East Carolina University
West Virginia
Gameday: ECU Travels To West Virginia
September 07, 2017 | Football
| East Carolina Game 2: West Virginia | |
| Date: | Saturday, Sept. 9 |
| Time: | 12 Noon (EDT) |
| Location: | Morgantown, W.Va. (Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium) |
| Tickets & Parking: | Game Tickets | Parking Information |
| Live Game Coverage: | Radio: WNCT 107.9FM | TuneIn Radio Online Television: FS2 (Suddenlink 506, 556; DirecTV 618; Spectrum 401; DISH Network 149) |
| Internet Options: | Live Stats |
| Official Web Sites: | East Carolina | West Virginia | American Athletic Conference |
| Game Notes: | East Carolina (PDF) | West Virginia (PDF) | The American (PDF) |
| 2017 Football Statistics: | East Carolina | West Virginia |
| ECU Football Central: | Roster | Fact Book (PDF) | The American | NCAA Football | College Scoreboard |
| Official Social Media Sites | |
| Facebook: | East Carolina | West Virginia | The American |
| Twitter: | East Carolina | ECUScoreboard (In-Game Updates) l West Virginia | The American |
| Twitter Hashtags: | #ECUPirates | #ECUndaunted | #ECUFootball | #AmericanFB |
| Instagram: | East Carolina | The American |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – ECU will open its 2017 road schedule when the Pirates travel to Morgantown Saturday to meet West Virginia at Milan Puskar Stadium. The tilt against the Mountaineers will also represent the second of four non-league games on ECU's slate, following a 34-14 setback against defending FCS champion James Madison last week and preceding home meetings with Virginia Tech (Sept. 16) and BYU (Oct. 21). The Pirates will also try to improve to 1-1 for the fourth time in the last six seasons and avoid their fi rst 0-2 start since 2011.
EAST CAROLINA RECORDS AND STREAKS
- Qualified for 10 bowl appearances since 2000 (three of the last five years) ...
- Has won 30 of the last 37 games when scoring 30 or more points ...
- Has won 19 of the last 22 games when gaining 200 or more rushing yards ...
- Has accounted for 400 or more yards of total offense in 11 of the last 13 games ...
- Has won 29 of the last 31 games when leading at the half ...
- Has won 10 of the last 17 regular season non-conference games ...
- Has lost six straight regular season road games (44-7 vs. UCF in '15/last win) ...
- Has lost 23-straight games when scoring 20 or less points (19-14 vs. UCF in '09/last win) ...
AGAINST NON-CONFERENCE OPPONENTS
Since accepting membership in a conference, the Pirates have produced a 32-50 (.390) regular season non-league record ... ECU claimed its first winning non-conference mark since 1999 (a program-best 5-0 clip) with a 3-1 ledgers in 2013 and 2014 before following with 2-2 marks in 2015 and 2016.
THE SERIES
West Virginia leads 18-3 ... The Pirates have dropped all 13 meetings played in Morgantown, but have split their last four games in Greenville ... ECU halted a seven-game Mountaineer winning streak by posting a 24-3 victory over the then No. 8 Mountaineers on Sept. 6, 2008.
SCOTTIE MONTGOMERY AGAINST WEST VIRGINIA
Saturday's meeting against West Virginia will be ECU Head Coach Scottie Montgomery's first-ever matchup against the Mountaineers - both as a player, assistant coach or head coach ... The last time Duke and WVU faced off was in 1985, well before Montgomery's playing (1996-99) and coaching days (2006-09, 2013-15) with the Blue Devils.
DANA HOLGORSEN AGAINST ECU
While Dana Holgorsen has never faced the Pirates as a head coach, he did square off against ECU on a combined three occasions as a member of the Texas Tech and Houston staffs ... Two of the three meetings were post-season encounters in which the Pirates recorded high-scoring victories.
MONTGOMERY AGAINST HOLGORSEN
ECU's Scottie Montgomery and West Virginia's Dana Holgorsen will stand on opposite sidelines (in the same game) for the first time on Saturday in Morgantown.
ECU AGAINST THE BIG 12 CONFERENCE
ECU has compiled an all-time record of 6-19 (.240) against current members of the Big 12 Conference ... In addition to the Pirates' 3-18 ledger against West Virginia, ECU is 2-1 against TCU and 1-0 vs. Texas Tech ... ECU has never played Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State or Texas on the gridiron.
