Blake Harrell is in the midst of his first spring practice as head football coach at East Carolina after overseeing a 180-degree turn by the Pirates to close the 2024 season.

ECU was 3-4 when Harrell took over for Mike Houston on Oct. 20. Harrell continued as defensive coordinator during a surge in which the Pirates finished 8-5 with a 26-21 Military Bowl win over N.C. State in Annapolis.

There is some regrouping and indoctrination taking place as 20 players have moved on since the bowl triumph. ECU will take on the Wolfpack again to open the 2025 season in Raleigh on Thursday, August 28.

Harrell talked Wednesday about the work that is going on in offseason workouts.

“We just finished up practice number four (Tiesday),” Harrell said. “I think we’ve made some good strides. I think we’ve got a long ways to go and really what you’re looking for is to develop your players, establish culture in spring ball. We’re on the start of that, but we’ve got to have urgency and be intent every single day to make sure as coaches and as players, that we’re protecting that and we’re continuing to develop that.

“(Tuesday) was our first day in full contact and saw some things I liked, saw some guys step up that I like, but we’ve got to get more of that.

“I do think we’re conscientious about developing leaders and our players are conscientious about leading. We’re just missing 20 guys, seniors in the bowl game that always took the leadership roles on, so our younger guys didn’t have to. Now we’ve got some younger guys starting to do it for the first time.”

Houser recovering

Michigan State transfer Katin Houser finished last season as starting quarterback. He is sitting out of spring ball so he can recover fully from wrist surgery on his throwing right arm.

“Katin’s not participating in the spring,” Harrell said. “If we were getting ready to play in a bowl game, he probably could get ready, but it’s not worth risking. We’ve got several kids like that. They  had surgery after the ball game that we’re just not letting.”

Houser threw for 2.006 yards with 18 touchdowns in nine games. Jake Garcia began last season as the starter and has remained in the program.

“Jake is getting a lot more reps and he’s ie a little bit of a leadership role,” Garrell said. “Raheim Jeter gets more reps and then our two freshmen with Chaston Ditta and Cole Hodge are getting quality reps in there as well.

‘I don’t ever say a position is sold up and there’s no competition because everything’s always open for competition until we play and even when we play, you don’t play well, you’re going to find yourself standing next to me. You play well and making plays for the Pirates, then you’re going to be out there if you can help us win.

“With the quarterback position, you never feel good with just one guy. You need to develop several guys there. And I think Jake has started games, he’s played a lot for us and we need to keep growing him. I think he still has room to grow and we need to push him to be the player he has the potential to be.”

Running back situation

Rahjai Harris had a game-deciding 88-yard touchdown run for the Pirates with 1:33 remaining to cap his college career. He ran or 1,166 yards in 2024.

Harrell summarized the current running back room.

“The one that stands out in my mind is Marlon Gunn and mostly because he’s a senior,” Harrell said. “I think he’s about the right things. He’s about all business and I think he can be a good leader for us same way Rahjai was.

“He’s been solid and worked really hard this offseason and just changed his body and developed his body. Told Coach (Rodney) Freeman (II), our running backs coach, a couple years ago, we had on the roster, we had Rahjai, Keaton (Mitchell), and Marlon was the third and you felt really good about it. Then Rahjai tore his ACL, went down, then Keaton was a little banged up and Marlon did a really good job stepping up.

“We have that same depth right now with Marlon Gunn, London Montgomery, and then Parker Jenkins, the transfer from Houston is doing a really good job in that room as well right now. So all three of those guys have shown that they can play at this level. London may have made as big improvement as anybody on our football team from last fall to where he’s at this spring, developing his body, getting more serious in the weight room. We had inside run drill (Tuesday) and he was hitting it up in there, which his kind of game is get out in space and run away from people, but he was certainly hitting the ball up in there.

“I’m excited to see our young guys keep developing, T.J. Engelman and DeJuan Lacy, those guys keep developing. Josh Benton has been solid in that room as well and played some there for us last season. So I think we’re deeper in there. We don’t quite have the Rahjai Harris household name right now, But I think we got some good depth in there and guys that can help us win on Saturday.”

Defensive front

The defensive line has been a strength in recent years but  is in the process of being rebuilt.

‘It’s a lot of new faces,” Harrell said. “When you lose a bunch of 5-year players in Suirad Ware, Elijah Morris, D’Anta Johnson, Chad Stephens was a six-year player. J.D. McKenzie was a six-year player in there, so you lost a lot of bodies with a lot of experience.

