GAINESVILLE, FL —
A wet ball after a day of rain proved to be a deciding factor Saturday
night.
East Carolina was driving
when quarterback Blake Kemp lost the handle in the closing seconds on a
2nd-and-10 at the Florida 13-yard line. Alex McCalister recovered for
the Gators to preserve a 31-24 win for the tenants at Ben Hill Griffin
Stadium.
Kemp had moved the Pirates
from their 30 on ECU's final possession.
He hit Bryce Williams for a
7-yard touchdown to complete a 66-yard drive and cut the lead to one
score with 3:04 to go.
The Pirate defense got a
three and out to set up the bizarre close. McCalister was tackled by a
teammate or he would likely have taken the recovery back for a TD.
"The ball was wet and it
just slipped out of my hands," said Kemp, who triggered the most
productive part of the Pirates offense. "My fault. I should have gripped
it better."
The circumstances were
similar to
a 28-20 loss to the Gators in the Birmingham
Bowl to complete the 2014 season – a late drive
punctuated by a turnover and a close but no cigar conclusion for ECU.
Kemp completed 34 of 54
passes for 333 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.
"We knew what they ran and
we had plays called for their coverages," said Kemp, a left-handed
junior who redshirted last year for the Pirates after transferring from
Mesa (AZ) Community College. " ... We expect to score more points than
we did."
Isaiah Jones caught 14
passes for 135 yards and a score. Williams had nine catches for 83
yards.
The Pirates didn't venture
into SEC country to lose but the team focus appeared to be turning to
the American Athletic Conference opener at Navy next Saturday pretty
shortly after the ESPN2 cameras were turned off.
"We've got a tough team,"
Kemp said. "We didn't quit until the last play, literally until there
were zero seconds on the clock. For that, I'm proud of the team but
other than that I'm disappointed. We should have won."
Kemp put the Gators (2-0)
on upset alert by connecting with Davon Grayson on a 31-yard touchdown
with 11:26 left in the first quarter for a 7-0 lead with Davis Plowman's
conversion kick.
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The Southeastern Conference
club had answers both times the Pirates led.
A 27-yard scoring pass from
Kemp to Jones after an interception by ECU's Bobby Fulp gave ECU a 14-10
lead with 10:43 left in the third quarter. The Gators, who missed
first-half field goals of 34 and 35 yards, went up 31-17 with a 39-yard
interception return by Jalen Tabor and a 7-yard run by Kelvin Taylor
that completed a 75-yard drive.
Plowman took over the
kicking duties that Connor Torruella performed for the Pirates last
week.
Plowman was good from 30
yards on his only field goal try.
A crowd of 88,034 came out
after the showers subsided.
"We practiced with the
noise all week so that wasn't a big deal for us," Kemp said.
ECU had to rely on the
passing of Kemp and James Summers, a juco transfer who joined the
Pirates in late August. Summers completed 3 of 4 passes for 13 yards.
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ECU backup QB James
Summers was ruled to have lost a fumble on this play
but video review overturned the call. (Al Myatt
photo) |
The Pirates ran aground in
the Swamp, hemmed up for minus-13 yards rushing.
ECU played to its strength,
the air attack.
"We had confidence we were
going to get the job done," Jones said. "We beat ourselves tonight.
There were critical times we didn't capitalize."
The circumstances are not
that different from
a 33-23 loss at South Carolina
the second game of the 2014 season. The Pirates regrouped and
won 28-21 at Virginia Tech
the following week.
"We're going to work on the
things we messed up on and take it in to next week and get better,"
Jones said. "We don't want to say we barely lost to Florida. That's not
our mentality, We expect to win."
Mike linebacker Zeek Bigger
had five solo stops and two assists to lead ECU in tackles with seven.
"We knew we were going to
fight when it was 31-17," Bigger said. "We still had our chances. ... It
was a great game. I give credit to us and Florida but it's over with
now. We've got to get ready for our next game."
The Pirates didn't look
like 20-point underdogs as defined by Las Vegas.
"Nip and tuck," said ECU
coach Ruffin McNeill. "That's the way it's going to be in the
conference, too."