East Carolina University
Connecticut
Gameday: ECU Heads North To UConn
November 21, 2019 | Football
| ECU at Connecticut (Game 11) | |
| Date | Saturday, Nov. 23 |
| Time | 12 Noon (EST) |
| Location | East Hartford, Conn. (Pratt & Whitney Stadium) |
| Tickets | Buy Tickets |
| Live Game Coverage | Radio: WNCT 107.9FM | TuneIn Radio Online Television: ESPN3 |
| Internet Options | Live Stats |
| Official Web Sites | ECU | UCONN | American Athletic Conference |
| Game Notes | ECU | UCONN | The American |
| 2019 Statistics | ECU | UCONN |
| ECU Football Central | ECU Media Hub | Roster | The American | NCAA Football | College Scoreboard |
| Official Social Media Sites | |
| ECU | The American | |
| ECU | ECU Football (in-game updates) | The American | |
| Twitter Hashtags | #ECUGameday | #PirateNation | #AmericanFB |
| ECU | The American | |
GREENVILLE, N.C. – East Carolina will close out its 2019 regular season road schedule when it travels to Connecticut on Saturday for a 12 noon (ET) American Athletic Conference matchup against the Huskies at Pratt & Whitney Stadium. After enjoying a bye week, the Pirates will try to post their fourth-straight win over UConn while also wrapping up a two-game road swing that began Nov. 9 with a 59-51 setback at No. 23 SMU. ECU will attempt to capture multiple road wins in the same season for the first time since 2015, which also marks the year of the Pirates' first-ever trip to Connecticut.
ECU RECORDS AND STREAKS
- Qualified for 10 bowl appearances since 2000 (eight in the last 13 years) ...
- Has thrown at least one TD pass in seven-straight games (and in 14 of the last 17 contests) ...
- Has averaged 47.0 points, 641.0 yards of total offense (516.5 passing) in its last two games ...
- Has scored in 11-straight redzone visits (5 TDs, 6 FGs) during its last three games ...
- Has successfully converted 12-straight field goal attempts in its last five games ...
- Has forced at least one turnover in nine-straight games (most since 2013) ...
- Has won 37 of its last 41 games when leading at the half ...
- Has won three-straight games against Connecticut ...
THE SERIES
East Carolina leads 4-1 in a series which only dates back to the Pirates' membership in The American (2014).
MIKE HOUSTON AGAINST THE HUSKIES
Including Mike Houston's prior eight-year tenure as a collegiate head coach at Lenoir-Rhyne, The Citadel and James Madison, Saturday's game will mark his first-ever meeting against Connecticut.
RANDY EDSALL AGAINST THE PIRATES
While Saturday's contest will be Randy Edsall's third against East Carolina as a head coach (2017, 2018), he also faced the Pirates twice as an assistant ... As defensive backs coach at Syracuse, his Orange took a pair of games against ECU with 38-14 and 18-16 victories in 1988 and 1989, respectively.
AN ASSOCIATION OF HUSKIES AND PIRATES
East Carolina and Connecticut each feature Skip Holtz on its all-time head coach roster page ... Holtz was 34-23 (.596) while guiding the Huskies for five seasons (1994-98) and later led the Pirates to a 38-27 (.585) mark, two Conference USA titles and an unprecedented run of four-straight bowl appearances from 2005 to 2009 before moving on to USF, and ultimately, Louisiana Tech ... In addition to Holtz, four other former ECU staffers have prior associations with UConn.
BYE WEEK BOUNCE BACK?
The Pirates haven't taken full advantage of bye weeks when looking at a 10-year perspective - winning only seven of their last 14 contests (and dropping fi ve in a row) following an open week since 2009 ... A closer look: 2009 (no true off -week), 2010 (L/UNC), 2011 (W/UAB), 2012 (W/TLN), 2013 (W/UNC, W/FIU), 2014 (W/ SMU, W/UConn, L/CIN), 2015 (W/UCF), 2016 (L/CIN), 2017 (L/UH), 2018 (L/USF, L/MEM) and 2019 (L/UCF) ... Since 1965, East Carolina is 30-24 in games after a break.
