East Carolina Falls In AAC Road Contest At USF, 38-22

Saturday, October 8

Tampa, Fla.

12:00 P.M.

East Carolina University

2-4 , 0-2

USF

5-1 , 2-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

East Carolina

USF

October 08, 2016 | Football

Box Score

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TAMPA, Fla. – East Carolina escaped the inundation of Hurricane Matthew in eastern North Carolina for a day in sunny Florida but could not maintain a late surge and fell 38-22 to USF Saturday at Raymond James Stadium.

The Pirates (2-4, 0-2 AAC), who dropped their fourth straight overall and second to start American Athletic Conference play, rallied from 24-6 deficit to get within 24-22 in the fourth quarter but failed on a two-point conversion then surrendered two late two touchdowns.

Not only did the loss sting, but so did the Bulls' attempt to tack on a score in the final seconds. USF actually did find the end zone but was called for pass interference. Another pass as time expired fell incomplete.

"I was surprised," first-year ECU head coach Scottie Montgomery said. "I did not expect that, wouldn't expect it to happen. But I guess they're trying to get their team better. That's one of those things you have to deal with when you're the loser. If we had been in that situation, we probably take a knee or run the ball."

ECU now returns to Greenville, distracted much of the week by the threat of the major storm that rolled in Saturday, and has a quick turn-around for a Thursday night home game against Navy.

"It's a lot," Montgomery said. "… We've got to practice (Sunday) and get it installed so we can have a good week of work.

"We've got a little bit of enthusiasm coming out of this game, a lot of anger, of course, not winning the game, but we came down and battled hard."

After his team's consecutive losses to Virginia Tech (54-17) and Central Florida (47-29), Montgomery said he was pleased to see some fight after the Pirates fell behind by 18 midway through the third period.

"They battled the whole day," Montgomery said. "Despite all the things they had to go during the week, practice, everything, they came down here and battled their tails off.

"I thought there were some close situations in the game where we could have got the upper hand. We got a nasty taste in our mouth. Of course you don't like the way this feels. We've felt like this too long. We knew it was going to be a fight the whole game and our guys came out and just battled with everything they had."

But the junior duo of quarter Quinton Flowers and running back Marlon Mack responded each time USF (5-1, 2-0 AAC) seemed on the verge of giving up its lead.

Flowers did damage with both his arm and legs, completing 21 of 29 passes for 250 yards and three touchdowns and adding 115 yards rushing on 16 carries. Mack bulled his way to 152 yards on 18 carries, scoring a pair of touchdowns to give him 25 for his career, which shares first in school history.

USF amassed 556 total yards, including 306 rushing. The Pirates gained 168 yards on the ground, led by 114 yards on 18 carries by James Summers, and finished with 476 total yards.

Quarterback Philip Nelson was knocked out of the game for the second consecutive week when he was drilled by Bruce Hector and Garry Cadet in the third period. He completed just 12 of 23 passes for a season-low 88 yards.

Gardner Minshew entered and rallied the Pirates, completing 21 of 33 passes for 220 yards and one touchdown. He was picked off by Nigel Harris on a fourth-down play with 3:39 to go and ECU down 31-22.

"He worked as well as he could," Montgomery said of Minshew. "I thought we had some good opportunities at the end of the game.

"We didn't think Phil got started particularly well. He didn't have a week of work; he had one day of work this week, but it looked good (Friday), so we felt good about him.

"We wanted to go into the second half and give him a chance. If he didn't look like we thought he could look, then we were going to go with Minshew. It's only because we felt like he had gotten banged and dinged a little bit earlier in the game. But Gardner did a great job coming in and giving us a chance to win the game."

ECU grabbed an early 3-0 lead on the first of a career-high three Davis Plowman field goals – he connected from 31, 40 and 49 yards and missed from 42.

Flowers' first of two first-half touchdown passes to D'Ernest Johnson put the Bulls up 7-3 and came after a targeting penalty at the 1 ended the day for ECU defensive back Colby Gore.

Johnson's second TD catch from 11 yards made it 17-6 at the half.
Mack scored on a 1-yard run for a 24-6 lead before Minshew ignited a rally.

He threw 46 yards to Deondre Farrier, who had three catches for 86 yards, to set up a 1-yard toss to Zay Jones, who turned in yet another spectacular day with 18 catches for 145 yards.

Jones extended his streak to 41 consecutive games with at least one catch and now has 13 career games with at least 10 catches and 15 games with at least 100 yards receiving.

Plowman's 31-yard field goal with 11:49 to play and Summers' 3-yard run with 6:58 to go drew the Pirates within 24-22, but Minshew's pass for a tying two-point conversion was incomplete.

USF needed just 52 seconds to answer with Flowers hitting Rodney Adams in stride for a 62-yard score.

Mack's nine-yard run with 3:04 to go cashed in Harris' interception and sealed it.