Blake Harrell remembers when he came to East Carolina as defensive coordinator after Mike Houston's first ECU team had gone 4-8 overall and 1-7 in the American Athletic Conference in 2019. The Pirates had yielded 33.7 points and 469.3 yards per game. Those numbers were down to 25.8 points and 394.8 yards last year as ECU was 7-5 overall and 5-3 in the AAC. "It's night … [Read more...]

East Carolina offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick is just over three weeks away from matching wits with an N.C. State defense that returns 10 starters from a 9-3 team. His focus for the present is preparing his platoon in preseason camp. ECU will scrimmage Saturday morning, a break from the specific structure of the sessions thus far. "Preseason camp is a grind as we … [Read more...]

East Carolina is scheduled to start preseason camp at 9:40 this morning and conclude the initial workout at 11:50 a.m. "I expect us to look like a really good football team day one," said ECU coach Mike Houston last week. "There’s really no excuses not to. The guys that are going to be on the field in the two-deep are guys that have played a lot of ball. They’ve been in the … [Read more...]

As is customary for media day in the American Athletic Conference, commissioner Mike Aresco led off Thursday with remarks addressing the myriad of issues that confront college football — NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment and its consequential shift in the balance of power, and possible expansion of the College Football Playoff. Aresco said the best model … [Read more...]