East Carolina University
SMU
Gameday: ECU Hosts SMU On Military Appreciation Day
November 10, 2016 | Football
| East Carolina Game 10: SMU | |
| Date | Saturday, Nov. 12 |
| Time | 12 noon (EST) |
| Location | Greenville, N.C. (Bagwell Field at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium) |
| Tickets & Parking | Game Tickets | Parking Information | New To Gameday | Military Appreciation Day |
| Live Game Coverage | Radio: WNCT 107.9FM | TuneIn Radio Online | Television: ESPNews/WatchESPN |
| Internet Options | Live Stats |
| Official Web Sites | East Carolina | SMU | American Athletic Conference |
| Game Notes | East Carolina (PDF) | SMU (PDF) | The American (PDF) |
| 2016 Football Statistics | East Carolina | SMU |
| ECU Football Central | Roster | Fact Book (PDF) | The American | NCAA Football | College Scoreboard |
| Official Social Media Sites | |
| East Carolina | SMU | The American | |
| East Carolina | ECUScoreboard (In-Game Updates) l SMU | The American | |
| Twitter Hashtags | #ECUPirates | #ECUGameday | #ECUndaunted | #ECUFootball #PonyUP | #AmericanRising | #SMUvsECU |
| East Carolina | The American | |
GREENVILLE, N.C. – It's Military Appreciation Day as East Carolina will open a two-game November homestand by hosting SMU for an American Athletic Conference contest at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on Saturday beginning at 12 noon. The Mustangs, who own a current 4-5 record, will enter their last regular season road matchup having won two of their last three - including a 38-16 decision over league preseason favorite Houston. For the Pirates, the tilt will mark the second of three consecutive contests against AAC West Division foes (Tulsa/Nov. 5 and Navy/Nov. 19).
EAST CAROLINA RECORDS AND STREAKS
- Qualified for 10 bowl appearances since 2000 (three of the last four years) ...
- Has won 30 of the last 35 games when scoring 30 or more points ...
- Has lost 21-straight games when scoring 20 or less points (19-14 vs. UCF in '09/last win) ...
- Has won 19 of the last 22 games when gaining 200 or more rushing yards ...
- Has racked up 400 or more yards in nine-straight games (only once in previous six games) ...
- Has won 29 of the last 31 games when leading at the half ...
- Has lost eight of the last 10 conference games ...
- Has won 14 of the last 19, 18 of the last 24 (and 22 of the last 29) home games ...
- Has won six of the last eight home games played in the month of November ...
THE SERIES
East Carolina leads 4-2 ... The Pirates and Mustangs both turned in respective sweeps as Conference USA interdivisional opponents - ECU taking 2005 and 2006 matchups before SMU posted consecutive victories in 2009 and 2010 ... The Pirates have bounced back by capturing the first two American Athletic Conference meetings in 2014 and 2015 ... In fact, the Mustangs' visit to Greenville two years ago marked ECU's inaugural AAC clash.
RUSH D, PASS PRESSURE KEY RECENT TREND VS. SMU
During its current two-game win streak against the Mustangs, East Carolina has held SMU to a combined 91 rushing yards (45.5. ypg) on 48 carries - an average of just 1.9 yards per attempt ... Additionally, the Pirates have netted a total of 10.0 sacks and 14.0 TFLs, collectively, in their 2014 and 2015 meetings ... In the last five games of the series, ECU has kept the SMU run game in double-digits four times (40/'15, 51/'14, 28/'09 and 89/'06).
AGAINST THE LONE STAR STATE
The Pirates have won 21 of 31 all-time matchups (21-11) against FBS programs from the state of Texas ... ECU is 7-5 against UH, 3-1 vs. UTEP, 4-2 vs. SMU, 2-2 vs. Rice, 2-1 vs. TCU, 1-0 vs. Texas Tech, 1-0 vs. North Texas and 1-0 against Texas State ... East Carolina has never faced Baylor, Texas or Texas A&M on the gridiron.
PLAYING THE "WILD" WEST ... THE SECOND OF THREE-STRAIGHT
East Carolina owns a 2-2 mark (1-0/home, 1-2/road) against the "other side" since the league began divisional play in 2015 ... The Pirates are 1-0 vs. SMU, split a pair against Tulsa and dropped its only league contest to Navy (and play the Mustangs and Midshipmen in consecutive weeks to close out their 2016 home schedule) ... On the flipside, ECU is 2-7 against foes in its own East Division so far with a 44-7 triumph against UCF in the 2015 road finale and a 41-3 win vs. Connecticut on Oct. 29 representing the lone two victories.