WEST VIRGINIA AGAINST THE AMERICAN
West Virginia has posted a 79-30-1 (.723) all-time mark against current members of the American Athletic Conference ... The Mountaineers have faced Temple (24-12), East Carolina (18-3), Cincinnati (16-3-1), Connecticut (7-1), Tulane (4-2), USF (4-3), UCF (2-0), Navy (2-6), SMU (1-0) and Tulsa (1-0) ... WVU has never played Houston and Memphis in the sport of football ... A 30-27 victory over USF in Tampa on Dec. 1, 2011 represents West Virginia's last matchup against a current AAC opponent.
PIRATE-MOUNTAINEER CONNECTIONS
West Virginia QB Will Grier's father Chad earned one letter as ECU's signal-caller in 1990, completing 11-of-19 passes for 95 yards (as a back-up to starter and Pirate Hall of Famer Jeff Blake) ... Saturday's meeting won't be ECU's first against the younger Grier however ... As Florida's QB in 2015, Grier completed 10-of-17 passes for 151 yards and a pair of TDs to lift the Gators to a 31-24 win in Gainesville on Sept. 12 ... On the flipside, he was also sacked once (-9 yards by ILB Jordan Williams) and intercepted once (SS Bobby Fulp) by players who currently hold starting positions on the Pirates' defense ... ECU DT Tyree Owens signed with the Mountaineer program in 2014 and spent that season as a redshirt before transferring to Copiah Lincoln (Miss.) CC in 2015.
NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULING ... ANYTIME, ANYWHERE
ECU is the only program in the nation to play at least three non-conference games against P6 (including Notre Dame & BYU) opponents in each of the last fi ve years, including the 2017 campaign ... Moving forward, the Pirates currently have two P6 tilts scheduled in 2018 (North Carolina, Virginia Tech), two in 2019 (NC State, Virginia Tech) and three in 2020 (West Virginia, Virginia Tech, South Carolina).
ROAD OPENERS
ECU will try to snap a three-game road opener losing streak when it travels to West Virginia Saturday ... After defeating North Carolina 55-31 in 2013, the Pirates followed by falling to South Carolina (2014), Florida (2015) and the Gamecocks again (2016) in successive "away" game lid lifters ... Since 2000, ECU is 4-12 in road openers.
NON-LEAGUE STATISTICAL COMPARISONS
In its four regular season non-conference contests last year, ECU averaged 29.3 points, 155.8 rushing yards, 368.0 passing yards and 523.8 total yards per game ... By comparison, the Pirates booked 25.9 ppg, 120.8 rypg, 318.0 pypg and 438.8 ypg averages in their eight conference tilts in 2016.
WHAT'S BACK ... PRODUCTIVELY SPEAKING
Offensively, the Pirates return just 16 percent of their rushing yards (256 of 1,589) and 34 percent of their passing yards (1,347 of 4,016) from a year ago ... On defense, ECU welcomes back over 47 percent of its tackles (405 of 857), but a more impressive 63 percent of its turnover production (five of eight; 3/5 interceptions and 2/3 fumble recoveries) … From a scoring standpoint, players who accounted for 98 of ECU's 324 points last season are on the 2017 active roster (30 percent).
ON THE ROAD - CLOSE TO .500 SINCE 2012
Since becoming a conference member in 1997, ECU is 54-78 (.409) when playing away from Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium ... Before an 0-6 clip last year, a 2-4 ledger in 2015, a 3-4 mark in 2014 and a 5-2 record in 2013, the Pirates were a combined 15-21 from 2008 to 2012 ... From a regular season standpoint, the Pirates have won 11 of the last 27 road contests dating back to 2012 (8-10 in conference play, 3-6 in non-conference action) ... ECU will look to snap a six-game road losing skid and hand head coach Scottie Montgomery his first win away from Greenville when it travels to West Virginia this weekend ... The Pirates' last "away" triumph was a 44-7 victory at UCF on Nov. 19, 2015.
MISSING THE PIRATE NATION - 8 MILLION STRONG
ECU 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 a national attendance leader on a near annual basis ... In all, a total of 8,248,535 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, 2016) ... Since the completion of a 7,000-seat expansion project in 2010 (to push capacity to 50,000), the Pirates have drawn 1,977,249 fans - just 22,751 shy of 2 million.
ATTENDANCE LEADERS
ECU topped all "Non-Autonomy" conference members in attendance in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 ... Overall, ECU ranked 53rd nationally in average attendance (44,113) and 50th in capacity percentage (88.23) during the 2016 campaign ... A closer look: 1. ECU (53rd/44,113), 2. Houston (58th/38,953), 3. USF (60th/37,539), 4. Memphis (61st/37,346), 5. San Diego State (62nd/37,289) ... ECU has drawn at least 40,000 fans to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in 21 of its last 23 home games dating back to 2013, which includes last week's season opener vs. James Madison (40,169) ... The only "exceptions" were a Thursday night matchup against Temple on October 22, 2015 (39,417) and the 2016 home finale against Navy (39,480).
