Defensive coordinator Josh Aldridge was looking forward to Saturday’s scrimmage from the standpoint of necessity. East Carolina has not been doing a lot of that activity that involves hitting, wrapping and bringing opposing ball carriers to the ground thus far in preseason camp.

“We haven’t done a ton of tackling yet,” said the former Auburn assistant who also coaches linebackers at ECU. “That’s a huge part of it. You can still coach leverage and how we position on the ball carrier.”

Blake Harrell was defensive coordinator last season, even after he was promoted to head coach after seven games. Aldridge went to work in Greenville after the Pirates topped N.C. State, 26-21, in the Military Bowl. He likes the culture he joined.

“They play with an edge,” Aldridge said. “They’ve been pretty violent this fall camp. … I appreciate that. That’s what we need. You’ve still got to practice like a pro and take care of your teammates when the time comes, but I’m looking forward to us being live on Saturday in the stadium.

“You’ve just got to go tackle. I don’t see how you can evaluate who your best 11 to 22 guys are if you don’t know who can tackle. … If we can’t tackle and get off blocks, that’s just what defense is. So, I think once we get that full scrimmage under our belt, we will have a good evaluation and slowly but surely we’ll chip away at who we think are the guys we need to roll with.”

Only outside linebacker Ryheem Craig and safety Ja’Marley Riddle return from the starting lineup on defense from the bowl game.

Year two at ECU for Houser, Baker

Four starters are back on offense from the bowl lineup including left guard Emmanuel Poku, right tackle Jimarion McCrimon, quarterback Katin Houser and wide receiver Anthony Smith.

Houser played the bowl game with a fracture in his throwing wrist that subsequently required surgery. The Michigan State transfer still had 231 yards or total offense and two rushing touchdowns.

Offensive coordinator John David Baker said Houser’s developmental curve has been trending upward. Baker came from Ole Miss prior to an 8-5 season in 2024. Things are going much smoother in year two.

“It’s night and day from last year from a sense of just confidence and mostly more than anything, continuity from the staff down through the players,” Baker said. “When you’ve got a quarterback that knows what’s going on and knows what we’re doing, that kind of just bleeds to the rest of the team.”

Staff advancement

Baker said the offensive staff has taken their efficiency up a notch.

“This time last year, if there was a mistake or something happened, I was trying to get there as fast as I could to correct it,” Baker said. “Now before I can even get words out of my mouth, Coach Freeman'(running backs coach Rodney Freeman II) is fixing it or Dyrell (wide receivers coach Dyrell Roberts) is fixing it.

“That piece of it is just totally different and it’s allowed us to accelerate a little bit as far as what we’re doing, but at the same time never doing too much too fast.”

Running back depth

No returning starter at running back is a little deceptive in terms of depth in that room.

Rahjai Harris ran for 1,193 yards in his last season at ECU, including an 86-yard sprint for the deciding TD in the bowl game.

But Marlon Gunn Jr., London Montgomery and Houston transfer Parker Jenkins are all on the watch list for the Doak Walker Award.

“We may not have starters, but we have guys who have played,” Harrell said in general terms of the roster.

A little levity

It’s probably a good thing that Harrell has some light-hearted moments along the way as he goes about the complex business of winning football games.

He deadpanned at a recent news conference that the Pirates would run triple option with their stable of backs.

Harrell will leave that up to Baker, but it did work magnificently for Pat Dye back in the day.

ECU standard time

With cooler temperatures, the Pirates have moved practice to one hour later in the morning.

“I’m enjoying that extra hour of sleep,” Harrell said.

But seriously

Attitude toward practice is a key element for a team to reach its potential.

“We can’t just survive practice,” Harrell said. “We have to attack practice.”

Suspended player update

Defensive lineman J.D. Lampley, defensive lineman Preston Carr and receiver/returner Brock Spalding were suspended from the team for a firearms incident on July 20 in Greenville.

“We have some young men that are kind of learning from an event, and learning the lesson as we’ve talked about,” Harrell said this week. “They’re just kind of still going through some steps and processes, that we need them to go through at this time. And we’ll continue to monitor that and see where it leads.”