Golden Hurricane Blows Past East Carolina 45-24 for Seventh Win
Dane Evans and Tulsa moved to 7-2 on the season and 4-1 in AAC play with an impressive 45-24 win over ECU Saturday night at Chapman Stadium. Evans completed 22 of his 38 passes for 274 yards and three touchdowns in the victory.
All told, Tulsa pieced together 617 yards of total offense to 474 for the Pirates who managed just 38 net yards rushing for the evening to remain winless on the road this season.
But the real story may be in 374 combined yards from Tulsa's duel running backs James Flanders and D’Angelo Brewer who had their way for most of the evening. Flanders scored on a pair of touchdowns while Brewer added another as the Golden Hurricane snapped a six game losing streak to the Pirates that dated back to 2008.
For any first year coach, the learning curve is steep and the lessons along the way are valuable.
“I thought they were a really, really good football team. They were the best team we’ve played this year, but we’re in a spot where I thought we could have played a lot better," ECU head coach Scottie Montgomery said, "Our execution in practice this week was a lot better and we didn’t come out and deliver. We had some opportunities to execute, especially in the first half. We just didn’t execute.”
The head coaching maturation process continues for Montgomery who was perturbed with the vast amount of penalties overall and vowed to go back and clean that up moving forward.
“The penalties, I take that personal. Anybody that knows me knows that discipline is at the forefront. I’ve never seen that many penalties in a game. Whether it was us or them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game where there were 23 penalties in one game - 13 for us. That’s the kind of penalties we’d have in a four game roll."
Philip Nelson was lifted late in the first half after passing for only a hundred yards on 9 of 13 passing with one touchdown. Gardner Minshew came on to throw for 336 yards and a touchdown in just over one half of play.
James Summers led the ECU rushing attack with 54 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries.
Coach Montgomery talked about Minshew’s performance coming off the bench and some of the deciding factors in the Pirates’ sixth loss of the season.
“He threw it a lot. It’s because we were behind. If you want to see the difference in the game it was the line of scrimmage. The rushing yards. We knew they were going to be really good with their offensive front with their offensive scheme but we just didn’t match it at all. Our defense did a good job a couple of times of holding them and our offense came back back with a three-and-out or a five-and-out. Really didn’t do a good job of playing together."
Two early pass interference penalties kept Tulsa’s first drive of the game alive on third down. That led to a 22-yard James Flanders touchdown run up the middle to cap an eight play, 84 yard drive and an early 7-0 lead. Tulsa scored again on a ten play, 76-yard drive when Keenan Lucas caught a 14-yard Dane Evans touchdown pass on a post pattern. That put the Golden Hurricane up 14-0 with 6:43 to play in the first quarter. Evans broke the program record for career completions on the play. The previous record of 808 was set by Paul Smith in 2003-07.
With 4:41 to go in the first quarter, the Pirates finally got on the scoreboard when Philip Nelson found Zay Jones over the middle for a 51-yard touchdown reception to cut the lead to seven.
A pass interference penalty on ECU linebacker Jordan Williams near the goal line put Tulsa in business at the ECU fourteen yard line with just under seven minutes to play. The Golden Hurricane parlayed that into their third scoring drive of the game when Redford Jones booted a 41-yard field goal to extend the Tulsa lead to ten. Then Evans found Josh Atkinson over the middle from three-yards out with 24 seconds to play in the half to put Tulsa up 24-7 at intermission.
Tulsa rolled up 296 yards of offense in the first two quarters while holding ECU to 122 in a first half penalty fest. The two teams combined for 15 first half flags, ten of which were called on ECU including two intentional grounding penalties, two pass interference penalties, one for ECU defenders barking out Tulsa’s snap count and one for unsportsmanlike conduct on an ECU assistant coach on the sideline late in the half.
Sophomore quarterback Gardner Minshew replaced Nelson who was lifted late in the first half. Then Minshew started in the second half. He quickly went to work finding Jimmy Williams for a twenty yard catch to open the third quarter followed by a nice snag from prime receiver Zay Jones. A Quay Johnson reception then pushed ECU deep into Tulsa territory at the 18-yard line where an end around flip to Deondre Farrier led to a one-yard James Summers touchdown run as the Pirates closed to 24-14 just two minutes into the second half.
But Tulsa struck right back when Evans found Lucas deep for 40 yards, setting up a seven-yard Flanders touchdown straight up the gut in a 31-14 contest just four minutes into the second half.
The two teams traded punches when Minshew and running back James Summers then combined to escort ECU down the field midway into the third quarter. Pirate placekicker Davis Plowman got into the act, booting a 39-yard field goal that trimmed the Tulsa lead to 31-17. Then Tulsa wasted little time scoring again when Dane Evans found Atkinson on a 64-yard strike to extend the Tulsa cushion to 38-17.
Zay Jones eclipsed the East Carolina and AAC all-time single season receptions record with his 122nd catch of the year late in the third quarter. Jones juggling catch for 43-yards combined with a late hit on Minshew seemingly put ECU in business at the Golden Hurricane 14-yard line. Two completions later ECU was knocking on the door at the Tulsa one-yard line, but Tulsa’s 13-yard goal line sack on fourth down poured cold water on the ECU threat.
Jones ended up with 13 catches for 206 yards and a touchdown. That puts him just 19 catches away as he continues his path toward the all time national receptions mark that is currently held by former Pirate and current Atlanta Falcon Justin Hardy with 387 catches.
D’Angelo Brewer’s 42-yard run followed by his runs of eleven yards and four yards moving the football to the ECU eleven-yard line with just under three minutes to go. An ECU personal foul flag didn’t help ECU’s cause and Brewer’s four-yard touchdown run followed by a Redford Jones PAT ballooned the score to 45-17.
Minshew then found Quay Johnson for his ninth catch of the game for a ten-yard score with :27 to play to cap and eight-play 54 yard drive that wrapped up the scoring for the Pirates.
ECU defensive back Colby Gore had a personal record 12 tackles in the game and nose tackle Demetri McGill had four tackles for a loss in the second quarter alone for the Pirates Saturday night. Chris Love set a personal ECU high returning seven kickoffs for 179 yards for a 25.6 average.
