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Game No. 5: Houston 56, ECU 3 |
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Game
Slants
Saturday, October 8, 2011
By Denny O'Brien |
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Humbled in Houston
By
Denny O'Brien
©2011 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
HOUSTON — It’s been a long
time since East Carolina opened a football season in a deep 1-4 hole.
Make it seven years, to be
exact.
That was the 2004 season,
among the darkest periods in the Pirates’ football history.
John Thompson was in the final
year of his two-year tenure — the coaching equivalent of a dead man walking.
The many fans who
enthusiastically embraced Thompson early on had long since detached
themselves emotionally. East Carolina football was suffering from declining
interest, little hope, and in desperate need of something to resuscitate a
program that had fallen into a competitive coma.
While Pirate Nation is nowhere
remotely close to that mental makeup today, Saturday night’s 56-3 loss to
Houston has put ECU squarely in the middle of can’t-lose territory. Almost
anything less than a convincing win at Memphis will make the Pirates’ fan
base even more restless.
Against the undefeated
Cougars, the Pirates seemingly took a giant step back, an embarrassing one
that was a painful reminder of the days many thought ECU had left behind.
Houston thoroughly took the Pirates apart in every possible fashion on an
evening as demoralizing as the final score would suggest.
The Cougars gouged the ECU
defense both on the ground and through the air en route to a 572-yard
performance that could have topped 700 had head coach Kevin Sumlin not
released the accelerator. The Pirates’ defense was more than accommodating
by reverting back to the many defensive shortcomings they demonstrated
during the latter half of 2010.
It was a discouraging display
of missed tackles and poor coverage. On the rare occasion when the Pirates
made a big defensive play, Houston seemed to respond with a first down.
Offensively, East Carolina
didn’t remotely resemble the outfit that scored 51 in head coach Ruffin
McNeill’s debut, and Dominique Davis is not even close to the same
quarterback he was then. After throwing three interceptions and completing
only 13 passes, the Pirates’ mainstay at the position was pulled for backup
Rio Johnson.
It was the first time in his
ECU career that Davis was benched due to performance.
The ECU offense that has been
plagued by inconsistency this season never found any rhythm against the
Cougars. The one drive during which the Pirates seemed to click was cut
short by a late hit by freshman receiver Danny Webster.
The rest of ECU’s possessions
were the equivalent of a clinic on rushing the passer. The Cougars, who
entered the game 93rd nationally in defense, registered nine sacks on the
night.
“This was on me,” McNeill
said. “Like I told the kids and promised the kids, I take all the mistakes,
and I can handle it. We got beat by a better team tonight. This one was on
me.
"It’s a tough time for us
right now being 1-4. It’s probably the worst we’ve played as a football team
this year.”
Despite the Pirates’
discouraging performance, it’s much too soon to suggest the East Carolina
program is in the midst of a nosedive. Given the difficult schedule, along
with the schematic transition on defense, some of the Pirates’ stumbles can
be understood.
At the same time, it’s also
difficult to overlook that East Carolina is riding an 11-game stretch during
which it has won only twice. Both of those victories occurred at the expense
of Alabama-Birmingham in nail-biting fashion.
It’s not time to write off the
rest of 2011 or abandon ship on McNeill or his young staff. More than half
the season remains, and the Pirates still control their own destiny in
Conference USA.
But McNeill and his team
clearly can’t afford many more games like the blowout they suffered on
Saturday.
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10/09/2011 04:39:53 AM |
