East Carolina coach Blake Harrell expressed his appreciation to a crowd of 35,120 that saw a 56-3 win over Campbell on Saturday at his weekly news conference.

He credited the energy created by playing well in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.

“The energy for me started at the Pirate Walk. It’s obviously just the fourth one I’ve been part of, but the fan base was awesome.”

There have been some adjustments with Pirate Walk 2025.

“It’s obviously we’ve moved that back a little bit this year,” Harrell said. “We’re two hours and five minutes before kickoff. We moved it back a little bit so we can have more fan engagement. Fans can get out there right before tailgate and get a chance to see our players as they’re walking in.”

The space formerly occupied by the Scales Field House has been converted.

“We’re walking through there now,” said the ECU coach. “It’s now a green space. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth checking out.

“It’s a turf area. There’s a tent there and drink sales. There’s a big screen TV, probably a 10-foot TV with games playing. Just a really cool atmosphere to catch the Pirate Walk or kind of tailgate or hang out before a game.

“The tailgating area was packed out and the student tailgating area over there in Treasure Island, the DJ was a big hit. … And thanks to the students for packing out the Boneyard. I think we gave out almost 11,000 student tickets or wristbands.

“Huge deal with their support. … Our players certainly felt it was a really, really good atmosphere. That makes this place special. Thank you to those folks and thank you to our administration which continues to make the fan experience in Dowdy Ficklin for game day pretty special.

“Pretty special, our fan base. We sold out our ticket allotment up in Raleigh. We had a great experience here this weekend and then we’ve got our ticket allotment sold out in Myrtle Beach. So thank you to the fans that continue to support us and follow us along. Our players really appreciate it and will continue to do our part with that.

“The thing that I was most happy about Saturday was the fact that it was a team win. We talk about it takes everybody and really we just talked about the Dowdy effect and the energy we were creating in there. That takes everybody.”

Compact nonconference schedule

The Pirates have a relatively convenient early schedule considering the vast geographic demands of the American Conference.

ECU has two bus rides and three home games before flying to New Orleans for a league game at Tulane on Thursday, Oct. 9.

The immediate challenge is Coastal Carolina (1-1) on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The Pirates (1-1) will bus out on Friday.

Program win

Harrell noted the number of contributors in the Campbell game.

“We had 15 different guys catch a football,” he said. “Almost 85 players on the field. We put out our third down Predator package out there and it looks like a hockey change or the field goal team’s out there and it looks like 10 guys coming on.

“Just happy with how those guys bought into the team part of it and I thought we responded the way we should. We did the things we focused on in practice all week — start fast, urgency, attention to detail and we went out and did that.

“We’ll continue to do that and continue to focus on our culture and continue to build that playing with great effort, playing with great energy, being disciplined and execution, which we’ve still got to clean up in some parts.”

The Pirates were penalized 10 times for 84 yards.

Clean execution

ECU had no turnovers.

“I was happy with our decision making and taking care of the football,” Harrell said. “Katin Houser really continues to show you why he’s one of the best quarterbacks in this league. He continues to make good decisions.”

Houser completed 25 of 35 for 314 yards with two touchdowns.

“Really proud of him in the way he’s going about his business,” Harrell said. “Brock Spalding (3 catches, 81 yards, 1 TD) made some big plays again Saturday. Jayvontay Conner (3 catches, 32 yards) continues to show up and show you why he’s a valuable tight end.

“Defensively, Preston Carr had a big fumble recovery in the game there and did some good things up front for us. TyMir Brown started the game and I thought was solid out wide at corner.

“Kendrick DuJour playing off the edge and starting to flash a little bit. … Then a freshman that got in the game a little bit toward the end who I think it’s going to be a really good player for us this year is Jordan Miles playing a little linebacker out of Huntsville, Alabama.

“In the return game I thought Kyler Pearson just adds a little spark back there. We’ve got to do a better job of being penalty free on that unit, but you can see him just catching a football, getting some yardage there and getting our offense in a good situation there was pretty positive.

“All in all, I thought those were some good things that we did on Saturday. Obviously, I told our football team just a few minutes ago at practice, we’ve got to go attack this week with the same urgency. I said if we don’t get any better we’re in trouble. We’ve got a long ways to go. Some of the things I think we’ve got to clean up from Saturday — it’s still our penalties.”

Need better tackling

As ECU’s former defensive coordinator, Harrell addressed some basics on that side of the ball.

“Our tackling is still not great,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job getting our feet to contact, keeping our eyes up and running to the football.

“Offensively. I know we had a bunch of yards offensively running the football, but to me most of those were later in the game. We’ve got to do a better job early in the game.