AMERICAN, NON-LEAGUE STATISTICAL COMPARISONS
In its five American Athletic Conference contests (1-4) this year, ECU has averaged 27.0 points, 119.2 rushing yards, 361.8 passing yards and 481.0 total yards per game ... By comparison, the Pirates booked 29.2 ppg, 155.8 rypg, 368.0 pypg and 523.8 ypg averages in their four non-conference tilts in 2016 (Western Carolina, NC State, South Carolina and Virginia Tech).
AT DOWDY-FICKLEN STADIUM - 3-1 IN 2016 & 21-7 SINCE 2012
East Carolina's all-time record at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium is 183-91-1 (.667) ... The Pirates opened the facility on Sept. 21, 1963 with a 20-10 win over Brian Piccolo and the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in front of 17,000 fans and celebrated the stadium's 50th anniversary in 2013 ... Before a 3-3 record last fall, ECU recorded consecutive 5-1 marks in 2014, 2013 and 2012 (15-3) and won a combined 10 of 12 home matchups in 2009 (6-1) and 2008 (4-1) ... Overall, East Carolina can guarantee its 40th winning campaign at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium with a win over SMU.
PIRATE NATION - 8 MILLION STRONG
East Carolina has always been able to claim plenty of hometown support, even more so when playing at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium during the fall - establishing itself as a conference and "Group of Five" attendance leader on a near annual basis ... In all, a total of 8,125,978 fans have seen the Pirates in action since 1963 (ECU cracked the 8 million mark when 50,719 watched ECU down NC State Sept. 10) ... Since the completion of a 7,000-seat expansion project in 2010 (to push capacity to 50,000), the Pirates have drawn 1,854,692 fans.
ATTENDANCE LEADERS
In addition to departing Conference USA as a six-time attendance champion - 2008 (42,016), 2009 (41,742), 2010 (49,665), 2011 (50,012), 2012 (47,013) and 2013 (43,985), as well as topping the American Athletic Conference during its first year of membership, East Carolina led all Group of Five members in attendance from 2012 to 2014 before following with a third-place standing in 2015 and a current first-place slot after 10 weeks of the 2016 season ... Overall, ECU ranks 51st nationally in average attendance (45,573) and 46th in capacity percentage (91.15) after Week 10.
ANALYZING THE 2016 OVERALL SCHEDULE
East Carolina's 2016 schedule consists of games against two conference divisional champions (Navy and Temple/American West co-champs and East champs, respectively), eight bowl participants (NC State, Virginia Tech, USF, Navy, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Tulsa, Temple) and four programs that are either currently ranked or earning votes in the two major Top 25 polls (Associated Press/USA Today Amway Coaches) - Virginia Tech (18/22), USF (RV/RV), Tulsa (RV/RV) and Navy (RV/RV). Collectively, the Pirates' opponents this season are a combined 61-48 (.560) after the first 10 weeks of action.
CHARTING THE PIRATES MONTH-BY-MONTH
In all, ECU is 3-2-0 in August, 123-112-2 in September, 161-153-4 in October, 137-118-5 in November, 9-9-0 in December and 1-4-0 in January ... The Pirates continue play in November, a month in which East Carolina has captured 10 of the last 16 contests ... At home, ECU has won six of the last eight (but closed out the 2015 campaign with back-to-back losses to USF and Cincinnati at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium).
MANY FIRST-TIME STARTERS SO FAR
There have been a combined 16 first-time starters in East Carolina's lineup so far this season - seven on the offensive side of the ball with TE Stephen Baggett, WR Deondre Farrier, WR Terrell Green, G Garrett McGhin, T Messiah Rice, T Justin Sandifer and RB Anthony Scott, and nine on defense as OLB Kiante Anderson, DE Justin Brown, SS Bobby Fulp, OLB Kendall Futrell, CB Colby Gore, OLB Pat Green, DE Mike Myers, CB Corey Seargent and SS Devon Sutton have each made their respective starting debuts ... While OG Will Dancy (2/North Carolina) and QB Philip Nelson (16/Minnesota) have also made their inaugural Pirate appearances, both did own previous collegiate starting experience before transferring into the ECU program.
SPREADING THE WEALTH & TRIPLE-TRIPLES
ECU has featured a 100-yard receiver (11 times by three different players - Zay Jones/7, Jimmy Williams/3 and Quay Johnson/1) in eight of nine games this season ... Williams (145), Jones (137) and Johnson (113) all surpassed the century mark against UCF on Oct. 1 - a first in school single-game history ... Most recently, Jones has topped all Pirate receivers in consecutive games – 185 yards vs. Connecticut, career-high 206 at Tulsa … In his last five games, Jones has made 78 (15.6 rpg) receptions for 742 yards (148.4 ypg).
