For East Carolina to be competitive this week, they will have to continue to get solid quarterback play against an N.C. State squad that only gave up 14 points last week in their home opener against William & Mary.
"Our goals are the same this week and that's to go 1-0," ECU quarterback Philip Nelson said, "It would be a huge win for us, so it's definitely a game where we want to come out and play our best ball and we know they're going to come out and play their best ball, so it's going to be fun."
The 6-1, 216 pound senior transfer out of Minnesota who came to ECU via Rutgers connected on 28 of 32 passes and tossed five touchdowns in his first outing for the Pirates. He also had a seven-yard run for the game's opening touchdown.
Nelson, who redshirted at ECU last year, says it probably took him most of last season before realizing what the rivalries mean within the state of North Carolina.
"It's really fun to see that much good football within one state. Along with that comes the rivalries."
Being his first game as the starter for ECU, Nelson was a little on the nervous side, but it didn't take long for that to subside and he went on to throw for 298 yards in his first game as a Pirate.
"The jitters were definitely there and they came out quickly. Once you get in there and realize that you're playing the game that you love it's pretty easy. We don't ever want to let the highs get too high or the lows get too low, so I feel like we did a good job today of come out and being even keel," Nelson told PirateIllustrated.com.
N.C. State will present some challenges for Nelson and the ECU offense. They are a much bigger team than the Western Carolina team the Pirates faced last week.
"Yeah, they're a great defense. They're solid all around. They have a great front seven. They have great defensive backs. They're a sound defensive team and they're not going to just going to give us a couple of things. They're going to try to switch it up with us too and they're going to line up and do what they do and they're not going to change for anyone. It's going to be fun."
Nelson looks to find ways to improve coming into week two of the season and he talked about some of those things.
"There were a couple of missed passes, a couple of misreads there. The way Coach (Tony) Petersen coaches us, he wants us to be like if you finished the game at 90 percent then why couldn't we have been a hundred. That's the way he coaches. I love that type. Those mistakes, they bothered me so I'm ready to fix them and move on to next week."
