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BAILEY'S
TAKE ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the
Anchor Desk
Tuesday,
September 13, 2011
By Brian
Bailey |
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Ruff anxious to get past off week
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BRAIN BAILEY SHOW |
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Monday night's BRIAN BAILEY SHOW,
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East
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Marshall
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By
Brian Bailey
©2011 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
At East Carolina, there
are no moral victories. Perhaps we can call Saturday’s effort against
11th-ranked Virginia Tech “moral encouragement.”
For the second straight
Saturday, the Pirates faced a team ranked 12th or higher in the national
polls. For the second straight week, this East Carolina team didn’t
flinch, and had chances to win both games.
Virginia Tech scored a
touchdown in the fourth quarter to clinch a
hard fought, 17-10 victory over
ECU on Saturday in a game that was eerily similar to the Hokies last win
in Greenville. The Hokies beat ECU 16-3 on that Thursday night in 2009.
Credit the Pirate defense
for hanging tough all day long against Tech. The “D” gave ECU a chance
to win, something that couldn’t be said last year.
It’s the Pirate offense
that has struggled out of the chute in 2011. The back-to-back-to-back
turnovers in the third quarter of
the South Carolina game were the
difference in that game.
This week, the Pirates
were sacked five times and almost set a school record with minus 15
yards rushing.
East Carolina has had
trouble running the football before. With a very young offensive line
and a brand new running back corps, some of those struggles were
expected.
Credit the Tech defense as
well. Tech harassed Pirate quarterback Dominique Davis on just about
every throw.
Virginia Tech’s Frank
Beamer won his 200th game at the school with the win over East Carolina.
Beamer was most complimentary of the ECU program.
“East Carolina played
great,” said Beamer. “Coach McNeill had his team ready to go and I
thought they really took it to us.”
East Carolina head coach
Ruffin McNeill now has an off week to try and correct some of the flaws
from games one and two.
“We’ve got some things to
address,” said McNeill. “I wish it (the off week) came later because I
want to get back to practice and play another game soon.”
The Pirates take this
Saturday off and then open conference play against UAB the next week.
After that, North Carolina pays a visit to open October.
It was interesting to me
to hear Beamer before the East Carolina game at his news conference.
“You want to hear about a
big win,” Beamer told his area media. “I’ll tell you about a big win.
Last year we had lost two games in a row and a good East Carolina team
came here (Blacksburg, VA). We came back and were able to get that win
and then our guys won the rest of them. That was a big win.”
Now, that’s the Pirates'
challenge. I’m not predicting that ECU will run the table, but nothing I
have seen so far tells me that this team won’t have a chance to win
every game remaining on the schedule.
In December, odds are that
Virginia Tech will be playing for the Atlantic Coast Conference title
and South Carolina will be playing for the SEC championship. The
Gamecocks took a huge step toward a second straight appearance in that
game with this past weekend’s victory over Georgia.
There are no moral
victories, and the Pirates are 0-2.
One thing is for sure.
Back to back wins now over UAB and UNC-Chapel Hill would go a long way
in making everyone forget these losses to South Carolina and Virginia
Tech.
BB
E-mail Brian Bailey.
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10/04/2011 01:33 AM |