ANALYZING THE 2017 OVERALL SCHEDULE
Overall, the Pirates '17 schedule features contests against eight teams which advanced to bowl games a year ago - West Virginia (Russell Athletic), Virginia Tech (Belk), BYU (Poinsettia), USF (Birmingham), UCF (AutoNation Cure), Temple (Military), Memphis (Boca Raton) and Houston (Las Vegas) ... Of ECU's five road games, four will be against 2016 bowl qualifiers ... Six of the Pirates' FBS opponents this year were either ranked or received votes in college football's two major polls (Associated Press, Coaches) to end the 2016 season - Virginia Tech (16/16), West Virginia (18/17) and USF (19/19) were among the Top 25, while BYU, Temple and Houston each received votes ... ECU's four non-conference opponents were a combined 43-12 (.782) a year ago, while the Pirates' eight American Conference foes posted a collective 55-47 (.539) record ... The Pirates' 2017 non-conference slate, which includes FCS national champion JMU, was ranked as the toughest nationally by USA Today.
CHARTING THE PIRATES MONTH-BY-MONTH
In all, ECU is 3-2-0 in August, 123-113-2 in September, 161-153-4 in October, 137-121-5 in November, 9-9-0 in December and 1-4-0 in January ... Although the Pirates were 2-2 last season (and have won 15 of their last 27 overall September games), ECU has posted a recent 8-12 record against non-conference foes in the ninth month, which includes the season-opening loss to James Madison last week.
SHUTOUT-FREE ... 243 AND COUNTING
ECU will enter the West Virginia contest with an active streak of 243 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).
LOSING THEIR (RED) SHIRTS
A total of 32 players have had their redshirts removed and experienced action as true freshmen in the last five-plus years - 2012 (1), 2013 (5), 2014 (9), 2015 (4), 2016 (9) and 2017 (4) ... As previously mentioned, the count increased by four last week as TE Ben Norris, RB Darius Pinnix, OL John Spellacy and WR Mydreon Vines all experienced action vs. James Madison in the opener.
FIRST-TIME STARTERS
ECU featured 11 first-time starters in its lineup against James Madison Saturday – four on the offensive side of the ball (LT D'Ante Smith, LG Cortez Herrin, RG Austin Lee, RB Derrell Scott), six more on defense (DT Tyree Owens, DE Gaelin Elmore, ILB Ray Tillman, CB Travis Phillips, FS Korrin Wiggins, PIR Tim Irvin) and one on special teams (P Austin Barnes) ... It is worth nothing however that Scott (Tennessee), Owens (West Virginia), Elmore (Minnesota), Wiggins (Clemson), Irvin (Auburn) and Barnes (Eastern Michigan) are FBS transfers.
A QUARTET OF OPENING DAY QUARTERBACKS
When junior Gardner Minshew took the opening snap against James Madison last Saturday, it enabled ECU to become one of 19 FBS programs nationally to feature its fourth different opening day starting quarterback - joining Shane Carden (2014), Blake Kemp (2015) and Philip Nelson (2016) ... Other programs to have four different signal-callers open the last four campaigns include Alabama, Auburn, Boston College, Florida, Hawai'i, Louisiana-Lafayette, North Texas, Notre Dame, Old Dominion, Oregon, Oregon State, Rutgers, San Jose State, South Alabama, South Carolina, Texas A&M, UTEP and Wisconsin.
TOP PASSING UNIT IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Since joining the American Athletic Conference in 2014, the Pirates lead the league in passing yards per game over a combined three-plus-year period despite utilizing five starting quarterbacks, three offensive coordinators and two head coaches: 1. ECU (329.4), 2. Cincinnati (303.8), 3. Tulsa (285.8). In addition, the Pirates also top the conference in completions and attempts since joining the AAC over the last three seasons.
RECEIVER U
ECU has the top two receivers in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision history by career receptions in Zay Jones (399 from 2013-16) and Justin Hardy (387 from 2011-2014) ... Marshall and Nevada are the only other schools with multiple Top 20 all-time FBS pass catchers ... In terms of FBS single-season reception leaders, the Pirates are just one of two programs (Nevada) to have three entries in the Top 25 listings - 1. Jones (158/2016), 20. Hardy (121/2014), 25. Hardy (114/2013).
SPREADING IT AROUND
ECU was one of just nine programs to have three players with 45 or more catches in 2016 along with Colorado, Fresno State, Houston, Indiana, Middle Tennessee State, Syracuse, Virginia and Washington State.
