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Primetime chance to get back on track

By Greg Vacek
©2014 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.

Some say Thursday night is the start of the weekend. Will it be the start of a new streak for the East Carolina Pirates?

Jimbo Fisher, owner of college football’s longest active winning streak at 24 games, recently sized up the difficulty of stringing together victories.

"[Winning] is so much harder than we make it seem to be out there,” said the Florida State coach. “If it wasn’t, guys would be undefeated all the time. … Why do you think I’m nervous every week? A college kid – think of all the things that went through your head at that age. It’s a challenge every week to control their minds to bring them to focus, to understand how to be consistent. That’s the hard thing.”

It seems that East Carolina's non-traditional schedule has become the norm for teams as their conferences allow television to dictate times and dates. ECU has six non-football Saturdays this season, which is good for me to be able see my kids’ soccer games, but not necessarily good for a college football team that relies on structure and familiar routines to keep the kids focused.

The Pirates, after competing their third and final bye week of the 2014 season, have had 11 days to rest, reflect, retool and refocus heading into a stretch run that will help determine who is eventually crowned the American Athletic Conference champion.

Memphis currently leads the pack with a 4-1 league record, followed by Cincinnati, ECU and Central Florida all at 3-1. That makes the Pirates' Thursday night matchup with the Bearcats an important one.

Have the Pirates exorcised the Thursday Night Demons? Historically the Pirates haven’t taken full advantage coming off of open weeks, winning only nine of their last 13 opportunities.

One of ESPN’s original Thursday night trailblazers, ECU has won its last two primetime Thursday contests but has not been spectacular over the long run, posting a 6-8 record. UC has played 14 Thursday night games, holding an 11-3 mark with an 8-1 record at home.

East Carolina is 17-19 in non-Saturday games since 2000. Surprisingly, the Pirates have been better on the road, compiling an 11-9 record in foreign venues compared to a 6-10 slate at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.

The Pirates’ series with Cincinnati resumes after a 10-year hiatus since the Bearcats departed Conference USA. ECU holds a 12-5 all-time series advantage. ECU dominated the early years with seven straight victories, including five of eight in Nippert Stadium.

The teams played yearly from 1986-2004 with the exception of 1996 and 2000. UC won the most recent three meetings — in 2002, '03 and '04 — when both schools were members of C-USA.

The 2002 game marked a controversial point in the ECU football program's history. The Bearcats defeated ECU 42-26 in a season-ending Friday night contest in Greenville. Steve Logan, the Pirates' all-time winningest coach, was fired the morning after the game. Logan had complained publicly about timing of the game, which was televised during the prep football playoffs to the consternation of the N.C. High School Athletics Association.

The John Thompson era, an abbreviated two-year span during which ECU recorded a 3-20 record, debuted on a Monday night the following season with a 40-3 thumping by the Bearcats. Thompson's final season included a 24-19 loss to Cincinnati among the Pirates nine defeats in 2004.

ECU’s last victory over the Bearcats came in 2001 with David Garrard and Leonard Henry leading the way in a 28-26 nail-biter on the road.

Thursday will mark the third time this season that the Pirates will be playing in an NFL stadium. Earlier appearance on the turf of the pros were at South Florida (the Tampa Bay Bucs' Raymond James Stadium) and Temple (the Philadelphia Eagles' Lincoln Financial Field).

While venerable Nippert Stadium is undergoing an $86 million renovation and expansion, the Bearcats are playing all of their  2014 home games at the Cincinnati Bengals' Paul Brown Stadium. The Bearcats began playing on the site where Nippert Stadium rests way back in 1902, making it the fourth oldest playing site for college football in the nation.

UC athletic director Mike Bohn told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the school has 26,000 tickets out for the ECU game and is hoping to reach 29,000 for this important matchup. But with temperatures for Thursday expected to top out at 36 degrees before falling throughout the game — and with ESPN2 cameras beaming the contest to home TVs — the attendance could be significantly lower.

For a chance to win in the frigid conditions, the Pirates need to heat up and put together an all-around better performance than they did in their five-turnover penalty-fest against Temple in chilly Philly.

Cincinnati quarterbacks Munchie Legaux and Gunner Kiel both will see playing time at quarterback against ECU and both are capable of giving the Pirates problems. Kiel has started all eight games but has been hampered by bruised ribs). He leads the American in passing TDs (20) and passing efficiency (154.5).

Legaux, who suffered a serious leg injury in the second game of the 2013 season, has helped the Bearcats improve to 5-3 overall with effective performances in relief of Kiel in the last two games.

Shane Carden and company will have to look out for an improving UC defense that has forced nine turnovers in the last three games after forcing only six in its first five contests.

The challenge for the Pirates is now to move on from their loss to Temple and put all the baggage that came with it behind them. Don’t let a team beat you twice.

With four games remaining, East Carolina still has a chance to control its own destiny. Win out and they clinch at least a share of the American title in their first season in the conference. Not bad for a team that was picked fourth in the Preseason AAC poll.

E-mail Greg Vacek

PAGE UPDATED 11/12/14 05:03 AM.