East Carolina Enters Last Week Of Spring Drills
April 11, 2005 | Football
Spring Notebook No. 13
GREENVILLE, N.C. -- Under the guidance of first-year head coach Skip Holtz and staff, East Carolina officially entered its last week of spring workouts with a two-hour session Monday afternoon at the Cliff Moore Practice Complex.
The Pirates returned to action in shells after conducting their second intra-squad scrimmage of the season Friday night at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. Monday's workout was also the first held at ECU's practice facility in more than three weeks.
"I saw a lot of good things Friday," said Holtz after reviewing the game tape over the weekend."We've got a long way to go but there were many positives to build on, both offensively and defensively."
Holtz indicated he tweaked the programs' depth chart slightly Monday morning to reflect some of the more impressive performances from Friday's tilt, noting sophomores Fred Hicks and Mark Robinson have moved to the top interior unit of the Pirates' defensive line. Holtz also cited the efforts of sophomore receiver Juwon Crowell, freshman defensive back Stacy Walls and sophomore defensive lineman Brandon Setzer while also praising the play of existing starting linebackers Durwin Lamb and Richard Koonce, and all four safeties on the existing two-deep.
"It's all about making plays," Holtz explained. "We lacked production on third down from our defense and that says we were not making a stop when we needed to. On the other hand, offensively, we kept getting those big plays from guys like Aundrae Allison, Robert Tillman, Chris Johnson and Davon Drew at different times.
After opening Monday's session with its traditional individual drills, ECU quickly moved to an extended team segment and spent the remainder of practice working on blocking assignments deep within the Pirates' new playbook and different defensive coverages and alignments. In addition, Holtz also spent time covering situational tendencies again, such as clock management, down and distance and red-zone efficiency.
After Wednesday's full-gear practice, East Carolina's coaching staff will conduct a player draft to select roster positions for the Purple-Gold Game, which is scheduled for Saturday at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium beginning at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets, which are priced at $4.00 for the contest or $8.00 with the addition of a plate of bar-b-que from the Pirate Purple/Gold Pigskin Pigout Party, can be purchased at the ECU Athletics Ticket Office or by calling (252) 328-4500 locally or (800) DIAL-ECU outside the Greenville area.
