Spring Football Notebook No. 9
March 26, 2007 | Football
March 26, 2007
GREENVILLE, N.C. - Three days after conducting their first official intra-squad scrimmage of the spring, the East Carolina Pirates returned to Hight Field inside the Cliff Moore Practice Complex and turned in an enthusiastic two-hour workout in shorts and helmets.
Third-year head coach Skip Holtz and his staff are nearing the completion of full game-tape evaluations and the development of ECU's first public depth chart which will be released Wednesday afternoon.
"For the most part, I think we accomplished what we needed to Friday," Holtz said after reviewing the 120-plus-play controlled scrimmage. "Our goals early in the spring are to solidify our interior with the offensive and defensive lines and, from that standpoint, we were able to get a lot of situational looks running the football."
Monday's practice was ECU's ninth of the spring period, leaving just six more sessions remaining, including a second scrimmage scheduled for Friday afternoon and the playing of the Purple-Gold Game April 14.
"The longer we go into the spring, the deeper we'll go into the team concept," Holtz continued. "This week we'll key more on down and distance orientation, such as first-and-10 and moving the chains on third down, before working on getting our skill personnel in open spaces with emphasis on our passing game the following week."
Holtz opted to put the Pirates in shorts after Friday's physical contest for light correction work before returning to pads Wednesday and for the remainder of the spring.
"There were a lot of positives and negatives, which is typically the case with a young team but we're certainly not going to use that as an excuse all spring or even this fall," he added. "Right now, we don't have a lot of true No. 1s so we need a bunch of guys to move up a level."