“Some of that is Katin was taking what the defense gave him, but we got to make sure we can move people off the ball.”

Areas for improvement

Harrell analyzed a lengthy drive by the Camels that precluded a shutout.

“Defensively, we had them backed up inside the 10-yard line and let them go on a 19-play drive,” he said. “I think there was a couple of third downs in there, we let them off the hook.

“Anytime we’ve got an opponent backed up inside the 10-yard line, that’s an opportunity for us to get a three and out, get the ball back to our offense, which equals points.

“Anytime you can get the ball back to your offense on your side of the 50, you should get points out of that and we let them off the hook down there and then a couple third downs.

“I think missed a tackle on a third down, had a kid in the flat and just didn’t play well. I thought we had a few penalties on that (series). That led to the field goal. We’ve got to do a better job on that drive, all in all.

“Those are things we got to clean up and just continue to every single day come to work with urgency, intent and go at it.”

Practice schedule revised

The NCAA requires a day off during the week.

“Sunday’s our day off now,” Harrell said. “We changed that up this year. Sundays are a chance for our players to, if they’ve got family in town, spend time with their family. If they want to go to church, they don’t have anything that day except check in with the trainer and make sure they’re healthy.

“It’s a day to refresh and then we got a chance to get back after it this morning (Monday). It was nice to be out there with those guys. So we turned all our attention to our opponent.”

Monday was previously the off day for the Pirates.

Looking at the Chanticleers

Harrell turned his attention to the challenge at hand.

“Coastal Carolina is coming off a win (13-0 over Charleston Southern at Coastal),” said the Pirates coach. “We faced these guys a couple years ago in the bowl game (53-29 ECU win, Birmingham Bowl, 2022), but a lot’s changed since then.

“Tim Beck is in his third year at Coastal Carolina. His first year, he won eight games. Last year, took him to a bowl game as well. He was the offensive coordinator at N.C. State back in 2022 when we played them here (21-20 ECU loss).

“Excited about the matchup. Regional game. Our third regional game of the year. An opportunity for our fan base again to travel. So expecting a really good atmosphere down there. Expecting it to be sold out.”

What Coastal will present

Harrell sized up the Coastal attack.

“They’re going to remind you of kind of a Mike Leach offense,” he said. “Their offensive coordinator is Drew Hollinghead. He was with Mike Leach at Washington State and Mississippi State. He was previously the offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky.

“He’s going to spread it out and do some Mike Leach type stuff. Although they ran the ball for 245 yards this past weekend.”

Dual quarterbacks

Coastal’s quarterbacks have contrasting backgrounds.

“The two quarterbacks they used this past weekend were M, J. Morris and Tad Hudson. The two they used are both four-star kids out of high school. M.J. started his career at NC State, transferred to Maryland after that and was the starting quarterback game one this year for Coastal. Then Tad Hudson came in later in the game and kind of finished the game off for him.

“Tad is a Charlotte native He started his career at North Carolina and transferred to Coastal last year. So you’re going to see a lot of three by one open sets, They get in some 20 personnel with two backs. That’s kind of what they like to run.”

Coastal defense

The Chanticleers can present multiple looks defensively.

“They’ve got a new defensive coordinator, Jeremiah Johnson,” Harrell said. “I’ve known Jeremiah for a long time. He’s base quarters guy, but he’s kind of shifted a little bit to more of a three high safety kind of like ODU, more of a Okie front, two fives, three down front. We’ll see some quarters, some trap coverage on the boundary, They’ll use that middle safety kind of come downhill and fit a lot.

“On third down, you’ll see a little bit of four down defense from him.

“Defensively. I think the guy that stands out to me is their defensive end, Zeke Campbell. He’s from Marietta, Georgia. He actually started his career at Lenoir-Rhyne. He was at Louisiana Tech with Coach Johnson last year and came to Coastal.”

Internal focus

The Pirates will formulate a game plan specific to the Chants, but the primary focus will be within the team.

“We’re certainly going to focus on our opponent this week and certainly going to get prepared for them and what they do offensively,” Harrell said. “There’ll be some carryover, a little bit defensively. It’ll be a lot of new things.

“I think Coach (John David) Baker (ECU offensive coordinator) could spend a lot of time on this. You spend time in the summer on your first few opponents.

“You probably spent more time on this defense just because it’s a little bit out of the ordinary, much like offensively if you’re facing an Army.

“Army’s offense is a little bit out of the ordinary. So he spent more probably on this game than some others.

“The real focus is on us and how we go about our preparation, how we do things. We talk to our players all the time. It’s not what we do but how we do it.

“We’ve got to make sure we attack with the same mindset we did last week and the same mindset to get better every single day and see how much we can improve this week.”