AAC Bowl Scoreboard Miami Beach Bowl Marlins Park Miami, FL Dec. 22 • 2 p.m. • ESPN Memphis 55, BYU 48 (2OT) Attendance: 20,761 Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl Tropicana Field St. Petersburg, FL Dec. 26 • 8 p.m. • ESPN N.C. State 34, Central Florida 27 Attendance: 26,675 Northrop Grumman Military Bowl Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium Annapolis, MD Dec. 27 • 1 p.m. • ESPN Virginia Tech 33, Cincinnati 17 Attendance: 34,277 Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl Amon G. Carter Stadium Fort Worth, TX Jan. 2 • Noon • ESPN Houston 35, Pittsburgh 34 Attendance: 37,888 Birmingham Bowl Legion Field Birmingham, AL Jan. 3 • Noon • ESPN Florida 28, East Carolina 20 Attendance: 30,083

FOOTBALL Past results don't predict the future If I had told you in August that East Carolina would shake up the regional power structure with September victories over North Carolina and Virginia Tech, would you have accused me of wearing purple-tinted glasses?. ... More from Greg Vacek...

FOOTBALL Late bowl date has pros and cons By the time the East Carolina football team charges out of the tunnel onto historic Legion Field for its Birmingham Bowl game against Florida on Saturday, all but two of the 39 games on the postseason schedule will have already been completed.  ... More from Brett Friedlander...

BASKETBALL Tulane takes AAC opener at ECU GREENVILLE — Tulane's Jonathan Stark hit four of five attempts from beyond the arc as the Green Wave took a 67-59 American Athletic Conference win over East Carolina at Williams Arena in Minges Coliseum on Wednesday afternoon. Stark scored 22 points and Louis Dabney added 19 for Tulane (10-3, 1-0 AAC). ... More... Next: ECU at USF | Sat., 7 pm | TV: ESPN3

FOOTBALL Pirates busy to start off bowl week The East Carolina Pirates arrived in Birmingham on Monday to kick off bowl week in this Alabama city. ECU will face Florida from the SEC on Saturday. The Pirates go into the game as a touchdown underdog. ... More from Brian Bailey...

FOOTBALL Pirates check out Tuscaloosa today East Carolina's football team travels today in advance of the Birmingham Bowl on Saturday against Florida. Classes are out so the Pirates' focus narrows to bowl-related matters. ... More from Al Myatt...

BASKETBALL Whisnant leads Pirates past UNCG GREENVILLE — East Carolina built an early lead and defeated UNC-Greensboro 71-50 in Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on Sunday afternoon. Terry Whisnant scored 14 of his 17 points in the first half as the Pirates led 45-26 at intermission. ... More...

FOOTBALL RECRUITING New verbal commitment: Charlotte Olympic DE Emmanuel Olenga ... Thumbnail sketch... ECU's recruiting class of 2015...

FOOTBALL RECRUITING Pirates reach back for the future East Carolina has landed one of North Carolina's top college prospects, albeit a 2012 model. The Pirates went back in the stacks to snare James Summers, who quarterbacked Greensboro's Page High School to the state 4-AA title in 2011 as a senior. ... More from Sammy Batten... Thumbnails: ECU's recruiting class of 2015...

BASKETBALL ECU gets untracked, downs Rattlers GREENVILLE — After trailing winless Florida A&M 29-27 at the half, East Carolina outscored the Rattlers 48-28 after intermission for a 75-57 nonconference win at Williams Arena in Minges Coliseum on Monday night. ECU was led by Caleb White with 19 points as the Pirates improved to 6-6. Michel-Ofik Nzege added 14 points and a team-high six rebounds. ... More...

By Brett Friedlander
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By the time the East Carolina football team charges out of the tunnel onto historic Legion Field for its Birmingham Bowl game against Florida on Saturday, all but two of the 39 games on the postseason schedule will have already been completed.

So what does a college football player do for that seemingly endless month while waiting for his turn to play?

Watch football, of course.

“I’ll be watching bowl games the whole time,” senior linebacker Brandon Williams said before leaving with the Pirates for Alabama. “I mean, our game isn’t until Jan. 3, so we’ve got a long way to go.”

The latest bowl date in school history comes with its share of both pros and cons for the Pirates.

For Williams and his teammates, the 30-day break between games does offer a chance to get healthy and build up a hunger to play again. But it’s also a long time to just sit around stewing about that heartbreaking Senior Night loss to Central Florida and letting the competitive edge get dull.

While we won’t know until Saturday whether the long layoff will have a positive or negative effect on the Pirates’ play, it’s already been a major boost for a coaching staff that — after some brief flirtation with other jobs by offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley — remains intact for at least another season.

Unlike in-state rival N.C. State, which only got in 11 extra postseason practices before its Dec. 26 Bitcoin Bowl game with UCF in St. Petersburg because of final exams and the early date, ECU got its full complement of 15.

Those extra four workouts might not seem like a lot. But considering the extra reps they provided for backups and redshirts who will be thrust into more prominent roles next season because of graduation and attrition, it’s almost like getting a second spring practice.

And as coach Ruffin McNeill will attest, a team can never get too much practice.

“It’s fantastic having a late bowl. I was excited when I found out when we’d be playing,” said McNeill, who unlike his players, was too busy studying tape on Florida to waste time watching others play their bowls.

“During the summer we plan fall, we plan bowl experiences and from our conference we know which ones we have a chance to be in. We don’t know the exact dates, but we plan practices for each day and we use them all.”

As beneficial as the break has been for the Pirates, it hasn’t been without its downside.

Just last week, two key members of ECU’s defense — All-American Athletic Conference nose tackle Terry Williams and starting free safety Domonique Lennon — were declared ineligible, presumably for academics, and didn’t make the trip to Birmingham. Had the game been played earlier in the bowl schedule, before grades were posted, they probably would have been able to play.

The Pirates will also have to face the Gators without leading ground gainer Breon Allen, whose season and college career ended with a freak knee injury in practice on Wednesday that would have sidelined him regardless the game’s timing.

If there’s any consolation to the key personnel losses, its that ECU isn’t alone in its misfortune. On Wednesday, shortly after Allen was carted off the practice field by trainers, Florida’s interim coach D.J. Durkin announced that disruptive defensive tackle Darius Cummings and return specialist Andre Dubose had been left home in Gainesville for varying off-the-field reasons.

The Gators that did make the trip will have to deal with the distraction of playing for a lame duck coaching staff — a situation that didn’t work out well for either Nebraska or Colorado State this bowl season — against an opponent they might not know or respect — as evidenced by the shirts they were issued on which the Pirates were identified as being from Eastern Carolina.

How motivated they will be to play, especially after being idle for nearly a month, is an even bigger question than with ECU.

The only real certainty is that with no other college games on the schedule Saturday, a lot of people will be watching. Because as Brandon Williams suggested, there’s one thing college football players love to do during bowl season when they’re not playing in a bowl of their own.

And that’s watching football, of course.