THE AMERICAN - YEAR SIX
East Carolina has posted an 82-73 (.529) all-time mark against current members of the American Conference ... The Pirates currently sport series records against Memphis (15-8), Cincinnati (13-10), Tulane (11-5), UCF (10-8), Tulsa (8-6), Temple (8-9), Houston (7-7), Connecticut (4-1), SMU (4-4), Navy (1-6) and USF (1-9).
THE EAST HAS BEEN A BEAST
East Carolina is 5-19 (3-10/home, 2-9/road) against American Athletic Conference opponents in its own East Division since the league began divisional play in 2015 ... A 44-7 win against UCF in 2015, a trio of victories vs. Connecticut (2016, 2017, 2018) and a triumph against Cincinnati in 2017 represents the only quintet of triumphs ... On the flipside, the Pirates own a 2-12 mark (1-5/home, 1-7/road) against AAC opponents in the West Division.
2019 East Opponents: Temple/L 27-17, @UCF/L 41-28, USF/L 45-20, Cincinnati/L 46-43, @UConn (Nov. 23)
2019 West Opponents: @Navy/L 42-10, @SMU/L 59-51, Tulsa (Nov. 30)
LEAGUE, NON-LEAGUE STATISTICAL COMPARISONS
The Pirates have averaged 28.2 points, 117.2 rushing yards, 322.5 passing yards and 439.7 total yards in their six (Navy, Temple, UCF, USF, Cincinnati, SMU) American Athletic Conference games of the 2019 season ... By comparison, ECU averaged 24.3 points, 195.8 rushing yards, 212.2 passing yards and 408.0 total yards per game in its four regular season non-conference contests this year ... The Pirates followed a 2-2 non-league ledger in 2018 with a 3-1 mark this fall and hope to improve their AAC record to 1-6 when they square off against UConn.
COMPARING 10-YEAR, 10-GAME RESULTS
Following its loss to SMU, East Carolina's 3-7 record matches recent 10-game marks that were posted in two of the last three seasons (2016, 2018) ... A victory over Connecticut would give ECU a 4-7 ledger, which would be the program's top 11-game clip since 2015 (5-6).
ON THE ROAD
Since becoming a conference member in 1997, ECU is 56-91 (.381) when playing away from Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium ... The Pirates snapped a 10-game road losing streak with a 24-21 win at Old Dominion on Sept. 28 and will try to capture two "away" victories (in the same season) for the first time since 2015 when they face UConn on Saturday ... From a league standpoint, ECU has dropped 10 straight (and 13 of the last 14) road contests ... The Pirates' last AAC triumph was a 41-38 nail-biter over the Huskies in East Hartford on Sept. 24, 2017.
THE PIRATE NATION - OVER 8.8 MILLION STRONG
ECU has usually been able to claim plenty of hometown support, even more so when playing at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium during the fall - establishing among conference attendance leaders on a near annual basis ... In all, a total of 8,866,638 fans have seen the Pirates in action since 1963, and since the completion of a 7,000-seat expansion project in 2010 (to push capacity to 50,000), the Pirates have drawn 2,595,352 fans (42,547 per game).
AMERICAN ATTENDANCE LEADERS (2014-2019)
Since becoming a member of the American Athletic Conference in 2014, East Carolina leads the league in overall attendance average over a collective five-plus-year period (39,225) … The Pirates have led the AAC in regular season attendance average three times - 2014, 2016 and 2017 ... Overall on the FBS level, ECU currently ranks 65th nationally in average (34,165) and 89th in capacity percentage (68.33).
ANYTIME, ANYWHERE
The Pirates have faced off against 16 regular season opponents from the "Autonomy Five" conferences in the last six-plus years ... Since 2013, East Carolina has captured wins in nearly half of those.
