ECU Conducts First Fall Scrimmage

GREENVILLE, N.C. – East Carolina conducted its first intra-squad scrimmage of preseason camp Saturday morning inside Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium with all three levels of the offense, defense and special teams in a controlled scrimmage under hot and humid summer conditions.

The scrimmage is the first of two for the Pirates under sixth-year head coach Mike Houston before the group turns their focus to the season opener on Aug. 31 against Norfolk State in Greenville. ECU is scheduled to return to practice Monday, Aug. 12, to kickstart their last week of fall camp before classes Aug. 19.

Coach Houston Opening Statement:
"Sun came back out, so it's good to get that. It's been a rough week with trying to get practices in. It's just dodging the lightning and dodging the storms. But I'm glad we got great weather today. The field is in great shape. We got a great scrimmage in. I don't know how many plays we went, but we went about two hours. So I'd say probably close to 150 or 175 plays. A lot of great special team's work. Really excited about what we're doing on special teams. I think Coach (Andre) Powell has just brought some innovative stuff. He's putting kids in the right spots to be successful. We saw a lot of that on the field today and can't wait to watch it on film. As far as offense and defense goes, there's bright spots for both sides, and then there was some sloppiness that you usually have in the first scrimmage. The key is we've got to clean the sloppy stuff up.

"Got some young kids that need to grow up. This is college football, and they've got to learn that when they step on that field, it's not going to be all nice and easy and sunshine and rainbows all the time. You're going to have to push through some stuff. We got a lot of that going on. But overall, really good day. Excited to get in here and watch the film because it's our first real game action since the Spring Game."

On If He Can Evaluate The Quarterbacks Before Seeing The Film:
"No, I don't want to do that. I think both of them had some positive plays, and both of them made some mistakes. We've just got to go in there and look at what they did, and look at the mistakes they made, and decisions, why we're making those and this. But I want to just take a good look at the film first."

On How He Balances The Turnovers As The Head Coach:
"You're mad and you're excited. You have a great play by Andrew Wilson-Lamp on the trap coverage out there. I'm excited because we broke that pass up about three or four times this week, and we should have made the play. We didn't make it, and we made the play today. But now the quarterback has got to recognize the coverage pre-snap. The safety is telling him what's going on, so he's got to see that. It's a bit of both."

On If The Younger Guys Struggling In Camp Is Typical:
"I think it's typical during preseason camp. I still remember my freshman year of preseason camp. Anybody that ever-played college football does. It's like getting hit in the face with a frying pan. Mom's not here to pat you on the back and tell you it's going to be okay. You've got to push through. That's just part of growing up and becoming a young man. Not everybody can do it. Not everybody can play this sport. But you either got to grow up and learn how to push through it, or you're not going to play."

On How Javious Bond Has Been During Camp:
"Oh, he's been good. I feel great about Rahjai (Harris), and Marlon (Gunn), and Javious. I know Marlon has been dinged up, but he's going to be fine. You feel really good about those three. We've just got to figure out who's number four. Right now, I don't know who that is, but those three have had a really solid start to this season camp."

On How The Offense Is Doing Handling The Tempo And Playbook:
"Well, that's a lot of the sloppiness. It's one thing to go out and you practice, and coach is standing out there next to you and Coach (John David) Baker is controlling it. Now, getting this situation right here, which is going to be very similar to the 31st, you've got to operate on your own. You don't have a coach behind you telling you to cut your split or widen or whatever. We're able to talk to the quarterback, which there's a lot of that today, so I think that's good. But you've got to learn to play the game, game day situations, and that's where we've got to grow this week."

On If The Lack Of Maturity Is Guys Not Paying Attention:
"Well, anybody that's ever played this game knows exactly what I'm saying, is when you step out there on that field, it's going to have some adversity. Every snap is going to have some adversity. You're not allowed to just, 'Well, I don't want to do this. I'm going to go stand over here.' It doesn't work like that. You've got to learn to push through hard stuff. If you don't learn to push through hard stuff, you're never going to do anything. That's football, life, whatever. You've got to learn how to do hard things. But I know some guys really struggled with that."

On The Tight Coverage And Tight Window Throws With The First And Second Teams:
"It's been good. I'm pleased with the secondary. I think that, obviously, we can't replace Julius Wood. There's only one JuJu. But you've got some guys out there that I think will give us the ability to do a lot of things that maybe we haven't been able to do, probably since I've been here. We have the ability to play a lot of different coverages, and we've got some veteran guys. So. I'm very pleased with the secondary and how we're playing."

On If He Feels Like They're Behind With Practice Due To The Tropical Storm This Week:
"Yeah, a little bit. I can't do anything about it. You've got to be able to go in and try to practice in a gymnasium when you can get in the gym. That isn't the same as going on the field and practicing. But that's... Hey, nobody going to feel sorry for us. We got to catch up. We're going to have a great week this week. Hopefully, the weather will give us the opportunities to have the practices we want to have. Then I expect us to have a really good scrimmage next Saturday."

Players Mentioned

Javious Bond

Andrew Wilson-Lamp

Julius Wood

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