Hardy on a 3-yard
fade. The play was initially ruled an incompletion but replay showed that
Hardy got his right foot down inbounds on the right side of the end zone.
The review put ECU ahead to stay.
Vintavious "Ta" Cooper ran 23 times for 151
yards as ECU's running back by committee looked like it could be reduced in
size.
The harsh conditions Saturday evening
didn't seem to bother Cooper, a former option quarterback on the Mississippi
junior college scene. His bursts across the wet turf were key in the 28-18
Pirate victory.
"It's tough when you're already warmed up
and then (you get) cold in the building and you go back out and there's not
as much excitement as there was, but you fight through it and just try to
make plays," Cooper said.
Reggie Bullock went down on the opening
kickoff and that created an opportunity for Cooper to get more touches. The
offensive line was a big part of his success on the night.
"They opened up lanes and made plays," he
said.
Cooper had to make sure he held on to the
ball under the slippery conditions.
"It's horrible," he said. "I had to take
off my gloves because I'd rather use my hands than my gloves in that
situation."
Carden finished with 28 completions on 40
attempts for 258 yards with three interceptions and one TD. He ran nine
times for 63 yards and two scores, validating the summer contention of
offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley that the sophomore from Houston can make
plays with his feet.
Halftime was trimmed to 10 minutes. Miners
coach Mike Price said he would have been fine with no intermission since
play had already been stopped for one hour, 20 minutes.
Price also said that teams traveling two
time zones win only 15 percent of the time.
It may not have been the travel that got
the best of the Miners on Saturday night.
It seemed like weather, fit only for a
determined band of Pirates, was the deciding factor.
E-mail Al Myatt.
PAGE UPDATED
09/30/12 05:54 AM.
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