East Carolina comes into Saturday's game at Navy tied for third overall in the AAC along with SMU at 4-2. (5)Cincinnati is 6-0 and (15)Houston is 7-0 in league play.
There is still time to move up even more and if the chips fall just right, ECU could find themselves in the conference title hunt at the end of the regular season. But for that to happen, the Pirates will need to take care of business at Navy, hope for Cincinnati to stumble this week and then beat the Bearcats in Greenville the following week.
The first order of business is to pick up a win in Annapolis against a Navy team that ECU has beaten just once in eight tries. That came in 2011 in a 38-35 win on the road.
The path to victory will involve scoring points in bunches in an attempt to change how the Midshipmen operate offensively and perhaps get them off of their game. To do that, the Pirates will need to take good advantage of their opportunities, tie up some game clock and keep their defense rested.
The last time these two teams met in Annapolis, Navy got the better of it in a 42-10 loss in Mike Houston's first year at the helm. Malcolm Perry was at his best at quarterback, accounting for 307 total yards and six touchdowns.
This time around, East Carolina has different plans, enters with a veteran quarterback in Holton Ahlers who, was out of last season's game due to trace contacting for Covid-19, two of the top backs in the league in Keaton Mitchell and Rahjai Harris and a bevy of great receivers in Tyler Snead, C.J. Johnson, Audi Omotosho, Ryan Jones and Shane Calhoun.
Kirkpatrick acknowledged that this week's encounter with Navy is going to be a huge challenge.
"I've had bad experiences playing Navy. I've got one good one, I'm going to bank on that one. That's the one that keeps coming back to me when we beat them up there, said Kirkpatrick, "I'd be tough. It's senior day up there - I think the last home game."
"A lot of people are going to look at them and say that's a 2-7 team, but if you watch the film you would not know that if you didn't see the end of the score. Their defense ain't 2-7. I don't see the other side of the ball so I don't know anything about the other side, but their defense is like the third or fourth best defense in the conference statistically."
"A lot of the same guys. That 54, he's been there since I was in high school," Kirkpatrick said, "I don't know how he can still have any eligibility left. It's unbelievable, so they're going to be challenging."
Kirkpatrick could not heap enough praise on the Navy defense as they enter this week's game against ECU.
"They're a nightmare. They really are. I know the defense's coach is talking about having to play Navy once a year. It's such a unique deal, but defensively they are like our defense in one package but they have been in the system a little longer. They've got several packages. They start the year out, they're in the three safety defense. They've gone to the juice of the year, so they're still doing that but then they're doing all the other stuff, but they blitz like Blake and them do, so they're coming from everywhere. You'd swear there are twelve of them out there with eleven guys doing all of that so we have to prepare for a lot of different schemes."
"Then of course the challenge, they're not going to let you have the ball much. Now, we've had two games in a row where we've had ten possessions. One of those possessions was overtime last week and one possession the week before was when we ran the clock out and took a knee so we've kind of been keeping the ball too. So it's going to be a batter of who can break the other one's spirit I guess or who can get the ball the most."
Kirkpatrick says the thing that gives them the most concern is that they're so tough.
"Mentally and physically, no matter what the score is, no matter what's going on, they play hard the entire time and everybody plays hard at this level, but there's definitely some ups and downs. You catch some people loafing a little bit, you catch a little bit of the mode of how the game is going. People have a little bit more up than they are sometimes," Kirkpatrick told PirateIllustrated.com.
"They're always just wide open. They are extremely physical. It's recess for these guys when they get to play so they take it out now. These are guys who are going to be protecting our freedom, so I'm glad they're pretty tough but it's kind of bad when you're playing them and then the multiplicity of their defense. They do so many things. They move everybody around," said Kirkpatrick.
"The kids have got to be really smart. I don't know how they can do and how they can line up in so many different alignments with kids playing linebacker then he's playing defensive end, he's playing inside linebacker, he's playing like he's a nickel back and you're like how can that guy know all that many assignments? But you don't see them making a lot of mistakes. You have to really, really execute and you better play well and that's the challenge."
Kickoff for ECU - Navy is set for 3:30 p.m. on CBS Sports Network from Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
