East Carolina Falters At Tulsa, 45-24

Saturday, November 5

Tulsa, Okla.

8:00 P.M.

East Carolina University

3-6 , 1-4

Tulsa

7-2 , 4-1

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

East Carolina

Tulsa

November 05, 2016 | Football

Box Score

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TULSA, Okla. – The road continues to be quite unkind to East Carolina's football team.

The Pirates dug themselves an early two-touchdown hole Saturday night at Tulsa and never recovered in a 45-24 flag-plagued, injury-riddled American Athletic Conference loss that all but dashes any hopes for a bowl bid in Scottie Montgomery's first year as head coach.

ECU, after a 2-0 start, is now 3-6 overall, 1-4 in the AAC and has dropped all five road games this season – nine of the last 11 regular season games away from Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. The Pirates will need to win their final three games – at home against SMU and Navy and on the road against Temple – to become bowl-eligible.

Tulsa, now 7-2 overall and 4-1 in the AAC, ended a six-game losing streak in the series.

"That's the best team probably that we've played this year," Montgomery said. "We knew that they were going to be really good with their offensive front, with their offensive scheme, but we just didn't match it at all."

Coming off a 41-3 win over UConn, little went right for the Pirates on Saturday before a small turnout of 17,557 at Chapman Stadium with the exception of another stellar performance by Zay Jones, the nation's leader in receptions, and a solid performance by sophomore backup quarterback Gardner Minshew, who replaced senior Philip Nelson in the second quarter.

Penalties, an area of marked improvement this season, handcuffed the Pirates against Tulsa, especially in the first half when they had 10. Three of those, including a pair of pass interference penalties, gave Tulsa a hand in three scoring drives.

ECU finished with a season-high 13 penalties for 117 yards. Tulsa was flagged 10 times for 86 yards

"The penalties, I take that personally," Montgomery said. "Anybody that knows me knows that discipline is right at the forefront. I've never seen that many penalties in a game. I don't think I've ever seen a game where they had 23 penalties. We've got to tune up our penalty discipline. I need to go back and take a look at a lot of it on tape."

The Pirates will also be looking at their defense after surrendering 616 total yards to Tulsa, which came in averaging 42 points per game. ECU had no answer for another AAC dynamic running back duo. Powerful senior James Flanders (28 carries, 181 yards) and elusive junior D'Angelo Brewer (23 carries, 180 yards) accounted for three touchdowns. Senior quarterback Dane Evans completed 22 of 38 passes for 274 yards and three more touchdowns, including two to Josh Atkinson.

The Pirates, the AAC's top-rated offense, matched Tulsa in number of plays with 92 and had 474 total yards but managed just 38 on the ground and surrendered seven sacks. Minshew, who saw action earlier this season when Nelson was injured, stepped in with the offense sputtering and finished 29 of 49 for 336 yards – all career highs.

ECU put the ball in the air 62 times and totaled 436 yards passing. Jones finished with 13 catches for a career-best 206 yards – the fourth most in school history – and set single-season school and conference records with 127 receptions.

His 368 career receptions pull him within 19 of tying former teammate Justin Hardy as the all-time leader in NCAA history.

Jones, named this week as one of 12 finalists for the 2016 William V. Campbell Trophy, now has at least one catch in 44 straight games, 16 career games with double-digit catches and 17 games with at least 100 yards receiving.

But as has been the case too much this season, yards did not translate into points. The Pirates' night essentially was defined by a fourth-quarter series when they failed to score in four plays from the 1. Minshew was dropped for a 14-yard loss on fourth down.

The Pirates also turned the ball over on downs on their next possession in Tulsa territory.

Tulsa carved through the Pirates' defense on its first two possessions to take a 14-0 lead with 6:43 left in a penalty-plagued first quarter.

A third-down pass interference call gave the Golden Hurricane new life on their first drive. A 22-yard ramble by the hard-to-handle Flanders capped it off.

Tulsa then drove 74 yards in 10 plays after forcing a punt and pushed ahead 14-0 on Evans' 14-yard pass to Keevan Lucas.

ECU needed just 1:55 to cover 69 yards and cut the lead in half on a 51-yard strike from Nelson to Jones, his fifth TD catch of the year and 20th of his career.

The Pirates then looked to be mounting a potential tying drive but stalled at midfield when Nelson was sacked by Jesse Brubaker. Worth Gregory's punt would be the first of six straight before the end of the half.

The Golden Hurricane increased the lead to 17-7 with 6:10 left in the half on a 41-yard field. The Pirates' second pass interference and seventh of 10 first-half penalties aided the drive.

Tulsa, behind the running of Flanders, muscled its way in the end zone for a 24-7 lead just 24 seconds before halftime. The drive appeared stalled at the 10, but a penalty on the defensive line for calling out signals followed by an unsportsmanlike penalty on an ECU assistant coach moved the ball to the 2.
Evans flipped a 2-yard pass to Atkinson on first down for the score.

Minshew directed a 78-yard scoring drive to open the second half with James Summers punching it in from the 1 to make it 24-14. But Tulsa wasted little time in answering, scoring in six plays and 1:39 with Flanders running seven yards for his second TD of the night

After a 39-yard field goal by Davis Plowman, Evans hooked up with Atkinson for a 64-yard dagger that made it 38-17.

Brewer added a 4-yard run with just 1:38 to play. Minshew threw a 10-yard pass to Quay Johnson with 27 second left for ECU's final touchdown.