East Carolina got off to a fast start, scoring the first 24 points of the game and then cruised to a 52-29 AAC win over Tulane Saturday night in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
Tulane cut the lead to as little as eight points at 31-23 on a Cameron Carroll’s one-yard score and a Michael Pratt two-point conversion run before the Pirates pulled away with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
Keaton Mitchell scored on a pair of long touchdown runs in his personal best 224 yards on the day to lead the Pirate ground game. It was Mitchell’s third straight hundred yard effort. Rahjai Harris added 74 yards of rushing and a touchdown.
It was ECU’s third straight AAC win dating back to last year and third straight win overall. East Carolina’s three-straight wins is the first time since 2014 when they earned five-straight victories and the Pirates’ first three-game AAC win streak since 2014.
“Highest rushing performance since 2007 is what I have been told. Highest single game rushing performance since that same year in Hawaii when Chris Johnson did it in our bowl game. A pretty good game on the ground” said ECU head coach Mike Houston, “A lot of that credit goes to that offensive line. After being really challenged last week, and pushed in practice this week, to respond how they did. Really proud of that group for giving Keaton and Rahjai all that room the run. I have said, the better we run the football, the better we will pass the football.”
“It felt great. The O-line did what they had to do and it gave me some daylight and I did what I had to do,” Mitchell said, “It felt good. We’ve got to try to stay consistent. That’s my biggest thing.”
Quarterback Holton Ahlers put together a solid game with 288 passing yards and a pair of touchdowns while backup Mason Garcia got in the act with a touchdown throw in his only pass attempt. Ahlers talked about what the win does for the team’s momentum heading into next week’s game at UCF.
“It’s huge. Starting 1-0 in the conference is huge. A three-game win streak is huge. Next week in Orlando is a lot bigger now,” said Ahlers, ”We’ve just got to continue to do what we’re told to do and what we’re coached to do. This team is talented. We can play with anyone and we’re excited to go do that.”
“Going in I thought we had a really good game plan. Coach K had a really good game plan to get some special guys the ball. We’ve been saying it all off and all season that Ryan Jones is a really special player and he showed that tonight,” Ahlers told PirateIllustrated.com, “We believed in the game plan and all week we said the only team that’s going to stop us in the stadium is going to be us. We knew that. I thought the game plan was really good and we went out and executed it.”
In ECU’s 612 yards of total offense. C.J. Johnson hauled in nine catches for 52 yards, Jones hauled in a personal best seven catches for 58 yards including a 14-yard touchdown along with seven catches from Tyler Snead and a touchdown to lead the receiver corp. Audie Omotosho had four crucial catches in his 76 yards of receptions including a 41-yarder.
“The better we can run the football, the better we will throw the football,” said Houston, “So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we had 310 yards rushing and we had 302 yards passing. So we want to be balanced. That really takes the pressure off of Holton and the offensive line. The biggest example of that is a fourth down touchdown to (Tyler) Snead in the second quarter. Holton had all day. It was man coverage and you’re only going to stay with Snead for so long, so if you give Holton time, he’s going to find him and that was a big play to finish off the first half scoring.”
“They went cover-one there. A man free, they sent the house, whoever didn’t have a man, the line picked it up. I looked off Shane’s release because both he and Snead had go routes. Shane got jammed up. The safety went with Shane, so I turned back and Snead killed them. Hat’s off to Snead. He’s one of the best players in the country and it’s easy to throw to open receivers.”
Tulane head coach Willie Fritz says his teams has some issues to solve after falling to 1-4 on the season.
“This one is on everybody. Me, my assistants and players,” said Tulane coach Willie Fritz, “We did not play or coach very well. You’ve got problems when you dig a hole as big as we did.”
Michael Pratt did get better as the game went on for Tulane with 268 yards through the air with one touchdown. Cameron Carroll rushed for 81 yards and a touchdown and Deuce Watts caught eleven passes for 79 yards to lead the Green Wave offensive attack.
But it was a hard hitting ECU defense that helped set the tone early led by Xavier Smith who made nine stops along with eight tackles from Aaron Ramseur and six each from Ja’Quan McMillian and Jeremy Lewis.
The Pirates got things off to a positive start with a 62-yard Keaton Mitchell run on the second play of the game that led to 23-yard Owen Daffer field goal and a 3-0 ECU lead. ECU followed that up with a defensive stop and a 17-yard quarterback draw from Holton Ahlers that put East Carolina up 10-0. Tulane’s first quarter quandary was compounded by a 68-yard Mitchell touchdown jaunt that put East Carolina up 17-0.
The ECU lead expanded to 24-0 on Holton Ahlers’ 53-yard lob to Snead on fourth and two that expanded the ECU lead to 24-0. Houston talked about what having a big lead did to help relax and settle his team down early.
“I don’t know about relaxed but certainly we were able to grab the momentum,” Houston told PirateIllustrated.com, “We want to have a fast start. We were extremely aggressive. It’s one of those things, if the kids don’t have my back and perform on fourth down - we went for it there a couple of times and it was iffy whether or not we should go for it. I thought Donnie (Kirkpatrick) did a great job on our play calls on fourth down and we were able to convert four out of five on the day which I thought was huge. The momentum early was big. The way we finished off the game in the fourth quarter was incredible.”
The Green Wave got on the scoreboard for the first time with 9:38 to go in the half on a 15-yard Ygenio Booker touchdown catch from Michael Pratt to cut the Pirate lead to 24-7. With 36 seconds to go in the half, East Carolina scored again on a 3-yard pitch to Rahjai Harris that was credited as a pass from Ahlers for a 31-7 cushion when Jirah Wilson intercepted a Michael Pratt pass at the goal line to end the half.
Tulane(1-4/0-1 AAC) wasted little time in marching right down the field to begin the second half and scoring on a Michael Pratt three-yard touchdown run. Tyrick James added the two point conversion on a run up the middle to cut the lead to 31-15. Then Pratt’s 47-yard strike to Deuce Watts led to Cameron Carroll’s one-yard score. Michael Pratt’s two-point conversion run cut the ECU lead to nine at 31-23.
But ECU(3-2/1-0 AAC) struck back with a Rahjai Harris' one-yard touchdown to give the Pirates a 38-23 lead early in the fourth quarter.
Warren Saba's interception to the Tulane thirty yard line negated a Green Wave successful fake punt that briefly kept the drive alive. ECU followed that up with a successful fourth-and-one that led to a 14-yard Mason Garcia strike to Ryan Jones and the ECU lead grew to 45-23 with 8:15 remaining. It was his first career touchdown pass.
Michael Pratt’ 59-yard pass to Cameron Carroll put Tulane in business at the ECU two-yard line where Pratt ran around right end for a touchdown. Tulane’s two-point conversion run from Pratt was stuffed by Aaron Ramseur and Jeremy Lewis in a 45-29 contest before Mitchell added another touchdown at the end to punctuate the Pirates’ 23-point victory.
East Carolina hits the road next Saturday to take on UCF in Orlando. Game time is set for 6 o’clock on ESPN+.
