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Slipups forbidden when reaching for the stars

By Brett Friedlander
©2014 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.

Within the past week, East Carolina quarterback Shane Carden has appeared live on Sirius XM College Sports Radio and — along with favorite receiver Justin Hardy — was the subject of a full-length national feature story on SportingNews.com.

The senior captain is one of 13 players nationally currently listed on the Heisman Trophy’s official web site as an “aspirant” for the most prestigious award in college football – a standing that will only be strengthened with news that trophy frontrunner Todd Gurley of Georgia has been suspended indefinitely for accepting an impermissible extra benefits.

Hardy, meanwhile, is currently the fourth-leading vote getter in fan balloting for the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver.

After years, even decades of fighting and failing to gain recognition outside a 90-mile radius of Greenville, people are finally starting to stand up and take notice of those who play football for the Pirates.

It’s a revelation that can be at least partially traced to ECU’s entry into the higher profile American Athletic Conference. But it would be naïve to think that the new affiliation is only reason for the Pirates’ new-found notoriety, which includes a national ranking that has climbed to No. 19 this week.

Of far greater importance in gaining the attention of the folks in Bristol, Conn., and other college football image makers is results – eye-catching results like road upsets of Virginia Tech and 70-point eruptions against fellow Power Five member North Carolina.

“I’ve never heard of a guy winning the Heisman on a bad team,” Carden told SportingNews.com. “Right now, I’m in the business of winning. I want wins for my team. When you win and win big, those things take care of themselves.”

So far, so good.

Now here’s the catch: There’s absolutely no margin for error when you’re a program such as ECU. In order to keep the clock from striking midnight and having the college football establishment fall in love with some other plucky underdog with its own core of underappreciated stars, you have to keep winning.

You think Jordan Lynch would have been one of six Heisman Trophy finalists invited to New York last December had his Northern Illinois team not started the season at 12-0 a year after playing in the Orange Bowl?

Not a chance.

That’s why games such as Saturday’s road contest at South Florida are just as important to the Pirates, and perhaps even more dangerous, than the upcoming showdowns against Cincinnati and Central Florida that will presumably decide the AAC championship.

It doesn’t matter that coach Ruffin McNeill’s team is a 15½-point favorite against a team that has averaged only 233 yards per game in losing three of its last four. From this point on, ECU is going to get everybody’s best shot.

The situation is similar to the one the Pirates faced last season when after a equally encouraging start punctuated by another impressive drubbing of the rival Tar Heels, they suffered a letdown that resulted in an overtime loss at Tulane. It’s a game that should be fresh on the minds of this year’s players, even if McNeill and his staff aren’t going out of their way to bring it up.

“We don't talk about the past because it's irrelevant," McNeill said earlier this week. “We can't control what happened in the past. We talk about ourselves and what we have to do to get better.”

Fortunately for McNeill, he has an ally in spreading that single-minded message in his star quarterback Carden.

The Pirates’ field leader is so locked into the task at hand that he didn’t realize he was even getting close to the school record for passing yardage until the third quarter of last week’s win against Southern Methodist, when he was recognized over the Dowdy-Ficklen PA system for surpassing David Garrard’s career mark of 9,029 yards.

That’s the kind of attitude McNeill said “exudes and exemplifies what we want here.”

Carden is hardly unique in that regard. He’s just the latest in a long line of ECU greats that have exhibited similar qualities over the years.

The only thing that sets him apart from those others who spent the majority of their careers toiling away in virtual anonymity is that now, at least as long as the Pirates keep winning, people are finally starting to take notice.

Contact Brett Friedlander

PAGE UPDATED 10/10/14 04:16 AM.

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