KEEPING IT IN THE EASTERN TIME ZONE
Since becoming a conference member (1997), ECU has played just two opponents from outside the Eastern Time Zone - Alabama (in Birmingham in 1998) and BYU (in Provo in 2015) ... To extend the trend, the Pirates aren't scheduled to leave the "ET" for a non-league contest through 2021.
NEW COACHES, SAME LEAGUE
Robert Prunty (Cincinnati) and Keith Gaither (Temple), who both joined the Pirates' staff this year, are two of 22 coaches nationally at the FBS level this year to switch schools but stay in the same league.
TRANSFORMATION: PRO PLAYER TO COLLEGE HEAD COACH
ECU's Scottie Montgomery's last active year as a player in the NFL was in 2003 ... Only Minnesota's P.J. Fleck (2005) and Texas Tech's Kliff Kingsbury (2005) were active in the NFL more recently (than Montgomery) among all current FBS head coaches ... Montgomery also played for the Georgia Force in the AFL (2005) and is one of seven current FBS head coaches to have played "indoor" pro football, joining Bret Bielema (Arkansas), Jimbo Fischer (Florida State), Justin Fuente (Virginia Tech), Tim Lester (Western Michigan), Mike Neu (Ball State) and Nick Rolovich (Hawai'i).
4TH DOWN DECISIONS - FULL SPEED AHEAD
The Pirates ranked fifth nationally among all FBS programs in 4th down conversions (21) and fifth in attempts (35) during the 2016 campaign as then-first-year head coach Scottie Montgomery more than doubled the tries made by ECU in 2015 (17) ... The 35 attempts were the most by a Pirate squad since 1996 ... Montgomery didn't deviate from his first-year norm in the opener vs. James Madison last Saturday, attempting five fourth-down conversions - matching Northwestern as the most during the first weekend of play.
THIS AND THAT
INDIVIDUAL NOTES: OT Brandon Smith (24 games) and DE Kiante Anderson/ILB Jordan Williams (6) own the program's longest starting streaks on their respective side of the ball entering the West Virginia contest ... WR Jimmy Williams extended his streak with at least one reception to 14 games (did not have a catch against USF on Nov. 7, 2015) ... As a starter, QB Gardner Minshew has completed 44-of-77 (57.1%) passes for 503 yards and four touchdowns in three games (Navy/Temple in '16, James Madison in '17) ... He set career-highs in completions (29), attempts (49) and passing yards (336) against Tulsa in a relief role before tossing a personal-best three TDs (40, 6, 77-yarders) vs. the Mids in his first career start last Nov. 19 ... Minshew also appeared on the Netflix series Last Chance U (Season 1/Episode 5) while playing at Northwest Mississippi Community College ... Graduate transfer QB Thomas Sirk had quite a memorable game during his last official collegiate start (sat out 2016 with an injury), earning Co-MVP honors at the New Era Pinstripe Bowl after 17-of-37, 163-yard passing and 155-yard rushing (20 carries) performances vs. Indiana at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 26, 2015 ... He came off the bench in his Pirate debut and completed 21-of-35 passes for 210 yards while directing both ECU scoring drives ... ILB Jordan Williams, who led ECU in tackles last year and was included on SI.com's Freak List (nation's top 40 workout warriors in college football), has posted three or more stops in 16 of his last 17 contests ... He matched a career best with 14 stops in the opener vs. JMU ... P Austin Barnes enjoyed a successful ECU debut by posting a 49.2 average (4-197) - the highest single game clip by a Pirate punter since Worth Gregory's 55.5 mark at Tulsa in 2014 ... WR Davon Grayson made his long-awaited return count by matching his career-high (set initially in 2013) with seven receptions vs. JMU (for 86 yards).
TEAM NOTES: The Pirates' streak of throwing at least one TD pass was snapped at 14 games against James Madison ... ECU has now recorded a scoring throw in 63 of their last 70 games ... With a pair of ground scores vs. JMU, ECU has now tallied at least one rushing TD in five of the last six outings (none vs. Temple in '16 finale) ... The Pirates broke a four-game takeaway drought by netting two vs. the Dukes (one interception, one fumble recovery) ... ECU has racked up 400 or more yards of total offense in 11 of its last 13 games (225 vs. Temple, 362 vs. JMU) ... The Pirates' defense has surrendered only a combined 51 completions in their last four games (an average of just 12.8 per contest) ... ECU suffered its first home first-half shutout (vs. JMU) since Sept. 15, 2007 when Southern Miss jumped out to a 14-0 intermission lead before winning the game 28-21.
