Practice times have varied for East Carolina during preseason. The Pirates practiced under the lights at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on Wednesday night, but coach Mike Houston us taking a hard look at morning practices during the 2024 season.

An advantage of morning practices on the heavy days — Tuesdays and Wednesdays — the season is that it would allow more recovery time before Saturday game days than afternoon practices would permit.

Houston has discussed the change with strength and conditioning coach John Williams. New offensive coordinator John Davis Baker supports the shift because he feels like it worked at Ole Miss, his previous program.

Houston liked the night session this week and noted its necessity because three of ECU’s first four games are at night, including an Aug. 31 opener at home against Norfolk State. That matchup will have a 6 p.m. kickoff, which means there actually will be a twilight transition pf the sky to darkness.

The Pirates got some good preparation on Wednesday night.

“That was as close to a game as I’ve ever had in practice before a game,” said the Pirates coach. “We did a lot of situational stuff. We had an officiating crew …  And the electricity on the field, it felt like game day.

“The kids, that was awesome. We created situations, or they created situations, that you can’t replicate in practice. Real-game situations, late-game stuff. This happens because of this. Here’s what we’ve got to do here. It was good for us.

“Now all of a sudden, the two-minute warning is there, and it’s late game and your management of timeouts. It changes things. It made us think of new things with that. Just great practice. Really excited about the way they approached it. Now everything is turned towards building towards Saturday. I want to have a really sharp scrimmage Saturday and then start getting ready for Norfolk State.”

The Pirates should be better acclimated to face the Spartans after their nocturnal workout.

Transfers Katin Houser and Jake Garcis are in competition for the starting assignment at quarterback.

ECU has had multiple quarterbacks multiple times. Houston cited one such instance.

” It reminds me of the story I heard about the 2012 situation with Rio Johnson and Shane Carden,” Houston said. “Shane was not named the starter, but then three weeks later, he’s the starter, and went on to have a great year.”

Current competition

The current quarterback situation features considerable talent.

“I just think both of them (Houser and Garcia) are playing at a very high level.” Houston said, “It’s decision making. I mean, I think we had some great management of the clock  (Wednesday night). We;re 3:30 time remaining. We got the lead. We’re trying to run the clock out. I thought we had great management of the offense right there, We’ were able to drain it out and not give it back.

“The next time we went, the defense forced a punt, and all of a sudden we’re in two-minute mode. I think there’s a few learning things, but I think both quarterbacks had good nights tonight.”

This Saturday’s scrimmage

ECU will scrimmage again on Saturday. Houston was asked what he will be looking for.

“A continuation of tonight,” he said. “I just thought that was highly competitive because both sides played very well. Both sides made big plays. The defense, they made some big plays tonight. The offense, really yesterday at the end of practice and then tonight at the end of practice, the offense did a great job of moving the ball down the field, getting in the end zone, making some plays.

“I really like the way we operated. I want to see us do that on Saturday. The advantage of going during the day instead of night on Saturday, it was very cool out there tonight. It was perfect weather. I mean, it was really ideal. We probably need a little bit of heat in that situation, too, because it jumped on us so bad last Saturday.”