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Pirate Notebook No. 29
Wednesday, November 28, 2001

By Denny O'Brien
Staff Writer and Columnist

Unlike East Carolina, life is pretty simple for Southern Miss these days. At 6-3, the Golden Eagles are all but assured of a holiday trip somewhere.

A win Thursday night over Alabama in Birmingham, and USM can pack its bags for Mobile. With a loss, the Golden Eagles could still get that Mobile bid with one game left — and if not, will most likely be paired against a Big 12 opponent in the Armoire Bowl in Houston.

That is, of course, if the following week, Southern Miss is able to hold off C-USA upstart Texas Christian — which handled a Louisville team that had obviously done its share of scoreboard watching the day after Thanksgiving.

Accordingly, the 5-5 Horned Frogs have suddenly become attractive to the furniture folks in Houston. Yep, that same TCU team that laid an egg at home against I-AA Northwestern State is suddenly post-season worthy.

What's more, two losses by Southern Miss, coupled with a win by UAB over Pittsburgh on Saturday, and the Blazers, at 7-4, could find themselves rolling strikes for the first time ever.

In that event, the Golden Eagles and East Carolina could very easily join each other on the couch in front of the TV for the holidays.

On second thought, maybe life isn't so simple for Southern Miss. But it should be. And it should for East Carolina, too.

If the bowl big-wigs along the Redneck Riviera would go ahead and tip their hats, Golden Eagle and Pirate fans could get on with their daily lives. The same could be said about UAB and TCU, too, but at print time, neither school boasted much more than a truck-load of die-hards.

To be perfectly honest, most UAB alums will watch Thursday night's USM-Alabama match-up with great interest. They'll be rooting like never before for Alabama, not because a Golden Eagle loss would make their alma mater appear more attractive, rather hoping their beloved Crimson Tide can secure a bowl bid of its own.

In a perfect, money-making world, Mobile would have extended a bowl invitation to ECU Director of Athletics Mike Hamrick Sunday evening, which would have provided almost a solid month in which to sell tickets. Houston could have then extended a Texas-sized envelope to the Golden Eagles, inviting them down to the Lone Star state for some post-Christmas fun.

ESPN2 would have been happy. It would like nothing more than an ECU-Marshall showdown, which has almost as many marketing slants as a can of ice-cold Pepsi.

It would be "Out of the Ashes" versus "The Flood of Biblical Proportions" in a battle of two feel-good stories of triumph in the midst of these feel-bad times of tragedy.

There would be the duel of two high-profile quarterbacks, both of whom possess bright futures. A bayside battle could ignite an instant rivalry between Marshall's Byron Leftwich and ECU's David Garrard, one that realistically could carry over to the next level.

As for fireworks, well, an ECU invite would certainly provide plenty of that. The Pirates boast one of the nation's highest-scoring offenses, coupled with a defense that will likely yield almost as many points, if not more.

Fan interest would be fairly high, too, to see the Pirates square off against the nationally-ranked Herd. Though many of ECU's faithful are disgruntled with a disappointing season, the Pirates' fan base is not one to shy away from a chance to be in the national spotlight.

Even if they do, Ladd-Peebles Stadium would certainly see more purple, than black or green with gold.

Sure, Southern Miss has a decent following, but its optimal situation would be to travel deep into the heart of Texas. That would give America's favorite college football David another shot at taking down one of the nation's traditional Goliaths.

If invited, UAB would have to eat at least nine of its ten thousand allotted tickets. With the state of Alabama divided between two schools — Alabama and Auburn — the Blazers would most likely have to enter some sort of rent-a-fan program to fill a respectable cheering section.

Nonetheless, Mobile has to be foaming at the mouth about a possible home-away-from-home game for the in-state Blazers. With star-power like quarterback Thomas Cox and running back Jegil Dugger, who wouldn't?

Besides, head coach Watson Brown's boys really handled a killer schedule this year. Word on the street is that Montana State is the real deal. That's not to mention the fact that Blazers were able to run through a C-USA slate at 5-2 — side-stepping match-ups with Louisville and East Carolina along the way.

ECU, on the other hand, played a tougher-than-anticipated schedule. Wake Forest, North Carolina and Syracuse all far-exceeded pre-season expectations and narrowly beat the Pirates.

In fact, with the exception of Syracuse, the Pirates lost each of their games on the very last play, while winning two in the very same fashion. If nothing else, that certainly makes for exciting football.

"We are a very representative football team," ECU head coach Steve Logan said when asked to evaluate the Pirates' merit. "We've been a hard-luck team. We have had some tough things, and at the same time, you've got to make your own breaks, and maybe we didn't do enough of that."