AGAINST NON-CONFERENCE OPPONENTS
Since accepting membership in a conference, the Pirates have produced a 38-55 (.409) regular season nonleague record ... ECU claimed its first winning non-conference mark since 2014 with a 3-1 ledger this year.
SHUTOUT-FREE ... 276 AND COUNTING
East Carolina will enter the Connecticut contest with an active streak of 276 games of not suffering a shutout - a school record (previous mark was 110 set from '71-'81) ... The last time the Pirates were blanked was on Oct. 4, 1997 (56-0 at Syracuse) ... ECU's 276-game run currently ranks among the Top 10 nationally (Florida/396 leads all programs).
CHARTING THE PIRATES MONTH-BY-MONTH
In all, East Carolina is 3-3-0 in August, 130-119-1 in September, 162-161-4 in October, 139-129-5 in November, 9-10-0 in December and 1-4-0 in January ... The Pirates will continue play in November vs. Connecticut on Saturday, a month in which East Carolina has lost 13 of its last 16 contests (and 16 of 21 since the 2013 campaign) ... On the road, ECU has dropped 10 of the last 12 - posting its last November win at UCF in 2015.
ROAD, BYE, ROAD ... TAKE III
East Carolina will close a two-game league road swing Saturday, visiting Connecticut after traveling to Dallas to meet SMU on Nov. 9 (before a bye week) ... Since their membership in the American Athletic Conference, the Pirates have encountered a similar scheduling scenario on two prior occasions: 2014: L/at Temple (Nov. 1), L/at Cincinnati (Nov. 13) and 2016: L/at USF (Oct. 8), L/at Cincinnati (Oct. 22) ... The latter listing was unscheduled but flooding associated with Hurricane Matthews forced a bye after the USF trip (i.e. Thursday night home contest vs. Navy on Oct. 13 was moved to Nov. 19).
UPDATING THE 2019 OVERALL SCHEDULE
East Carolina's 2019 opponents posted a combined 70-77 (.476) record in 2018 and are currently 60-61 (.496) this season ... The Pirates' four non-conference foes are currently 12-30 (.286), while the eight AAC squads have combined for a 48-31 (.608) mark ... Two of ECU's league opponents are nationally ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll (Cincinnati/9-1, SMU/9-1), while three more are bowl eligible (UCF, Temple, Navy).
BEEN THROUGH THE WARS
ECU's (10) assistant coaches bring an impressive 181 combined years of full-time Division I coaching experience to the Pirate program ... In addition, members of Mike Houston's staff have also turned in 33 combined seasons as a coordinator at college football's top level (FBS) ...ECU's staff also has two former collegiate head coaches - Donnie Kirkpatrick (Chattanooga/2000-02) and Byron Thweatt (Virginia State/2015).
LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
The Pirates return 63.8 percent of their lettermen from a year ago, yet features a lineup which includes 49 freshmen (32 true, 17 redshirt) - which represents 46.7 percent of ECU's 2019 roster (and stands among the Top 20 "youngest" teams nationally).
FIRST-TIME STARTERS
East Carolina has featured 12 first-time starters in its first nine games this year – nine on the offensive side of the ball (RG Sean Bailey, TE Zech Byrd, RB Trace Christian, OR Jsi Hatfield, RT Noah Henderson, OR C.J. Johnson, RB Demetrius Mauney, RT Matt Morgan, OR Mydreon Vines) and three more on defense (ILB Myles Berry, CB Ja'Quan McMillian, OLB Gerard Stringer) ... The Pirates had 19 first-time starters in '18 after "introducing" a program-record 25 first-timers a year earlier in 2017.
2019 REDSHIRT TRACKER - TRUE FRESHMEN
The Pirates have utilized 12 true freshmen so far in 2019 - six on offense, four on defense and two on special teams - and seven have surpassed the four-game "limit" mandated by the NCAA: ST Alex Angus (2 games played), DL Rick D'Abreu (9), CB Malik Fleming (10), QB Bryan Gagg (1), IR Jsi Hatfield (10), DL Immanuel Hickman (2), OR C.J. Johnson (10), TE Jeremy Lewis (9), RB Demetrius Mauney (10), CB Ja'Quan McMillian (10), ST Juan Powell (2) and OL Nishad Strother (1).