IMPROVING REDZONE EFFICIENCY
Despite still ranking near the bottom of FBS units in redzone efficiency (69.2 percent), the Pirates have rebounded strongly with a near-perfect 12-of-13 combined performance vs. USF (3-3), Cincinnati (2-2), Connecticut (5-5) and Tulsa (2-3) in their last four games ... ECU got off to a slow start by converting only six-of-16 RZ trips (37.5 percent) in contests against South Carolina, Virginia Tech and UCF.
MITIGATING THE DAMAGE
Although opponents have forced 17 East Carolina turnovers in 2016, the Pirate defense has done some impressive damage control with stops on 10 occasions (58.8 percent) ... Most recently, ECU has surrendered only four scores after its last 13 miscues – which includes a run of six-straight stops in contests vs. South Carolina, Virginia Tech and UCF.
THIRD QUARTER HEAT FOLLOWS SECOND QUARTER FREEZE
The Pirates have owned the third quarter with a 100-50 ledger so far this year ... On the flipside, ECU has been outscored by a similar 97-51 count in the second stanza.
THIS AND THAT
INDIVIDUAL NOTES: OL J.T. Boyd (32 games) and FS Travon Simmons (22) own the program's longest starting streaks on their respective side of the ball entering the SMU game ... WR Zay Jones has caught multiple passes in 46 of 47 career games (none vs. VT in 2013) ... Of his 368 career receptions, 159 have gone for 10 or more yards (42 for 20-plus) ... His career-high 206 receiving yards at Tulsa marked the fourth time in school history a Pirate pass catcher had surpassed 200-plus yards (230/Justin Hardy vs. Tulane in 2013, 224/Cam Worthy vs. Virginia Tech in 2014 and 218/Terry Gallaher vs. Appalachian State in 1975) ... In addition to setting a new ECU single-season record for receptions, his 127 catches also represents a new AAC standard ...In his last three games, WR Jimmy Williams has made 16 catches for 234 yards and three TDs (is current team leader with six) ... In his last four games (starts against USF, Cincinnati, UConn and Tulsa), RB James Summers has rushed for a combined 349 yards (87.3 ypg) on 71 carries (18 114/USF, 21-95/CIN, 19-84/UCONN, 13-54/TLS) ... He's also accounted for 19 career TDs (13/rushing, 6/passing) and became the first Pirate in the modern era to score via a pass, catch and run in the same game (vs. the Huskies) ... QB Gardner Minshew set new career-highs in completions (29), attempts (49) and passing yards (336) while in a relief role at Tulsa ... He also threw his third career TD pass of the season with a 10-yarder to Quay Johnson ... OLB Dayon Pratt matched a career-best with 12 tackles at Tulsa and added a half sack to push his team-leading figure to 2.5 (along with 7.5 TFLs) ... SS DaShaun Amos (eight) OLB Kiante Anderson (seven) and CB Colby Gore (12) all registered career-high tackle totals vs. Tulsa ... Nine of Gore's dozen stops were in the first half against Golden Hurricane ... PK Davis Plowman was perfect in his only FG try vs. Tulsa (39-yarder) and has now made eight of his last nine attempts (3-4/USF, 2-2/CIN, 2-2/UCONN, 1-1/TLS) along with 13-straight PAT conversions (since a first-quarter miss vs. NCSU back on Sept. 10) ... He's now booked seven career multi-FG games and 136 total points.
TEAM NOTES: The Pirates have thrown at least one TD strike in 60 of their last 66 games ... The Pirates have tallied just four rushing TDs in their last seven games, compared to 14 by its opponents ... The Pirates currently own a possession time "edge" of 32:34, a stark contrast to the last three seasons where ECU was a combined 1:10:20 (one hour, 10 minutes and 20 seconds) in the red (-45:20 in 2015, -7:26 in 2014 and -17:34 in 2013) ... ECU has turned in back to-back turnover-free performances (UConn, Tulsa) for the first time this season ... After standing as the eighth-least penalized team in the country prior to the Tulsa game, the Pirates were fl aged a season-high 13 times (10 in the first half alone) for 117 yards against the Golden Hurricane ... ECU will enter the SMU contest with an active streak of 240 games of not suffering a shutout – a school record ... The last time the Pirates were blanked was on Oct. 4, 1997 (56-0 at Syracuse) ... A total of nine (9) players have had their redshirts removed in 2016 - OLB Kendall Futrell, CB Colby Gore, OG Cortez Herrin, RB Hussein Howe, QB Gardner Minshew, DE Jalen Price, DS Anthony Ratliff , OT D'Ante Smith and DE Alex Turner ... A total of seven (DB DaShaun Amos, OL J.T. Boyd, WR Jeff rey Coprich, OL Will Dancy, ILB Drayvon Fairley, P Worth Gregory, ILB Terrell Richardson) Pirates are competing as ECU graduates this season, which ranks in the top 20 nationally.
