East Carolina has won its last four football games with Temple to take a 12-9 lead in the all-time series. Before that, the Owls had won six in a row.

The teams played 11 times on a nonconference basis from 1982 to 1995 with the Pirates going 7-4 during that span.

The series resumed in 2014 within the framework of the American Conference.

East Carolina went into the 2014 matchup at Lincoln Financial Field with a 6-1 overall record and a 3-0 mark in the American. The Pirates were ranked No. 21 nationally. There was talk of a bowl on New Year’s Day. Temple was 4-3, 2-2.

What ensued from an ECU standpoint was an outcome as gloomy as the weather. It was rainy. There was a 15 mile per hour breeze and the temperature was 46 degrees. The Pirates had not brought any supplemental gear for the blustery conditions.

It had been 61 degrees the previous week for a 31-21 Thursday night win over Connecticut in Greenville.

Out of their element, the Pirates lost five fumbles and were topped, 20-10, despite having a 428-135 lead in total yards. That was the first of six consecutive wins in the series for Temple.

The weather looks a lot better for this Saturday as the Pirates visit Temple for a 2 p.m. kickoff at the same site as 2014.

Partly sunny skies are in the forecast with a high of 56 as the Pirates play their first daylight game of the season.

Month of Thursdays

The Pirates are 4-3 overall this season with a 2-1 ledger in the American. ECU hasn’t played since a 41-27 win over Tulsa in a Thursday night game on Oct. 16 at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. It was the third straight Thursday night game for the Pirates.

“I can’t remember a season where you go the whole month of October and not have a Saturday game,” said ECU coach Blake Harrell on Monday. “This is the first normal week. When I say normal week, Monday is truly a Monday practice. Wednesday is truly a Wednesday practice.

“You travel on Friday, and you play a game on Saturday. I think it’s the first time we’ve had that since September 20, so it’s been a while.

“It’s the first time we finally have a day game all season. We’ve had up to this point all seven games have been at night and this will be our first day contest of the year. So, excited about that. We’ve had three Thursday games in a row. … The last one, the Night of the Boneyard, just going back to Tulsa, I thought the offense performed really, really well.”

Deflating the Golden Hurricane

ECU had 568 yards of total offense against Tulsa.

“It was about this time last year we saw the offense really go to work,” Harrell said. “268 rushing yards, led by London Montgomery. It’s nice to see him get going, pop the long one in there (51 yards).  We certainly knew he had that in him.

“Katin (Houser) 300 yards passing. Anthony (Smith) had a couple of touchdowns … stretched the field. Nick Mazzie (kicker) was Special Teams Player of the Week (American Conference). …

“Mike Wright, you saw him in several different spots out there offensively — receiver, running back, quarterback — and then defensively got him on the field as well. He’s starting to be a guy that we can truly depend on in several areas.

“Defensively, we probably didn’t perform to our standard or the standard we set here earlier in the season, but I thought overall they did the things we needed to do to win a ball game. They continued to push the pocket around, make some tackles for loss. We had 10 tackles for loss and five sacks.

“Preston Carr and Rion Roseborough leading that group up front.”

Way back when

The Pirates didn’t play on two consecutive Saturdays.

“Seems like forever ago since the Tulsa game,” Harrell said. “I think we’ve got 16 days between the Tulsa game and the Temple game. So during the bye week, we just spent some time on making sure we reset, recovered, refreshed.

“Kind of get back to being healthy and those type of things. Not only physically, but just kind of mentally reset, too. Took some time away. We practiced last Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Took some time off this past weekend and then got back today.”

Advantage for Pirates

ECU has had some extra time to prepare for Temple, which traveled to Tulsa for a 38-37 overtime win on Saturday that put the Owls at 5-3 overall and 3-1 in the American.

“I think the advantage you have in a bye week is you can work ahead of your opponent,” Harrell said. “You’re really focused on your next opponent. In this case, Temple was really focused on their opponent, Tulsa. So, their first day of work is yesterday or today of looking at us and we’ve had a whole week to look at them. That plays a big advantage for us.”

Looking at the Owls

Temple was 3-9 a year and 2-6 in the American. Coach K.C. Keeler is in his first season with the Owls.

“Temple is a very good football team,” Harrell said. “They’re 5-3 right now.  I believe they could easily be  6-2. They had a chance to beat Navy, undefeated Navy.

“Navy scored at the end of the game. If they probably just put the ball in the middle of the field and kick a field goal, they’d probably win that football game and are sitting here already bowl eligible at the top of our conference.

“Offensively, they’re averaging 33 points a game, about 175 (yards) on the ground, about 216 in the air. The most impressive thing is their turnover margin this season. They’ve only turned the ball over one time all season.

“The quarterback (Evan Simon) has zero interceptions, and they’ve only had one fumble.”

Time for baseball

Harrell had a little more free time with the bye week.

“I watched a lot of October baseball,” said the Pirates coach. “It was pretty good to see Trey Yesavage and (Jeff) Hoffman and (Toronto) really dealing and get into the World Series.”