American Football
Schedule |
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FRIDAY |
Memphis 16, Temple 13 (ESPNU) |
SATURDAY |
SMU at Tulsa, 12 pm (CBSSN)
UConn vs. Army*, 3:30 pm (CBSSN)
*Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY
Tulane at Houston, 3:30 pm (ESPNU) |
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FOOTBALL |
Pirates regroup from Philly
fumbles |
The 24-hour rule that serves
as a buffer between games
expired Sunday after East
Carolina's 20-10 loss at
Temple on Saturday. The span
increased to 48 hours and
then 72 hours before the
Pirates finally got back on
the practice field Wednesday. ...
More from Al Myatt... |
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FOOTBALL SPECIAL
FEATURE |
15 Questions
for Terry Whisnant |
Akeem
Richmond may be gone but
Terry Whisnant is set to
continue East Carolina's
outside shooting prowess.
Whisnant transferred from
Florida State after
averaging 2.1 points and 7.7
minutes for a Seminoles team
that won the Atlantic Coast
Conference Tournament his
freshman year. His numbers
at FSU improved to 5.2
points and 17.2 minutes as a
sophomore when he made 35.6
percent of his 3-point
tries. ...
More from W.A.
Myatt... |
Pictured: ECU junior
Terry Whisnant is
ready for action
after sitting out a
year under NCAA
transfer rules. The
Cherryville native
played his freshman
and sophomore
seasons at Florida
State. His skill at
shooting from long
range is expected to
be a key asset for
the Pirates as they
make their debut in
the American
Athletic Conference.
(ECU Media Relations
photo) |
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Owls become Temple of Doom |
PHILADELPHIA — The statistics
told a convoluted tale after 60
minutes of college football at
Lincoln Financial Field, home of
the Philadelphia Eagles, on
Saturday. When East Carolina
outgains an opponent 432 to 135
in total yardage, the assumption
would be that the Pirates won
handily. ...
More from Al Myatt... |
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CHILLY
PHILLY: Fans
were sparse
on Saturday
at the East
Carolina-Temple
game in
dreary
Philadelphia.
Road games
before
meager
crowds have
typically
created a
difficult
environment
for the
Pirates to
perform
well, a
scenario
that was
punctuated
as the Owls
took
advantage of
penalties
and
weather-assisted
turnovers to
deal ECU its
first
American
Athletic
Conference
loss in
the cold,
rainy
conditions
at Lincoln
Financial
Field. The
announced
attendance
at the
69,176-seat
home of the
NFL's Eagles
was 22,130.
[Al Myatt
photo] |
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Audio: Ruff Post-game |
ECU
coach Ruffin McNeill spoke
with the press after the
Pirates' upset loss to
Temple on Saturday (recorded
by Al Myatt; file photo):
Select audio clip... |
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FOOTBALL |
Kevin's Keys to the Game |
East Carolina
will face off against the
4-3 Temple Owls in
Philadelphia today. It will
mark the first time the
Pirates meet an American
Athletic Conference team
with a winning record and it
will also be their toughest
league test to date.
...
More from Kevin Monroe... |
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FOOTBALL |
'Body of work' will matter
at the end |
There is a reason the FCS
football playoff and NCAA
basketball tournament
committees do not publish
weekly polls. College
Football Playoff organizers
state the early rankings are
to “condition the public”
prior to the final Dec 7
rankings. ...
More from Greg Vacek... |
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By
Brett Friedlander
©2014 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
View ECU's
2014 football schedule
VIEW MOBILE VERSION OF THIS PAGE
One game does not a season make, or so the saying goes.
And in the strictest sense of the word, East Carolina’s season didn’t
actually end as a result of last Saturday’s stunning,
self-inflicted 20-10 loss at Temple.
As coach Ruffin McNeill and his players will point out ad
nauseum between now and the time they travel to Cincinnati to play the
Bearcats next Thursday night, there are still goals to accomplish and a
potential American Athletic Conference championship to chase.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the Pirates may
never have suffered a more damaging defeat or wasted a greater
opportunity than the one they fumbled away in the cold and rain of
Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field.
The first tangible sign of that came less than 24 hours
after the final whistle when ECU fell out of both major national polls.
The second came a day later when quarterback Shane Carden, fresh off a
pedestrian 24 of 41, 217-yard performance, failed to make the list of
semifinalists for the Maxwell Award – symbolic of the nation’s best
college player.
And the fallout has only just begun.
As disheartening as Saturday’s loss might be now, the
full effect of the damage it caused won’t fully be realized until late
December and early January. That’s when the Pirates, even if they win
out through the end of the regular season, will be playing against a
.500 ACC team in a second-tier bowl in a half-empty stadium while former
Conference USA rival Marshall and its star quarterback Rakeem Cato
capture the nation’s attention against an SEC team in the Peach, Cotton
or Fiesta.
Think that’s not a big deal?
Ask Central Florida and Blake Bortles what last year’s
Fiesta Bowl win against Baylor did for them.
Opportunities such as this, the kind that ECU and its
fans have dreamed about forever, are worth far more than the million
dollar payouts the so-called “Access Bowls” offer and they don’t come
along often. Considering the makeup of the Pirates’ roster, with seniors
at virtually every important position, there’s no telling when – if ever
– they’ll get another realistic shot at being the nation’s
highest-ranked non-Power Five team.
So what went wrong?
You can blame it on the weather, a fractured schedule
that may have helped throw ECU off its rhythm, complacency or just plain
bad luck. They may all have been contributing factors.
The one thing that is not in dispute is that the Pirates
have no one but themselves to blame for a loss that in retrospect, was
only a matter of time in coming.
Despite going 3-0 to start their AAC schedule, they
haven’t been the same team since
their emotional 70-41 thrashing of rival North
Carolina all the way back on Sept. 20.
First they let a dreadful Southern Methodist team stick
around for three quarters before
finally putting the Mustangs away
with an uninspired effort. A week later, they fell behind South Florida
17-7 before Carden rallied his team for three unanswered touchdowns in
the second half
to win going away.
Then after a second bye in four weeks, the Pirates had to
score twice in the fourth quarter
to again narrowly escape an upset
– this time against a UConn team whose only win to that point was a
three-point squeaker against Stony Brook.
Saturday, ECU’s luck finally ran out despite outgaining
its opponent whopping 428-135 margin.
Afterwards, McNeill and his players said all the right
things when asked to put the damaging loss into perspective – spinning
it as only a temporary setback in the context of a long season.
But you know what they say about actions speaking louder
than words.
From the way the players were hitting each other at
practice on Wednesday, the Pirates’ first workout since returning from
their
Temple of Doom, the enormity of
the opportunity they’ve wasted may finally have begun to sink in.
“I don’t feel like we were ourselves for the past couple
of weeks,” wide receiver Isaiah Jones said. “We almost got in this
complacent setting where everything was just going right. The mindset
wasn’t there and that loss really humbled us. That’s what a loss does to
you sometimes.
"We’re back. We’re that
team that has that chip on their shoulder again. Our backs are kind of
up against the wall right now. Everything that we want to accomplish is
ahead of us.”
And yet, even if they do
go on to run the table, post double-digit victories for the second
straight year and raise a championship banner in their AAC debut, the
Pirates may still look back at this 2014 season with regret for all the
things they could have accomplished and didn’t.