2019 REDSHIRT TRACKER - RETURNERS
East Carolina also has five players who experienced action (and started) in previous seasons and never used a redshirt season that have played in less than four games during the 2019 campaign: sophomore DB Nolan Johnson (3 games played), sophomore DL D'Angelo McKinnie (2), junior RB Darius Pinnix (2), sophomore OL Peyton Winstead (0) and senior DB Michael Witherspoon (2) ... Additionally, eligible junior transfer OL Bailey Malovic (3) is also included on the list with two contests remaining.
TOP PASSING UNIT IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Since joining the AAC in 2014, the Pirates lead the league in passing yards over a combined five-plus-year period despite utilizing eight starting quarterbacks, four offensive coordinators and three head coaches: 1. East Carolina (22,237), 2. Memphis (21,767), 3. Houston (19,245), 4. Cincinnati (19,053) and 5. UCF (18,909) ... In addition, the Pirates also top the league in completions (1,883) and attempts (3,128) ... ECU has also accounted for a conference-high 18 400-yard passing games.
1K RECEIVER = LOOKING FOR EIGHT-STRAIGHT YEARS
ECU has featured at least one 1,000-yard receiver in seven-straight seasons (heading into the 2019 campaign), which ranks first at the FBS level ... ECU 1,000-yard receivers include: 2012 Justin Hardy (1,105), 2013 Hardy (1,284), 2014 Hardy (1,494) and Cam Worthy (1,016), 2015 Zay Jones (1,099), 2016 Jones (1,746), 2017 Trevon Brown (1,069) and 2018 Brown (1,123) ... ECU also has the top two receivers in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision history by career receptions in Jones (399 from 2013-16) and Hardy (387 from 2011-2014) and have produced 10 1,000-yard pass catchers over the last decade.
DUO TOPPING ROOKIE RECEIVERS
C.J. Johnson (682) and Tyler Snead (578) rank fi st and second among all East Carolina freshmen pass-catchers through the first 10 games in the Pirates' modern day history.
OUTINGS TO REMEMBER
C.J. Johnson (12-283 vs. Cincinnati) and Tyler Snead (19-240 vs. SMU) have turned in two of the top five outings by a receiver at the FBS level in 2019.
THROWING THE CLOCK BACK ...
East Carolina established a school single-game record with 535 passing yards against Cincinnati before following with a 498-yard clip at SMU in back-to-back weeks, bringing back memories of the Pirates' "Air Raid" days from 2010 to 2014 ... ECU's combined 1,033 air yards are the most compiled in successive weeks on the FBS level in 2019.
... BUT WANTING TO RUN IT FORWARD
Despite the aforementioned recent aerial eff ort vs. the Bearcats and Mustangs, Mike Houston's desire is to establish the run first ... That said, his 2019 squad (+31) is the first ECU team since 2009 (+60) to have more rushing attempts than pass attempts through its first 10 games ... Additionally, the Pirates' 1,486 ground yards stands as the sixth-highest in the last 20 seasons (in the same 10-game span).
LIGHTNING STRIKES
The Pirates have already turned in 63 "big plays" (20+ yards) in 2019 - an average of 6.3 per contest - the most since 2014 with two games remaining ... The most noticeable improvement has been in ECU's rushing attack, which has produced 16 long gainers - already surpassing full-season totals turned in by the 2016 (10) and 2017 (7) squads, while only one shy of the entire 2018 collection ... The top five Pirates' big play producing units include: 2014 (93), 2013 (65), 2019 (63), 2018 (60) and 2016 (60).
TOUCHDOWNS ON THE GO
Because of the aforementioned big play production, the Pirates don't waste much time getting into the endzone .... Although East Carolina averages 6.6 plays per touchdown drive in 2019, it has only taken an average of 2:20 to reach paydirt ... In fact, not a single TD drive has exceeded the 5:00 mark - 21 of the 27 successful possessions (78 percent) have been under 3:59 - including five of the Pirates' six TDs vs. SMU.
