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BAILEY'S
TAKE ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the
Anchor Desk
Tuesday,
December 7, 2010
By Brian
Bailey |
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Ruff relishes
Christmas with the Pirates
By
Brian Bailey
©2010 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
Ruffin McNeill will get to
spend his first Christmas as East Carolina's head football coach with
his entire program family on the holiday.
The Pirates will hit the
road to Washington, DC, early on Christmas Eve and spend the holiday in
our nation’s capital.
“I’ve had a chance to do
it before,” said Coach Ruff. “It’s a lot of fun and I think the players
enjoy it. I’m really looking forward to doing it as a head coach,
though.”
Over the weekend the
opponent in the Military Bowl was named. Maryland, though not exactly
thrilled about it, will take on East Carolina in the December 29thth
bowl.
The Terrapins had hoped
for a better option in the bowl process, especially after beating North
Carolina State in the last week of the regular season.
That call didn’t come, and
the Terps slid down to Washington, DC.
The Military Bowl was
absolutely thrilled. They’ve got a matchup that should sell plenty of
tickets, especially if the Maryland crowd buys in despite not moving up
in the Atlantic Coast Conference bowl pecking order.
The Pirates will get back
to work this week with a couple of practices. McNeill says he hopes to
have the game plan in and ready to go before the teams leaves on
Christmas Eve.
“We will start
concentrating on Maryland on December 12th when we practice that day,”
said McNeill. “We will put that game plan in and wrap up practice on the
18th. We’ll let the players go after that and they’ll report back to
Coach (Mike) Golden late on the 23rd.”
McNeill says he doesn’t
really worry about keeping the timing of the offense on track. McNeill
says it’s all a balance of getting a certain amount of work in.
“We have old guy and young
guy practices,” he said. “We really just want some of the old guys, like
Dwayne (Harris) and Josh (Smith) to get totally healthy. They need some
work, but they need to heal up.”
Maryland opened as a 7½
point favorite in the game. That’s a pretty good number in ECU’s favor,
especially with the problems the Pirates have had on defense.
As for Ruffin McNeill and
the month of December, you get the feeling that he enjoys Christmas and
will certainly love having his entire program with him this year to
celebrate the holiday.
This weekend, he’s hosting
a big party for his staff and their families. You could hear the
excitement in his voice.
“We’re having all of the
coaches and their wives and kids this weekend,” said McNeill. “Those
kids will be running all over the place. I can’t wait!”
Santa Claus comes in all
shapes and sizes.
I think Christmas came
early for Ruffin McNeill when he got the job at East Carolina. He’s been
doling out presents ever since.
BB
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