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Bailey's
Take on the Pirates
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From the Anchor Desk
Tuesday, October 23, 2001
By Brian Bailey
Sports Anchor of WNCT-TV 9 |
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That,
Pirate Fans, Was a Total Victory
�2001 Bonesville.net
This is what we had all hoped to see,
beginning with the Wake Forest game. Sometimes, though, things take longer
than any of us would like.
Finally, this East Carolina football
team came through with a 'total' victory, dominating Memphis in every
phase of the game.
On offense, both the running game and
the passing game clicked.
Perhaps the addition of the freshmen
wide receivers into the line-up is pushing some of the older players to
play better. Whatever it was, there were few if any drops, elevating David
Garrard�s stats for the game.
Leonard Henry had yet another bruising
performance. With 4th and one and the game on the line, there is only one
guy that I want to carry the pigskin. Henry made every Tiger tackler pay a
high price for his effort.
I haven�t seen anybody in college
football this year that runs with Henry's type of mentality. He may get
tackled, but it�s going to hurt you a lot more then it�s going to hurt
him!
The Pirate defense also played with an
attitude against the Tigers.
Prior to the game, I asked several of
the players on that side of the football about the struggles they have had
this season � guys like Ty Hunt and Pernell Griffin, who were heavily
recruited coming out of high school.
With all of the great athletes on this
team, I wondered why the defense was being pushed around like it was.
Both Hunt and Griffin hinted that things
were going to change. That change came against the Tigers.
Instead of racking up tackles five and
six yards past the line of scrimmage, the Pirate defense was doing the
pushing. Memphis was thoroughly frustrated the entire game.
There were other factors, too � Kelly
Hardy�s return from injury made the kind of difference that Pirate head
coach Steve Logan fully expected.
�There is a reason why we have a first
team and a second team,� explained Logan. �He is a great player back
there. We want to develop depth all over the field and we want people to
step up. But again, there is a reason for a first team and a a second
team.�
Pirates
Gear Up for Odd Week
You will need a TV Guide to keep up with
the Pirates for the rest of the season, thanks to ESPN's envelope-pushing
contract with Conference USA.
First, it�s a Tuesday night in Fort
Worth. Later on, we�ll spend the Thursday night before Thanksgiving and
the Friday night after the holiday gathered at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
Logan prefers Saturdays, but he has come
to the conclusion that his players view the intense exposure of the
weeknight games as a major plus.
�I think the schedule effects the fans
and the coaches more then it does the players,� said Coach Logan. �I call
this the SportsCenter age. These guys just want to be on ESPN, so they�ll
play anywhere and anytime.�
The first in the Tuesday night
experiments featured Louisville and Southern Miss. On that night the C-USA
game was the only game in town.
This time, though, the Pirates and the
Horned Frogs will be going against the World Series.
Still, for football fans this will still
be the only game in town. The ESPN2 audience will get a look at one of the
unbeatens in the league against an up and down TCU team.
Pirate
Schedule Borders on the Wacky
Logan says his team will have a very
different practice schedule in getting set for the TCU game a week from
Tuesday.
The Pirates took days off on Sunday and
Monday. When they return to the grind today, they will work only in
shells. The major practice days for the TCU game will be Friday, Saturday
and Sunday.
�The days of a 1:00 kickoff in college
football are over,� Logan said at his weekly news conference. �Television
dictates the schedule, we just play when they tell us to.�
The Pirates will miss three days of
school for the TCU game. The team will hold a light practice before
traveling on Monday to Fort Worth, Texas.
Tuesday is game day, with the Pirates returning about 3:30AM on Wednesday.
The players will be excused from class
on all three days, but the schoolwork still has to be made up. A couple of
the players that I talked to say they will take some reading material with
them, to try and keep pace.
It�s just too bad that this game didn�t
coincide with the Pirates' recent Fall break. That would have certainly
made for a better situation on the academic side.
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Brian Bailey.
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archives.
02/23/2007 01:19:41 AM
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