When Mike Houston’s tenure at East Carolina as football coach ended Sunday morning, it followed an incredible span of change the former national champion at James Madison could never have anticipated.
Houston was confronted with the COVID crisis that shortened a season, lengthened player eligibility and even resulted in the cancellation of a bowl game the Pirates were scheduled to play.
When the pandemic passed there were the hurdles of revenue for NIL and a free-flowing transfer portal with which to deal.
Houston, who was 80-25 at Lenoir-Rhyne, The Citadel and JMU, was 27-38 at ECU with a 15-28 record in the American Athletic Conference.
Did the Peter Principle in management come into play? Did Houston reach a level at which he was no longer competent?
He certainly couldn’t recruit and develop players as had been his method at JMU. College coaches today essentially are faced with building a new roster every season.
The new terrain in the game was a challenge that the coach had not faced and though he tried to adjust, his efforts did not produce results fast enough for fans that seem to base their expectations on a higher level than resources permit.
Unconfirmed numbers put Tennessee’s NIL collective at $15 million, N.C. State’s at $5 million and ECU at $1.5 million.
Expectations are high when a Pirates coach has an annual income of $2.4 million, the highest ever for an ECU employee.
Houston made changes after a 2-10 season in 2023 that followed an 8-5 campaign with a bowl win in 2022. New offensive coordinator John David Baker was hired from Ole Miss. The Pirates brought in transfer quarterbacks Jake Garcia and Katin Houser.
Athletic director Jon Gilbert may not have had the option of giving Houston more time if influential financial backers were pushing for Houston’s ouster.
A 31-0 deficit at No. 23 Army and, ultimately, a 45-28 loss, apparently was the last straw Saturday. The Pirates had an extra week to prepare for the Cadets and it didn’t show, at least not until the outcome was decided. The fact that Army may have its best team in decades apparently didn’t factor into the decision to jettison the coach midway his sixth season.
A 55-24 loss at Charlotte before the bye week primed the launch sequence this past weekend.
ECU lost to Appalachian, 21-19, after leading, 16-0 in week three, and did basically the same thing the next week at Liberty when a 17-0 advantage for the Pirates transformed into a 35-24 defeat.
There is potential for this season to be salvaged. The next three opponents have a combined record of 6-15, starting with Temple (2-5, 1-2 AAC) for Homecoming on Saturday.
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The Pirate program is defensive coordinator Blake Harrell’s to handle for the time being. He will deserve consideration for the job if ECU finishes the season strong.
Skip Holtz led the Pirates to their last conference championship in 2009 and has been successful with the Birmingham Stallions of the United Football League. Would be come back? Would he be welcome after leaving ECU for South Florida?
LSU offensive coordinator Joe Sloan is a former Pirate reserve quarterback and Holtz assistant, who is generating some conversation in the rumor mill.
Clemson offensive coordinator Garrett Riley has been mentioned as a candidate. He has worked at ECU when Ruffin McNeill was coach and current Southern California coach Lincoln Riley, his brother, was offensive coordinator. One thing about Clemson is that the Tigers don’t bring in transfers at this time.
The new ECU coach will need to be proficient in all aspects of the current collegiate landscape.
Tennessee defensive coordinator Tre Banks is a possibility given the Volunteers’ performance this season and Gilbert’s ties to Tennessee as a former administrator there.
The Pirates have plenty of time to find the right fit for Houston’s successor. What is more immediate is the need for the team to get past the suddenness of their coach’s departure and get focused forward.
Sportsdon says
He also couldn’t identify or recruit D1 QB’s. Two years with two different QB’s each season that couldn’t get it done. How many games did I watch thinking how much better it would be if we had the other team’s QB? Holton doesn’t count as playing for the Pirates was his childhood dream. Often an underdog, he wasn’t ever able to get the team to outperform expectations. I didn’t see very much creativity either. Name your favorite trick play this year?
Jerry says
I don’t think Steve Logan will be coming out of retirement. Trick plays are great when they work. But, the key to Coach Logan’s magic was, the “tricks” were treated as just another play in the book. You could see anything at any time. Logan also assessed who the best players on the team were, and put them all on offense. He knew ECU couldn’t field enough quality to man both sides of the ball. His approach was to outscore each and every opponent, and he wasn’t bashful about saying so.
My hope is that Coach Harrell finds a way to fix the defense, or at least restore some order to the effort. It’s one thing to be worn down by the offense’s ineptitude, but quite another to be outclassed for the full sixty minutes.
The offense, to me, was predicated on an intermediate length passing attack which would cause defenses to move a defender off of the line, thereby giving the run game a chance. NO ONE fears our offensive line when it comes down to a trench slugfest. If we could find ways to get the ball to the few consistent receivers we have, the run game will improve. Far to many dropped passes have put the Pirates behind the chains, coupled with momentum-killing turnovers which have killed potential game-winning drives.
For the remaining five games, whoever the best 22 are, put them on the field and give them a chance. Dumb down the playbook if you have to, but let’s achieve some consistency on both sides of the ball.
Irish Spectre says
Trick plays? The one that comes to mind wasn’t this year; it was run last year, late in the last game of the season, vs. Tulsa, when ECU was leading late in the 4th quarter and perfectly poised to achieve a rare in-conference win, but then they decide to do a direct snap to the RB for the one and only time of the season, it’s fumbled on the exchange, Tulsa recovers, and the Pirates pull their 10th defeat of the season out of the jaws of victory.
With the modern Pirates, it has kind of been one debacle after another.