GREENVILLE, N.C. - South Carolina has an abundance of weapons offensively including Marcus Lattimore at running back that will give the Pirates plenty of challenges on Saturday.

East Carolina third year defensive coordinator Brian Mitch has been in these situations both as a player on the college and NFL level and as a coach.

"The plan started back in the spring when (defensive end coach)Mark Yellock said I'm going to give some of these young guys a chance to get some reps at those positions and it's paying bigtime dividends for us because he's doing it again this fall camp. Those guys went in there and performed flawlessly and they were exact in their assignments. And you talk about making plays and they were doing it down after down."

Dealing with the run game of the Gamecocks and Lattimore will be much of the key defensively for ECU. Mitchell talked about
how you gameplan for that.

"I don't know how you prepare it, he(Lattimore) was the number one player in America coming out as a high school player and he's an All American. We don't have any All Americans on the scout team, but what you try to do is similate as much as you possibly can the formations of plays and let the kids have recognition on certain plays so we can key in on certain things that they like to do."

Montese Overton returns this week from a concussion and Mitchell is excited about his availability as well as Leonard Paulk's return in the secondary. Both will add to the complement of players that he has to utilize this Saturday.

Mitchell brings PirateIllustrated.com up to date on what to expect this weekend defensively from ECU and who he expects to step up for the Pirates as Gamecock Week continues.

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