Every college football team, East Carolina included, goes into every season expecting to play well, win every game and contend for championships.
But let’s face it, unless your name is Clemson, Alabama or one of a handful of other traditional powers, your team stands a better chance of playing on the moon than at the Louisiana Superdome for the national championship next January 13.
There are still plenty of other ways to define a successful season for programs other than those in that elite class. All it takes is a set of reachable goals to achieve.
So what are some realistic expectations for the Pirates as they head into their first season under new coach Mike Houston?
Here are a few:
- Force more turnovers than committed: It might sound like a coachspeak clichè, but it’s generally true that the winning team is usually the one that wins the turnover battle. That’s something ECU hasn’t done over the course of a season since going plus-8 on the way to a 10-3 record in 2013. Compare that to an average of minus-16 over the past three seasons, a disparity that helped make bad defenses worse and was a major contributing factor to three straight 3-9 seasons.
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It’s a trend Houston and his defensive coordinator Bob Trott have clearly put a high priority on reversing. Together, their teams at James Madison combined to force an FCS-best 97 turnovers over the past three seasons.
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In order to get that same kind of production from their Pirates defense, Trott has instituted a practice drill designed to simulate fumble recoveries. It starts with a group of players lying on the ground. When Trott throws the ball about 20 yards downfield, they get up, chase it and dive on it.
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The idea is to create an aggressive unit that instinctively goes en masse after the ball anytime it’s on the ground. Of course, that’s only half the equation. In order to get back onto the plus-side of the turnover ledger, the offense also has to put more of a value on ball protection than it has in the recent past.
—– - Average at least four yards per carry and have a running back lead the team in rushing: The Pirates were an incredibly one-dimensional team under former coach Scottie Montgomery. While some of that can be attributed to the lopsided nature of games and the fact that they were usually forced into catchup mode early, the bottom line is that ECU hasn’t done a good enough job running the football in recent years.
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It was one of only two AAC teams last season to average fewer than 4.0 yards per carry and only Southern Methodist mustered fewer than its 129.7 yards per game on the ground.
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A key measure of progress for ECU’s offense will be the productivity of the running backs. Last season much of the burden of the ground game fell on QB Holton Ahlers, pictured above gaining yards against Cincinnati last November. (Photo by Al Myatt) Not only have the Pirates not had a 1,000-yard rusher since Vintavious Cooper in 2013, they haven’t had a running back gain more than 500 in a season since James Summers three years ago. Last season, quarterback Holton Ahlers led the team with 592 yards on the ground. He also missed the final game-and-a-half because of injuries from all the hits he took.
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That’s not to say Ahlers shouldn’t run the ball. It’s a big part of his skill set and a weapon the Pirates should use to their advantage. But, as with the Carolina Panthers and Cam Newton, not to the point of overuse.
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The good news is that there is no shortage of candidates to give ECU at least a serviceable ground attack this season. The not-so-good news is that despite promising reports out of camp about Darius Pinnix, Hussein Howe, Trace Christian and freshman Demerius Mauney, Ahlers was still the leading rusher in Saturday’s first scrimmage with 115 yards. - Don’t have Jake Verity lead the AAC in field goals: It’s okay if Verity leads the conference in field goal percentage again, as he did last season by converting 90.5 percent of his attempts. It’s a problem, however, if the first-team All-AAC kicker has to attempt as many three-pointers as he did while making a league-best 19 of 21.
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Kicking that many field goals in a season is the football version of going to a restaurant wanting a steak, but settling for a hamburger. It’s the symptom of an offense that can’t figure out how to finish drives once it gets to the red zone.
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The numbers bear that out. While the Pirates ranked seventh in the 12-team AAC in red zone efficiency at 86.5 percent a year ago, they were dead last in touchdowns scored with just 20. That’s a little thing that can make a big difference in close games.
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Consider that ECU could very easily have finished 5-7 instead of 3-9 if it could have gotten into the end zone instead of settling for three short Verity field goals against N.C.A&T or two chip shots against South Florida.
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It’s a problem that, if corrected, will go a long way toward steering the Pirates back toward respectability.
—– - Have the same quarterback (Hint: Ahlers) start every game: This is an easy one. If the quarterback is healthy enough to start all 12 regular season games, it means that the offensive line did its job of keeping him upright and giving him a chance to look downfield to find open receivers instead of running for his life on every play. That didn’t always happen last season.
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While we’re at it, does anyone really think anyone other than Ahlers won’t be under center to take the first snap a N.C. State in three weeks?
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Although he admittedly needs to work on passing for a higher percentage than he did as a freshman, Ahlers still managed to throw for twice as many touchdowns (12-6) with three times fewer interceptions than junior Reid Herring (3-10) in a similar number of attempts.
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With all due respect to Herring, who did an admirable job under difficult circumstances early last season, it’s time to find out if Ahlers really is the kind of quarterback a program can build around. The only way to do that is to give him the keys to the offense and turn him loose and allow him to become the “face of the franchise.”
—– - Be competitive against every opponent: This is something of an abstract goal, although with a schedule that replaces Virginia Tech with William & Mary, and features three Western Division crossovers coming off losing seasons, it’s not unreasonable to expect significant improvement in ECU’s win-loss record this season.
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But even more than that, the Pirates have to do a better job of representing themselves and their school in the games they don’t win. That means not giving up 70 points like they did in the 2017 season finale against Memphis or getting embarrassed by 40 or more points as they did three times last season.
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It means giving themselves a chance to win even when they don’t and at the very least, matching the opposition’s intensity and physicality until the final whistle. Only when they learn to do that on a consistent basis can they start thinking about accomplishing other, loftier goals like winning every game they play and challenging for championships.
Very well said . Hard facts don’t lie