“Coach (Roy) Tesh (defensive line coach) does an awesome job in there and I do think we have some guys coming back, especially on the edge, J.D. Lampley, Ryheem Craig, Josiah Robinson is doing a really good job this spring. He’s got to continue to come along, but he’s doing as good job as he’s ever done and there’ll be a few new faces inside, but I do think through four days of practice, you do see one or two pieces in there that could step up and be players for us. We’ve got to continue to grow it.”

Teagan Wilk

Teagan Wilk is back in the secondary at ECU after a season at Houston.

“Teagan’s a six-year player and doing some things that six-year players should do and I think he’s getting back in the swing of things,” Harrell said. “He’s had the injury bug really the last two years, his last year here with the neck and only played in four games and this past year at Houston, I think it was more of a lower body injury.

“But I think just getting back into things, doing some things on the field with pads on and getting used to that and getting used to a new defense. Teagan’s as solid as can be and goes about his business the way an older kid should.

“I told one of our freshmen the other day, I said, ‘Hey, do you realize Teagan Wicks is in his sixth year of college football? I think if, instead of seeing him as the opponent, see him as a buddy that you can learn from and mentor under, I think it’s going to help you go along a lot further in life, a lot further than their career and help you grow.’  And I think Teagan certainly has that ability to help others around him.”

Potentially productive transfers

The Pirates have some players from the portal, who can make an impact.

“l’ll knock on wood,” Harrell said.  “Never want to mention guys too early. They’ve got to keep developing and keep growing, but I think we’ve got a couple of receivers who’ve stepped in. Jaquaize Pettaway from Oklahoma is doing a really good job of just handling his business, working his butt off, but also flashing on the field a little bit. Now we got to put those guys in more live scrimmage situations and play football. But you can tell he’s certainly talented and why he was at Oklahoma and why he was a four-star kid out of high school.

“Tyler Johnson from Penn State is in the same boat. Both of those kids as far as you talk about transfer kids, those two have been the most impressive to me, that very talented, can do some things. They’re fluid in their body movement, got good ball skills, so all the athletic ability is there.

“We’ve just got to make sure when the lights come on and football scrimmage situations, that they’re ready to ride and we’ve got to make sure of  that… And we’ll find more of that out in the coming weeks. I think this Friday, we’ll do a little bit more live work and then the following Friday, we’ll start scrimmaging do some full scrimmages.”

Revised spring schedule

Harrell talked about the changes in the spring schedule.

“Yeah, we just changed it for a couple of reasons,” said the ECU coach. “I think that the strength development and changing our bodies is so huge, I want to make sure we got three lifts in a week. So we’re lifting Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday and with our Saturday lift knowing that we can really get after it because we don’t have practice the next day.

“Sometimes when you lift the day before practice, you got to keep in mind that whether the players holding back or you’re holding back as a coaching staff, you got to save them for practice the next day. Now when they lift on Saturday, they don’t go practice again until the following Tuesday. So they got time to really get after their body and really train their body and get good and sore in there and give a little extra. So I think that’s big.

“I also think we’re practicing Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with our scrimmages being on Friday nights. If it were to have a rain out during the week, we could easily push that back to Saturday, not just lose a practice. So all that’s been good for us.

Purple-Gold matchup

The spring game is coming up on Saturday, April 26, at noon.

“I see it being very similar to a game,” Harrell said of the format. “I think as long as we can, we’re going to fight up and play teams and I think anytime our guys can go out and compete against each other, they enjoy that.

“For one, it’s just the competitive nature to them and I think anytime we can put them in game situations and game scenarios arise, I do think it helps them grow as players and that way when it comes up in the fall, at least they’ve been in those situations.”

Indoor practice facility

Groundbreaking is imminent for an indoor practice facility for football.

‘The day I heard them throw out was April 24th for possibly breaking ground,” Harrell said ” … It’s not just a lot of people think about the indoor facility from a thunderstorm or rain standpoint. I think it’s more than that. You think about kids going out and training. If they’re training in the summertime, would they rather try out in the heat or would they go indoors and train and get more out of the training indoors?

“For me, especially when we’re trying to conserve energy and conserve body fluids and things leading up to a game, whether it be fall camp or game week, you go in the indoor, it may not be for a whole practice, but you go in the indoor for a certain amount of time just to get out of the heat.

‘That way you’re not losing a couple pounds during practice or body fluids during practice that you could possibly conserve for game day and beating an opponent like N.C. State. So I think those things will be huge, the walkthrough process in there and so much more.

“A lot of people think it’s just for the football team. I see it for the whole university for every athlete at East Carolina and being able to train and do things in there. So I think it definitely could be advantageous for everybody.”