Logan hopes his team can catch a break later this week, something that didn't happen too often during a disappointing season. And when you measure the Pirates against the competition, it's easy to see they deserve one.

At first, place kicker Kevin Miller was at a loss for words following a 28-21 defeat to Southern Miss on Friday that put the Pirates' bowl hopes in limbo.

The Virginia Beach junior could hardly come to grips with a 6-5 season that didn't come close to living up to its pre-season hype. But after a moment of reflection, Miller offered one word — the only one that could come close to describing what he was feeling.

Bitter in the sense that the Pirates didn't reach many of the goals they set out to attain during the regular season, one of which was a Conference USA championship and subsequent Liberty Bowl bid.

Sweet, because Miller shook off a shaky 2000 campaign with a solid effort this year, one in which he connected on 14-17 field goals and 38-40 extra points. It was the type of performance that should garner post-season recognition.

"Personally, I set some goals at the beginning of the year, and did accomplish most of them," Miller said. "It was nice, but it was bittersweet, because personal goals are second to team goals.

"Obviously we've underachieved this year, and it's been disappointing from a team aspect, but it was nice to come back after a tough year. Last year, I didn't feel like I performed well field-goal wise, so it was nice to have a good year kicking field goals."

Miller credits his turnaround to the extra work he put in during the Pirates' off-season conditioning drills. Prior to this pat summer, he had not participated in summer work-outs with the team, but an ailing quadriceps muscle prompted Miller to get stronger.

It was a decision that paid great dividends for Miller, who connected on all four of his field goal attempts against Memphis earlier this season, which earned him C-USA's special teams player of the week award.

Though many would be satisfied with a near perfect kicking performance, Miller sees room for improvement. Thus, strength coach Jim Whitten can once again expect Miller to be a part of the daily summer grind.

"I saw last summer just how hard work could pay off," Miller said. "This summer, I'm going to have to work even harder to have a better year than this year.

"I missed some field goals this year that I feel like I could have made, and I missed a couple of extra points that I should have made. I want to build on what I did this year, and hopefully come out and have a good senior year."

Miller certainly hopes his senior season is much easier than his junior campaign has been. Though this season has been especially tough on the seniors, Miller indicates that it as been just as trying on the junior class, which wanted to send the departing players out with a victory last Friday.

"I think everybody feels badly," he said. "You never want to send the senior class out losing their last home game.

"It's just tough. We wanted to go win this one for the senior class, which is full of just classy guys like David Garrard, Leonard Henry, Chris Nelson, Aaron Walker — just a bunch of great guys."

With the exception of Scott Harley's 1,745-yard rushing performance in 1996, you won't find a better single-season rushing effort in East Carolina history than the one Leonard Henry notched this year.

Henry finished the regular season with 1,432 yards on the ground, which is a C-USA single-season record. Even more impressive was the remarkable 7.8 yards he averaged each time he touched the ball.

The Clinton senior was also the Pirates' third-leading receiver, hauling in 26 passes for 210 yards and two more touchdowns, making him one of the the nation's top do-everything running backs.

There is one thing, though, that Henry didn't do too much of during his record-breaking senior season. He didn't do much talking.

When he did finally open his mouth following Friday's loss to rival Southern Miss, it wasn't to discuss how well he played this year or the records he had broken. Instead, Henry decided it was time to give credit where credit was due.

"From day one, the offensive line set out to just go hard and work hard on every play," Henry said. "When I look in that hole and see those guys out there diving on the ground, busting their buts for me, then I know I've got to hit the hole even harder to make those guys look good.

"Those guys get all the credit. They went out and laid it on the line for me, so I had to lay it on the line for them."

All season long, Henry benefited from gaping holes that spear-headed a ground assault that produced its share of explosion plays. Never in recent history has a Pirate runner dialed in from long distance as frequently as he did this year.

A game in which the "L-Train" didn't travel 30 or more yards on at least one carry was the exception this year, not the rule.

Though Henry's performance will be tough to repeat, the Pirates will return four starters to the offensive line next year, which should provide somewhat of a comfort zone to heir apparents Art Brown and Marvin Townes.

According to Henry, the Pirates' talented young stable of running backs is battle-tested, and will be more than ready to perform come next season.

"They've (running backs) all been through game experience," Henry said. "We had two games where we won on the last play of the game — there's not too many college teams that can truly say that.

"That experience leads on up into your career. You never know when that chance is going to happen again."

For right now, Henry just hopes he can get one more chance to strut his stuff, extending his career to one more game in a post-season bowl.