Carden Named C-USA MVP

IRVING, Texas ­ East Carolina junior quarterback Shane Carden has been named Conference USA¹s Most Valuable Player according to announcement by the league office Wednesday. Carden is the second Pirate to take home MVP honors following Dwayne Harris¹ selection in 2010.

Carden, who became the first ECU QB to earn First-Team All C-USA honors, has guided the Pirates to a 9-3 overall record and its seventh bowl appearance in the last eight years. East Carolina will travel to St. Petersburg, Fla. to take on the Ohio Bobcats in the 2013 Beef ŒO¹Brady¹s Bowl on December 23.

The Houston, Texas prep product has passed for a league-high 3,866 yards, completing a nation-best 71.0 percent of his passes (358-of-504) with 32 TDs - finding an FBS-best 10 different receivers for at least one score. He has also added 10 ground scores to rank second on the team behind Vintavious Cooper¹s 11.

A four-time C-USA Player-of-the-Week honoree, Carden has engineered a Pirate offense that has racked up 500 yards or more of total offense five times, including a pair of 600-plus yard contests. He is the lone C-USA quarterback with two 400-plus passing yards in a game this season (447/ODU, 480/Tulane) and has authored a league-best seven 300-yard air efforts.

The Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award semifinalist, who is on pace to break the school's single-season completions and passing yards record, has already set the ECU single-game standard for completions (46/ODU), passing yards (480/Tulane) and TDs accounted for (7/Tulsa), while tying his own mark with five passing scores on three occasions (ODU, Tulsa, UAB).

Nationally, he also ranks among the top 10 in completions for 10-plus yards (2nd/170), total points responsible for (3rd/254), points responsible for per game (3rd/21.2 pg), completions per game (5th/29.83 pg), total passing yards (6th/3,886), passing yards per game (7th/322.2 pg) and total passing TDs (8th/32).