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Notes, Quotes and Slants
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Pirate
Notebook No. 256
Friday, October 21, 2005
By Denny O'Brien |
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Thinking about the 'B' word
may be in order
Solid progress by Pirates
makes bowl bid a realistic goal
�2005 Bonesville.net
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PIRATE
TALK |
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Thursday night's Pirate Talk with
Denny O'Brien and guests Skip Holtz,
Brian Bailey, Sammy Batten and
Brian Rimpf: |
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Skip Holtz has met the most important
objective of his first year as East Carolina's head coach. Anything moving
forward is purple icing on the cake.
Step one was to make the Pirates a
competitive, respectable bunch and remove them from the weekly list of
potential candidates for ESPN's Bottom 10. That mission has been
accomplished just six games into Holtz's tenure, as ECU is no longer a
punchline within the college football media.
To say the Pirates are ahead of schedule
would be an understatement given the teetering status of the program when
Holtz arrived. With so much staff and player turnover during the last four
years, the program had been completely gutted of its infrastructure and
spirit.
Fan interest and player morale hit rock
bottom last year at a school that historically has gotten most of its
athletics mileage off the tremendous chip it once hoisted proudly on its
shoulder. What's more, the media coverage the Pirates received statewide was
reduced to the point of insignificance.
Any sign of reviving ECU's pulse would have
been sufficient this season. But since East Carolina has been quickly
upgraded from critical to stable condition, it might as well shoot for what
was believed improbable before the season began � a bowl invitation.
With five games remaining and three wins
already on the table, the Pirates now have a legitimate shot at a postseason
payday. Finish above .500 over the final stretch and the odds of that
scenario are favorable.
Membership in Conference USA, it seems,
finally has its privileges.
"This league has got such tremendous
balance," Holtz said following the Pirates win over Southern Methodist. "It
really does. I mean, every game you watch.
"You know, like Southern Miss gets beat
because they turn it over five times last week. We get beat against Southern
Miss and we turn it over five times. SMU turns it over five times (against
us) and they get beat."
That's par for the course in C-USA. From
top to bottom, the league has so much parity that a single miscue can be the
difference in finishing first or fourth in the divisional race.
At this point in the season, there
typically is clear indication of which two teams have the inside shot at
claiming the conference prize. Odds are, the league will have to leverage
its tie-break system to decide the match-up in the C-USA title game.
That anyone will sit atop either division
alone seems unlikely in a conference destined to send several 6-5 clubs to
postseason bowls. That places a premium on execution and fundamentals down
the stretch.
"We went into the locker room leading 17-7
at halftime (vs. SMU) and we lost our focus," Holtz said. "They thought that
we were going to win the game, and it was way too jovial, upbeat and happy.
"We have got to maintain focus, maintain
what we are trying to get done in the second half and remember that all
these games are 60 minutes. When we went out there in the third quarter, we
did not maintain the same enthusiasm and intensity we had earlier in the
game, on either side of the ball."
With all of the remaining games so closely
matched, ECU can't afford anymore mental breathers. At this stage, the
Pirates simply lack the horsepower to sleepwalk through any portion of the
closing schedule.
That means every down of every possession
must be treated with a sense of urgency. Turnovers, missed tackles, and
mindless penalties could be a backbreaker.
There is little room for error if East
Carolina has any chance at a postseason bid. It's a positive scenario no one
thought imaginable when the season began.
Holtz has accelerated the rebuilding
process that much.
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02/23/2007 02:00:30 AM |
