I am so tired of coach saying we played a really good team today. Charlotte is not a really good team, we are a very bad team.

The Pirate defense doesn’t have a lockdown cover man since Revell’s injury. No one else has stepped up to the task. While the secondary has been suspect for the past couple of games, the real weakness of the defense was revealed by CLT. Not being able to hover an extra man in the box, rather than playing back to provide help in coverage, proved very costly to the Pirate run defense. CLT took advantage of almost every scheme the Pirate ‘D’ threw at them. There’s no quick cure, as the Pirate secondary is mediocre, at best. This season is about to become very ugly, as the offense continues to stumble, and even kickoff coverage has short-circuited. Too many players looked lost, or dropped passes, or blew coverages. JDB better figure out a way to hold onto the ball, or Army will do the same thing as CLT, or worse.

Semenza's point about the OL is exactly correct; it is simply poor, unable to create holes and unable to protect Garcia. To assess them as being even marginally better than the disaster that they were last year takes monumental generosity. The crew here also justifiably makes a big issue about possession; there is simply NO WAY possible that that can fixed with this OL's performance.

To Semenza's point about the defense tapping out, find the post game presser with the Charlotte RBs on Twitter; that's essentially what they said. It is extremely damning.

The only question is why does every coach come here and become mediocre?

Where this once proud program is at this time in NC (of course college football in NC in general is abysmal) Duke Wake UNC NCSU ASU Charlotte ECU The whole state is an embarrassment and we are at the bottom. Only a coaching change can address this it would seam at this point.

Need to make a coaching change as quickly as possible. This program is a total disaster at this point and is not likely to be competitive against anyone the rest of the year.

Remember when Houston backed out of the Charlotte job because he thought East Carolina was a better job with the potential to be more successful? They're on coach #2 since then and have beaten us twice. Counting those 2 losses and the fact we have Houston and not them makes 0-3 against them.

I think we would be better off with a cardboard cutout resembling Houston standing on the sideline. Maybe get a better emotional response.

Same old response from Coach Houston- we have to clean things up. I have heard this for the last several years. Why are things not getting Up and showing in the play? ECU should not be losing to Charlotte. All other programs around us are getting better and ECU is not. So I guess Houston is right - there are things that need to be cleaned up- maybe it should start with the head coach! Yesterday was embarrassing!

Houston can’t find or can’t recognize when he does see a QB. I was not a huge Holton fan, but he also grew up wanting to be a Pirate so no credit for recruiting with that one. Every game I have watched since Ahlers graduated, it seems the opposing QB is significantly better than either of the two we swap in and out. 2 years in a row now with 2 different ineffective QB’s each of those years.

I've not looked at the most popular Pirates message board, but it is a guarantee that Pirates Nation is calling for Coach's head, which it seems inarguable the circumstances at this point warrant, particularly in the wake of today's complete embarrassment at the hands of a "lesser" in-state rival. Coach is lucky that midseason removals are difficult (and therefore rare), not least because they telegraph to the world the university's abandonment of all confidence in the coach and his team. Hence, he still has some runway to somehow turn this foundering ship around (and 6 - 6 should not be considered to be good enough given their weak schedule.) Out of a lot of bad today, the worst of it to me is the fact that whereas going into it, their offense was known to be unreliable, but now their defense seems to have "caught up" with their colleagues. It's feeling an awful lot like 2023.

I’ve always heard it said, if you can’t say anything good, say nothing. That’s how I feel about the Pirates at present. It doesn’t look like the Pirates will be able to take off the training wheels any time soon. Hope I’m wrong.

Pirates must resurrect the disaster from last year.Pirstes go out an punishin them. J R Titsworth

Kudos to the Pirates for winning a Must Win game, but goodness, it would be dishonest not to admit that they got a lot of help from UTSA, especially by way of dropped passes down the stretch and a handful of very untimely penalties, though the biggest one, that huge pass interference late in the game on a ball that was more catchable by fans than by the Pirate wideout, was a terrible call; I'd have been beside myself if I was the UTSA coach. The offensive play by both teams down the stretch seemed almost like an exercise in who wanted the game least, though I give credit to the ECU d, which, as already stated by another commenter, Houston relied on 100% at the end, exactly as he did at the end of the ODU game. The OL remains a significant liability, unable to dependably protect Garcia or create holes for Harris, and therefore disallowing ECU from controlling the clock; they might be marginally better than they were during last year's nightmare, and maybe they'll get better in season; I hope so, because I just don't see ECU winning consistently unless and until there's improvement there. ...but a dub is a dub, and even against a team that's off of what it has been in recent seasons, but probably still decent nonetheless, so Congrats to the Pirates.