East Carolina University
Western Carolina
Gameday: ECU Hosts Western Carolina In 2016 Season Opener
September 01, 2016 | Football
| East Carolina Game 1: Western Carolina | |
| Date | Saturday, Sept. 3 |
| Time | 6:00 PM (ET) |
| Location | Greenville, N.C. (Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium) |
| Tickets & Parking | Game Tickets | Parking Information | New To Gameday |
| Live Game Coverage | Radio: WNCT 107.9FM | TuneIn Radio Online | Television: ESPN3 |
| Internet Options | Live Stats |
| Official Web Sites | East Carolina | Western Carolina | American Athletic Conference |
| Game Notes | East Carolina (PDF) | Western Carolina (PDF) | The American (PDF) |
| 2015 Football Statistics | East Carolina | Western Carolina |
| ECU Football Central | Roster | Fact Book (PDF) | The American | NCAA Football | College Scoreboard |
| Official Social Media Sites | |
| East Carolina | Western Carolina | The American | |
| East Carolina | ECUScoreboard (In-Game Updates) Western Carolina | The American |
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| Twitter Hashtags | #ECUPirates | #ECUGameday | #ECUndaunted | #ECUFootball #WesternCarolinaFootball | #AmericanRising | #WCUvsECU |
| East Carolina | The American | |
GREENVILLE, N.C. – East Carolina, which has made bowl appearances in eight of the last 10 seasons, will open the 2016 campaign and the Scottie Montgomery Era when the Pirates battle Western Carolina in a non-conference matchup at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
The contest against the Catamounts will mark the seventh time in the last eight years that ECU will open a season at home. The tilt will also represent the first of four non-league games on the Pirates' 2016 schedule, preceding meetings with NC State (Sept. 10/home), South Carolina (Sept. 17/road) and Virginia Tech (Sept. 24/road).
EAST CAROLINA RECORDS AND STREAKS
- Qualified for 10 bowl appearances since 2000 (three of the last four years) ...
- Has won 27 of the last 32 games when scoring 30 or more points ...
- Has lost 18-straight games when scoring 20 or less points (19-14 vs. UCF in '09/last win) ...
- Has won 18 of the last 20 games when gaining 200 or more rushing yards ...
- Has won 27 of the last 29 games when leading at the half ...
- Has won 11 of the last 15, 15 of the last 20 (and 19 of the last 25) home games ...
- Has won eight of the last 12 regular season non-conference games ...
- Has won seven of the last eight season openers ...
- Has won 10 of the last 11 home openers ...
- Has won 24-straight games against FCS opponents (24-1 overall record) ...
THE SERIES
East Carolina leads 17-13 ... The Pirates have won seven-straight in a series that dates back to 1936 ... ECU has taken 14 of the 19 matchups played in Greenville, while Western Carolina has captured eight of 11 contests in Cullowhee ... The Catamounts opened the series with victories in eight of the first 10 tilts.
Against THE FCS
The Pirates currently own a 24-game win streak and have recorded an all-time 24-1 record against programs that currently compete or competed on the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly NCAA Division I-AA) level when the game was played ... The lone setback, which occurred in the "first" contest, came against Eastern Kentucky (28-16) on Nov. 15, 1980 ... Among all of the Pirates' previous FCS opponents, Appalachian State (2-0), Georgia Southern (3-0), UCF (2-0), Southwest Texas State (1-0, now referred to as Texas State), have since made the transition to the FBS level.
EAST CAROLINA AGAINST THE SOUTHERN CONFERENCE
East Carolina has compiled an all-time record of 58-26-2 (.686) against current members of the Southern Conference ... In addition to the Pirates' 17-13 mark against Western Carolina, ECU is also 12-4 vs. The Citadel, 11-3 vs. Furman, 7-1 vs. VMI, 6-4-1 vs. East Tennessee State, 3-1-1 vs. Wofford and 2-0 vs. UT-Chattanooga ... ECU has never played Mercer (Macon, Ga.) or Samford (Birmingham, Ala.) on the gridiron.
SPEAKING OF THE SoCON ... PIRATE MEMORIES
East Carolina was an active member of the Southern Conference from 1965 to 1976, compiling a 43-18-1 (.702) record with four league titles - 1966 (4-1-1 under Clarence Stasavich), 1972 (6-0 under Sonny Randle), 1973 (7-0 under Randle) and 1976 (4-1 under Pat Dye).
PIRATE & CATAMOUNT CONNECTIONS
East Carolina Director of Athletics Jeff Compher served in a similar capacity at Western Carolina from 2000 to 2004 and was responsible for the hiring of head football coach Kent Briggs in 2002 ... Briggs headed the Catamount program for six years (2002-2007) and followed Bill Bleil, who coached the first two seasons during Compher's tenure ... Current ECU offensive coordinator Tony Petersen and Pirate offensive line mentor Geep Wade competed against WCU as student athletes at fellow Southern Conference institutions ... As a quarterback at Marshall, Petersen set 16 SoCon single-season and career passing record while leading the Thundering Herd to the 1987 NCAA Division I-AA National Championship Game ... Wade was team captain and an All-SoCon performer on the offensive line at UT-Chattanooga.
