Marc Yellock has been through a multitude of East Carolina football game weeks as a player and staff member. The Roxboro native wore the purple and gold as a four-year letterwinner from 1996 to 2000.

He was a staff assistant for former ECU coaches John Thompson and Skip Holtz. Yellock currently serves his alma mater as defensive ends coach.

The 32-year old Yellock has been through his share of countdowns to kickoffs but Sunday's 2 p.m. season opener at home against Tulsa is special in many ways. This will be the first game for Ruffin McNeill as head coach and a virtually new staff. The Pirates are coming off their second straight Conference USA championship and the league matchup with the Golden Hurricane represents the first step in another title defense. Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium has been expanded by 7,000 seats with the enclosure of the East end of the stadium.

The contest will be on national television (ESPN2) on a day normally reserved for NFL games. ECU is adjusting to the loss of 29 players from the 2009 team.

"It's kind of like a collaboration of things that normally don't happen in a year," Yellock said between meetings on Wednesday. "It's one of those exciting jobs where guys have got to go out there and perform and do well."

Some things haven't changed

While Sunday will mark many firsts for the Pirates, there are aspects of the program that remain constant.

"The thing I take pride in is how a group of guys come together and just play hard," said Yellock, who spent the last four seasons as an assistant at Elon, helping that program to its first appearance in the NCAA Division I FCS playoffs last year.

Yellock appreciates the comradery he had with his ECU teammates and he still stays in touch with many of them. Pirate fans make the program special, too.

"I talk to some people and they still talk about certain things and remember me from then and that was, gosh, 10 years ago," Yellock said. "That's pretty cool."

Remembering the Red Raiders

Yellock's last game as a Pirate was the Gallery Furniture Bowl at the Astrodome in 2000 against, ironically, Texas Tech, which has produced much of the staff and philosophies that guide the ECU program at present. McNeill took over as interim head coach of the Red Raiders for a win over Michigan State in the Alamo Bowl to punctuate the 2009 season and was soon on his way to Greenville to direct the Pirates. He brought much of the former Texas Tech staff with him.

ECU topped the Red Raiders, 40-27, to cap the 2000 season, a victory that Yellock said was in large part attributable to a 28-14 loss to Texas Christian in the Mobile Bowl the preceding year.

"The Mobile Bowl was the first bowl game we had been to since the Liberty Bowl in 1995," Yellock recalled. "We'd had the chance to go to a bowl game. Now we wanted to win it. ... As soon as we got off the plane, we got in the hotel and then they took us over to the practice fields at Houston and we started running — straight off the bus. It was almost like boot camp, like preseason all over again. We were practicing hard.

"Texas Tech was a good opponent but we were more thinking about how different it was from the last bowl game. We worked our tails off during that week. We played the game and it became easy."

The Pirates led 34-0 in that bowl victory before Texas Tech got on the scoreboard.

"I think Clay McGuire (current ECU running backs coach) was redshirted," Yellock said of the encounter in the Astrodome. "I'm a little bit older than some of these guys. Coach Ruff was coaching (Texas Tech linebackers). I don't think he had made the connection until recently."

Yellock hasn't been overly assertive about his bragging rights.

"I try to use it as a little ace in the hole so when they start talking Texas Tech this and Texas Tech that," Yellock said. "I can always go to the Murphy Center and just point at the score."

Super experience with Saints

Yellock had a memorable opportunity in the summer of 2009 as he went through an internship with the New Orleans Saints, working with the defensive line and special teams of the eventual Super Bowl champions.

"You see on TV with the Hard Knocks on HBO about how camp really is," he said. "The camp itself is really no different from the camps we have here in college to be honest. The only thing different is the speed of the game is a whole lot faster. The practice is about the same as far as time. They have two-a-days just like we have two-a-days. It's just the fact that those guys are fighting for jobs. It's a little bit more serious because people are trying to make a team.

"You don't hear a lot of coaches talking about effort because if you don't give effort, they just get rid of you and bring somebody else in. It was a good experience for me because it allowed me to kind of home in on some of the coaching aspects of it. I truly got some tips. The people over there were really nice. They allowed me to kind of view a lot of things. (Saints) Coach (Sean) Payton, he's a great guy."

Yellock also learned from Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and special teams coach Greg McMahon, an assistant at ECU in 2005.

"All of those guys opened up their doors to me and allowed me to look at certain things — look at their scheme, look at their techniques and everything else," Yellock said. "It was really special. It was even more special to see them make it to the Super Bowl. They're a very organized team."

Coaching comparison

Yellock has had a relationship as a player or staff member with the Pirates' last four football coaches, giving him an inside perspective into what made each one tick.

They shared a passion for winning, he said. Logan and Holtz were essentially offensive coaches. Thompson and McNeill were oriented to the defensive side.

"Regardless of the circumstances, they all had a good plan about winning," said Yellock, an outside linebacker in his playing days. "Coach Logan was really hands off on the defensive side of the ball. He really let Coach (Paul) Jett and Coach (Tim) Rose (former defensive coordinators) take care of that side of the ball. Coach Logan was very big on team comradery. So was Holtz."

Yellock remembers Logan reading excerpts from Pat Riley's book, The Winner Within, to inspire and motivate the players. Thompson had different challenges during a two-year span in which the program went 3-20.

"He had to kind of change the viewpoint on how to win and try to make something happen because in some cases the cupboard was kind of bare when he came in," Yellock said.

McNeill has inherited a better situation than existed in previous transitions in which Yellock was involved in terms of winning experience within the program. The Pirates made an unprecedented four consecutive bowl trips under Holtz, McNeill's predecessor.

"The talent is already here and we've got a few things going," Yellock said. "With Holtz and Thompson, they were coming off of losing mentalities. With Coach McNeill coming in, that part of it we don't have to worry about. Now we've just got to get the experience and get guys going in the right direction. These kids have worked their tails off."

Yellock said all of the Pirate coaches have been geared for emotional preparation.

"All of 'em are motivators," Yellock said. "I don't really see a difference although I don't know if Logan liked the media like compared to Holtz. I would say that would be the biggest difference."

Chemistry part of winning equation

Yellock graduated from ECU with a degree in chemistry. His recruiting responsibilities include a tier of North Carolina counties along the Virginia border and northward into the adjacent Commonwealth. His region includes his old high school, Person County. He'll be working ECU games on the sideline.

He can speak with a degree of authority regarding team chemistry based on his education and experience.

"One of the things we were pleased with as a staff coming in was how close our kids were," Yellock said. "These kids are really, really together. That's not necessarily offense together or defense together. I'm talking about across the board. You see offensive guys hanging around with defensive guys and vice-versa. The group is really tight.

"I think it's very important. You have to have a tight-knit group because of the game itself. You're going to face some adversity. You're going to face some ups and downs. You're going to face some big plays and you're going to make some big plays. If you don't have a tight-knit group or a group that's not believing in the scheme or even believing in the coaches and the coaches believing in the players and the players believing in the supporting cast — the trainers and the equipment staff — if you don't have that chemistry with the whole deal it's not going to equal anything. It's going to equal problems.

"It's going to lead to some friction and lead to some division. I've been a part of some situations where it was like that, unfortunately, and it gets away from the overall goal, which is trying to win a game.

"Chemistry is a very big part of what Coach McNeill is trying to do here. The key here is to get kids on board with what we're trying to implement and our kids are doing a great job with that. I think these kids are 100 percent on board with what we're trying to do. What we need to do now is get in a game and go from there. The overall goal we have is to win games."