ECU Offensive Coaching Staff Awarded
September 07, 2010 | Football
Sept. 7, 2010
Football Scoop Game Changing Coaches
GREENVILLE, N.C. - The East Carolina offensive coaching staff guided the Pirates to 51 points, 538 yards and seven touchdowns in Sunday's season-opening, come-from-behind 51-49 triumph over Tulsa. The group was rewarded Tuesday morning with one of Football Scoop's Game Changing Coaches awards, according to an announcement by the organization.
The Pirates scored touchdowns on their final five possessions of the game with the teams trading the lead 12 times, including seven switches in the fourth quarter. ECU's game-winning score came when junior transfer quarterback Dominique Davis threw a Hail Mary to the right side of the endzone that freshman Justin Jones came down with as time expired to erase a 49-45 deficit.
The winning touchdown capped a fourth quarter in which the Pirates recorded 27 points, the team's most since scoring 28 against Memphis Nov. 3, 2007. Ruffin McNeill and the offensive staff led the Pirates to the most total points, 51, of any team with a first-year head coach that played against an NCAA Division I program this past weekend.
Davis made his ECU debut completing 27-of-46 passes for 383 yards and five touchdowns. He became the first Pirate quarterback to toss five scoring strikes in a game since Jeff Blake against Southern Miss Nov. 9, 1991, a span of 219 games. It was also the team's highest passing output since picking up 403 against North Carolina Sept. 8, 2007.
Davis also recorded the sixth-highest single-game passing total by an ECU signal caller in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium history and posted the highest opening-day passing total by a Pirate in school history, besting a 333-yard total by Michael Anderson versus Syracuse in 1992.
East Carolina's ground game was also productive, gaining 155 yards with a contest-high 92 from senior Jonathan Williams, who finished just 16 yards shy of his career high.
Football Scoop also honored the Jacksonville State and University of Michigan offensive staffs as well as the Fresno State and North Dakota State defensive staffs.
The Pirates return to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium Saturday, Sept. 11, for a 12 noon matchup with league foe Memphis (0-1). The contest is slated for regional broadcast on Comcast Sports South and will be televised locally on WITN-TV.
