ECU Enters USF Week With Increased Enthusiasm
Mike Houston's Pirates enter this week's game with USF with additional confidence after last week's game with UCF in Orlando.
Even through the Pirates lost the game, they won the second half convincingly after being torched in the first half.
UCF held on in the second half after building a big 29-point halftime cushion to pick up a 41-28 win, but ECU held the Knights to just six second half points in the second half.
After a lackluster start, ECU eventually put together 483 yards of total offense, most of which came in the final two quarters. With a little luck, they might have turned a couple of field goals into touchdowns and made a game of it down the stretch.
But the Pirates found a little something offensively and defensively and they hope to take that into this week's encounter with South Florida and pull out a victory to even their record at 4-4.
USF leads the all time series record at 8-1 over the Pirates with ECU's only win coming in a 28-17 win in 2014 in Tampa.
Mike Houston talked about his team's performance at UCF on Monday and what he hopes to see this week when the Pirates host the Bulls.
"Obviously a tough loss in Orlando this past weekend, 41-28. The kind of a tale of two halves. We certainly didn't start the game off very well. A lot of is due to UCF", Houston said, "They kind of came out and hit us right between the eyes. We staggered around there in the beginning."
Houston gave his reaction to the way his team put together a solid second half where ECU held the Knights to just 6 points in the third quarter before holding UCF scoreless in the fourth.
"I was pleased with the way they responded after halftime. We got back into it in the third quarter and thought we had a chance towards the end of the third quarter to make it a two score game," said Houston, "We just never could quite get it beyond that 13 point mark but we were encouraged by taking another step forward with our young program and the culture that we're trying to continue to develop."
ECU had a few players nicked up but the first year ECU coach says all three players came out of it good to go for this week including offensive lineman D'Ante Smith and Noah Henderson along with Demetrius Mauney.
Houston says his team can't back down and has to be the aggressor and says you can't take a passive approach. He stated that you're slowly seeing ECU's style of play change for the better. He says his team should feel like they can go toe to toe against anybody in the league after the way they played against Temple and UCF.
The aggressiveness of ECU on special teams is beginning to show with a blocked punt to open the second half against UCF that turned the momentum in the Pirates' direction.
Making halftime adjustments and simplifying things on defense was key last week along with the biggest adjustment being what Houston depicted as between the ears.
Senior defensive lineman Alex Turner talked about his defensive unit's improvement and increase in confidence.
"I think we definitely just kind of rallied as a team. We take the positives from that second half and we just build on it," said Turner, "We can build on it this week in practice and just carry it on to the game this Saturday."
"We need to continue to build on the positive. We did a lot of great things and we had a lot of great fits on Saturday. We came out in that second half and made adjustments," Turner told PirateIllustrated.com, "We were able to kind of get back to it and work hard and make sure that we did what we were supposed to do."
While USF does have one AAC win, both teams come in at an identical 3-4 looking to even their record with a victory on Saturday.
"It's definitely important for both teams. At the end of the day both of us are trying to get their fourth win," said Turner, "We're trying to build on the success of wins. It's going to be who fights harder at the end of the day."
Leroy Henley says his team gained some confidence from the way the Pirates played in the second half against the Knights and hopes to parlay that into bigger things this weekend.
"We're definitely going to try to build on that second half and try to start off faster and hopefully carry it over into that whole game," said Henley, "It would be very big, especially getting win number four which is the main focus right now. The next team is South Florida so that's the one that we've got to get."
Game time is set for 3:45 p.m. for ECU - USF in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. Stay tuned for more as coverage of homecoming week continues here on PirateIllustrated.com.
PI AUDIO: MIKE HOUSTON'S USF WEEK PRESS CONFERENCE
