Young talents to take center stage

By Brian Bailey
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Are you ready for some East Carolina football?

Get ready for a bar-b-cue plate with a side of pigskin for the 32nd annual Great Pirate Purple-Gold Pigskin Pig-out Party this weekend.

The highlight of the festival is the spring football game, which will feature the ECU starters on offense against the second team defense, and the second team offense against the first team Pirate ‘D.’ The third teamers will also square off against one another.

“The biggest key is that we just want to stay healthy,” said Pirate coach Ruffin McNeill on my weekly radio show [REPLAY AUDIO] on Monday night on Pirate Radio 1250. “We will treat it like a very important practice, but some of our best players won’t play a whole lot.”

McNeill explained it like this.

“I know Montese Overton can tackle,” he said. “I know Zeek Bigger can tackle. What I want to see is some of the younger players. How will they react when the lights come on?"

Saturday’s second spring scrimmage was highlighted by several big plays by the offense and various penalties.

On the positive, the Pirate offense had a good day throwing the deep ball. That success, however, came at the expense of the Pirate defense and their always colorful coordinator, Rick Smith.

“I’m upset with them,” said Smith when asked about his defensive backs. “I told them that if they kept playing like that then somebody would be fired. Either I’ll get fired or they will get fired. And I’m not getting fired.”

Smith has this philosophy on giving up big plays.

“Our goal is to never give up a pass over 20 yards and never give up a run over 12 yards,” he explained. “We can give up a 10-yard run every now and then and still come back and play, but it’s hard to overcome 40 yards here and 40 yards there in the secondary.”

Speaking of philosophies, first year offensive coordinator Dave Nichol shared some of his ideas after Saturday’s scrimmage.

“We were better today,” said Nichol. “We had two late turnovers with our threes, which they need to protect it better. It was better. I’m going to say the same stuff. Better energy, better attitude, equals better play. They were more ready to go and hopefully they can continue that, that’s going to be the deal.”

Nichol doesn’t plan on naming a starting quarterback out of the spring, but Kurt Benkert still appears to be the odds on favorite. Benkert says he is taking things slowly and trying to get better every day himself.

Even though he’s not the starter, he is still playing the part.

“You have to talk like that every day,” said Benkert. “You have to act like you’re the starter every day. Even when Shane was here I was conducting myself as if I were ready to play. You have to conduct yourself the same way every time. I feel like I have a lot of big play capability. Like I’ve been saying, I want to work on just getting routine plays and not just random balls here and there that I can make in my sleep and just being consistent, being consistent as possible.”

For Benkert it’s his first real chance to play the position in front of the Pirate Nation.

“I’m always excited,” said Benkert. “Anytime we get to be on the field with this team it’s awesome. I feel like we are different from most other places and we just always have fun with each other. It’s going to be different having more people here, but there have been 50,000 here before and I’ve played, so it’s really not anything new.”

The spring football game won’t be the greatest game you’ll ever see. It never is. But it does give fans one final glimpse, one last taste of football before the spring breeze blends into the dog days of summer.

Kickoff is set for 2:30 on Saturday and there is no admission charge. That means there is no excuse not to check out Pirate football on Saturday.

Get your ECU football fix while you can. August is a long way away.

BB

E-mail Brian Bailey.