NON-LEAGUE STATISTICAL COMPARISONS
In its four (2-2) regular season non-conference contests last year, ECU averaged 31.3 points, 123.5 rushing yards, 298.5 passing yards and 422.0 total yards per game ... By comparison, the Pirates booked 25.5 ppg, 138.2 rypg, 272.6 pypg and 410.9 ypg averages in their eight (3-5) conference tilts in 2015.
WHAT'S BACK ... PRODUCTIVELY SPEAKING
Offensively, the Pirates return 49 percent of their rushing yards (781 of 1,600) and 21 percent of their passing yards (717 of 3,375) from a year ago ... On defense, East Carolina welcomes back nearly 59 percent of its tackles (519 of 885), but an impressive 88 percent of its turnover production (14 of 16; 6/8 interceptions and 8/8 fumble recoveries) … From a scoring standpoint, players who accounted for 229 of ECU's 329 points last season are on the 2016 active roster (70 percent).
AT DOWDY-FICKLEN STADIUM - 18-6 SINCE 2012
East Carolina's all-time record at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium is 180-90-1 (.666) ... 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, consecutive 5-1 marks in 2014, 2013 and 2012, a 3-3 ledger in 2011 and a 4-2 clip in 2010, ECU won a combined 10 of 12 home matchups in '09 (6-1) and '08 (4-1) ... Overall, East Carolina has turned in 39 winning campaigns at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium since 1963 ... The Pirates currently enjoy a run of victories in 11 of the last 15 games and 15 of the last 20.
THE PIRATE NATION - NEARING 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 attendance leader on an annual basis ... In all, a total of 7,943,686 fans have seen the Pirates in action since 1963, and in the last eight years, ECU has averaged 45,566 (2,141,623/47 regular season games) ... Since the completion of a 7,000-seat expansion project in 2010 that pushed Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium's capacity to 50,000, the Pirates have drawn 1,672,400 fans - recently cracking the 1.5 million mark when 50,514 watched ECU down Virginia Tech last Sept. 26 ... ECU set back-to-back school records in total attendance and season average attendance in 2011, breaking '10 marks(297,987/49,665) with 300,069 and 50,012 figures that year.
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 two programs that are either currently ranked or earning votes in the two major Top 25 polls - USF (RV) and Navy (RV). Collectively, the Pirates' opponents this season were a combined 74-78 (.487) a year ago.
CHARTING THE PIRATES MONTH-BY-MONTH
In all, ECU is 3-2-0 in August, 121-110-2 in September, 160-150-4 in October, 137-117-5 in November, 9-9-0 in December and 1-4-0 in January ... Although the Pirates have won 13 of their last 22 overall September games, ECU has posted a recent 6-9 record against non-conference foes in the ninth month.
SHUTOUT-FREE ... 231 AND COUNTING
ECU will enter the Western Carolina contest with an active streak of 231 games of not suffering a shutout - a school record (previous mark was 110 set from '71 to '81) ... The last time the Pirates were blanked was on Oct. 4, 1997 (56-0 at Syracuse) ... ECU's 231-game run currently ranks 14th among all active FBS streaks and is the 24th-longest in the all-time annals ... Florida currently sits atop the active leaderboard with 345 (began in 1988).
FIRST-TIME STARTERS?
There could be as many as 11 first-time ECU starters in the Pirates' lineup against Western Carolina Saturday - six on the offensive side of the ball (LT Justin Sandifer, LG Garrett McGhin, RG Will Dancy, QB Phil Nelson, RB Anthony Scott, TE Stephen Baggett) and five more on defense (ILB Pat Green, DE Mike Myers/Justin Brown, FCB Corey Seargent, SS Bobby Fulp, BCB Colby Gore) ... It is worth nothing however that Dancy (2/North Carolina) and Nelson (16/Minnesota) do have previous collegiate starting experience ... On the flipside, projected starters WR Quay Johnson (2014), OLB Dayon Pratt (2015) and ILB Cam White (2015) own just one start each heading into 2016.
LOSING THEIR (RED) SHIRTS
A total of 21 players have had their redshirts removed and experienced action as true freshman in the last five years - 2011 (2), 2012 (1), 2013 (5), 2014 (9) and 2015 (4/CB Corey Seargent, PK Caleb Pratt, RB Shawn Furlow, NT Justin Brown) ... The count could rise by five when Scottie Montgomery makes his head coaching debut against WCU on Saturday ... OLB Kendall Futrell, CB Colby Gore, OG Cortez Herrin, OT D'Ante Smith and DE Alex Turner are all included on the Pirates' opening depth chart.
ZAY'S STREAK
Senior WR Zay Jones has caught at least one pass in 35-straight games heading into the Western Carolina contest ... The streak, which began with a two-catch, 27-yard effort vs. North Carolina on Sept. 28, 2013, currently ranks in the top five among all active receivers ... His 12-catch, 124-yard effort vs. Cincinnati in the 2015 season finale (Nov. 28) represented the eighth double-digit reception outing and 10th triple-digit yard total of his ECU career … Jones has 15 career touchdown receptions and the Pirates are 12-2 when he snares a scoring catch (only losses were at Florida and BYU on Sept. 12 and Oct. 10, 2015, respectively) ... In addition to his No. 4 national rank in receptions per game (8.2), he stood 18th in receiving yards per game and 25th in receiving yards last season.