BALL SECURITY
Despite being represented by plenty of youth on offense and on their special teams return units, the Pirates have committed only 14 turnovers through the first 10 contests - third-fewest in a recent 20-year snapshot of program history.
AHLERS (STARTS) AT-A-GLANCE
Sophomore QB Holton Ahlers took over the starting position in Game 7 of the 2018 season (UCF) and is already nearing 4,500 aerial yards (with 28 TDs).
DEFENDING DIFFERENTLY ... X3-PLUS
The Pirates are one of 11 FBS programs to employ three-plus different defensive coordinators in the last three seasons - Alabama, Akron, Bowling Green, Coastal Carolina, ECU, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Louisville, Temple, Tennessee and Texas State.
A RUN OF TAKEAWAYS
East Carolina has forced at least one turnover in nine-straight contests, the longest streak by a Pirate defense since a 10-game run in 2013 ... ECU's 2009 unit holds the record with a takeaway in all 14 outings that year.
FUTRELL'S SACK RACK
Senior Kendall Futrell's nine sacks ranks as the second-highest total in a 10-game Span (Nate Harvey 11.0 in 2018) for an East Carolina pass rusher since 2000.
SPECIALTY SCORING
Tyler Snead's record-tying 100-yard kickoff return against USF on Oct. 26 marked the Pirates' second special teams touchdown of the season (following Warren Saba's blocked punt return vs. ODU) - the most by an East Carolina squad since 2009.
THIS & THAT ...
INDIVIDUALLY: LT D'Ante Smith (23 games) and DT Alex Turner (22) own the program's longest starting streaks on offense and defense entering the UConn contest ... IR Deondre Farrier has an active streak of recording at least one reception in 22-straight contests heading into the UConn tilt (last five in '17, all seven games played in '18 and all 10 outings in '19) ... OR C.J. Johnson, who currently leads ECU with 44 catches for 682 yards, has posted triple-digit receiving yardage totals in three of the last five games (TEM/100, UCF/106, CIN/283) ... OR Blake Proehl has two century-mark reception yard totals in 2019 - 100 at ODU (on just 2 grabs) and 105 vs. CIN (8 catches) ... ECU was only four yards shy of having a "triple-triple" against the Bearcats as IR/OR Jsi Hatfield recorded a career-best 96 yards on 6 receptions ... OR Audi Omotosho had two catches (77 yards) at SMU - his fi rst "statistic" since a 37-yarder at NC State in the opener ... RB Demetrius Mauney's 433 rushing yards are the most by an ECU freshman running back through 10 games since Chris Johnson had 546 in 2004 ... DE Kendall Futrell has booked at least one TFL in eight of 10 contests this year (Navy, SMU) ... CB Ja'Quan McMillian's three (3) interceptions are the most by a rookie Pirate defender since Emanuel Davis had four (4) in 2008 ... SS Daniel Charles picked off a pair of passes vs. CIN, the first multi-INT performance by an ECU DB since 2014 (Lamar Ivey vs. CIN) ... RS/IR Tyler Snead has posted over 100 all-purpose yards in four-straight games (UCF/107, USF/222, CIN/102, SMU/276) and scored 6 TDs in his last 4 games (5 receiving, 1 KOR) ... At 5-foot-7, Snead is the third-shortest (by height) returner at the FBS level in 2019, towering above Oregon State's Champ Flemings (5-5), New Mexico's Chad Alexander (5-6) and Arizona's J.J. Taylor (5-6) ... The Pirates have received the opening kickoff in nine of 10 contests in 2019 (2-8 on coin tosses) ... East Carolina has already blocked two punts this season (Warren Saba/ODU, Leroy Henley/UCF), the most in a "full" season since 2015 (SMU, BYU) ... ECU has utilized only 14 defensive starters through 10 games this season - the fewest since 2000.
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