Bonesville: The Authoritative Independent Voice of East Carolina

News & Features from ECU, the AAC and Beyond

  • Home
  • News & Features
  • Recruiting
  • Photos
  • Audio
  • Roundup
  • Comments
  • Legacy Archives
  • <•> ECU 2021 BASEBALL SCHEDULE <•>

Insights from Brett: Burn the evidence and forge ahead

September 29, 2016 By Brett Friedlander 2 Comments

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

If you’re looking for something positive to take from the 54-17 drubbing East Carolina received last Saturday at Virginia Tech, here’s one to try on for size: At least there weren’t any “what ifs” to ponder like there were after the previous week’s loss at South Carolina.

Seriously.

As bad as the Pirates’ performance was against the Hokies — and it was about as bad as it can get in every phase of the game — it shouldn’t be hard for coach Scottie Montgomery, his staff and their players to put behind them and move on.

Just watch the tape once to identify the mistakes that need to be corrected, throw it into the fireplace and burn it before hitting the reset button and treating Saturday’s game as if it was the start of a brand new season.

As luck would have it, the matchup against Central Florida at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium actually is the start of a new season. It’s the American Athletic Conference opener, meaning that ECU is still 0-0 in the games that matter most.

“The ultimate goal still attainable,” quarterback Philip Nelson said. “We’re talking about a conference championship. Obviously we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We want to win every single day in practice, but moving forward it doesn’t matter who we’ve beat and who we’ve lost to. We’re looking at this as a fresh start.”

That having been said, there are plenty of lessons both good and bad that can be learned from the now-completed nonconference schedule.

Nelson, for instance, has proven to be a major upgrade at quarterback than the Pirates had a year ago. Even in Saturday’s defeat, he showed he is more than capable of hitting the deep ball with two 70-plus yard touchdown strikes — both to Jimmy Williams, who is rapidly developing into an explosive complement to reliable workhorse Zay Jones.

ECU has also made improvements in its ground game, provided Anthony Scott can overcome his problem of putting the ball on the ground.

Defensively, the Pirates have played well in three of their first four games with linebackers Jordan Williams, Terrell Richardson, Dayon Pratt, Cam White and Yiannis Bowden rapidly developing into a top-flight unit.

On the downside, ECU has got some major issues on special teams. In the past two weeks, they’ve given up an 80-yard kickoff return, a punt return for a touchdown, and had two field goals and a punt blocked while botching another punt because of what position coach Shannon Moore termed “a miscommunication.”

More troubling is the fact that they were pushed around physically on both lines of scrimmage by Virginia Tech, a team ECU had beaten in each of the previous two years.

Those are issues Montgomery didn’t waste any time addressing as soon as he got his team back onto the practice field following its return from Blacksburg.

“We want to take from the good that we did, but we also need to learn from the bad,” Montgomery said. “We’ve moved on from the outcome of the game, but we’re still living in the moments of what we need to get fixed. That’s what we’re doing.”

Montgomery’s plan for correcting the special teams issues are a number of personnel moves — including perhaps a change in kickers from inconsistent incumbent Davis Plowman to true freshman Jake Verity, who made both his extra points and his first career field goal during last week’s anticlimactic second half.

As for the issue of physicality, the first-year coach is addressing the situation the only way you can — by having his players get physical with one another at practice.

“We made it physical from start to finish,” Montgomery said after Tuesday’s practice. “We felt like we got out-hit and we felt like they played lower than us in the game. That won’t happen again in this coach’s watch.

“We know we should have played a lot better than we played. The guys know it. It was physical and that’s the way it’s going to be the rest of the way.”

While practice can potentially make perfect when it comes to execution, the mental side of the game is a much more difficult to gauge or control.

Getting over last Saturday’s dismal performance won’t be a problem. Just burn the tape and move on. Keeping it from creeping back to mind the first time something bad happens against UCF on Saturday will be much more of a challenge.

That’s why it’s imperative that the Pirates get off to a better start than they have in their two previous games.

“This is a good team we’re playing,” senior center J.T. Boyd said. “It’s a conference game. It means a lot. We’ve got to put our foot on the gas early and not let things snowball on us. We’re a very good team. [Virginia Tech] was just one of those things that happen. We just have to put it behind us and focus on Saturday.”

And the start of a brand new season.

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

Filed Under: News & Features

Comments

  1. Hansen Matthews says

    September 29, 2016 at 11:38 am

    Insightful article, Brett. You’ve covered the Pirates extremely well for the past few years and everyone in Wilmington misses you and your contributions to sports coverage here. Be well.

    Reply
  2. Richard Edwards says

    September 29, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    Virginia Tect game will just be an unfortunate footnote on the season IF we can perform well from here on out. With a little luck, we can win all of the remainder of the schedule. GGOOOO………PPIRATES!!!!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ECU Schedules

  • ECU 2020 Football Schedule
  • ECU 2020-21 Basketball Schedule
  • ECU 2021 Baseball Schedule
Tweets by bonesville

Recent News & Features

Basketball News
Dooley sidelined by virus

VIEW FROM THE EAST
Pirates turn page to 2021

AUDIO FEATURE
Joe Dooley presser

Basketball News
ECU hoops in limbo for the time being

Basketball News
Pirates, Bearcats on hold

Basketball News
Bulls use run to top Pirates, 69-63

VIEW FROM THE EAST
Pirates eye USF after tough time at Tulane

Basketball News
Wave evens season series

VIEW FROM THE EAST
Pirates refocus after coronavirus interruption

AUDIO FEATURE
Joe Dooley Presser

More News & Features

Writer Archives

  • Bonesville Staff
  • Brian Bailey
  • Sammy Batten
  • Bethany Bradsher
  • Brett Friedlander
  • Al Myatt
  • NFF
  • Greg Vacek
  • Danny Whitford

Recent Web Roundups

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Thursday, January 21, 2021

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Tuesday, January 19, 2021

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Monday, January 18, 2021

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Sunday, January 17, 2021

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Saturday, January 16, 2021

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Friday, January 15, 2021

GREG VACEK'S DAILY WEB ROUNDUP
Thursday, January 14, 2021

More Web Roundups

Copyright © 2021 Bonesville.net · Website by Seaport Webworks. · Log in · Privacy Policy