ECU entered Tuesday’s practice with high hopes of adding onto the progress made so far in the first three days of fall football camp. Afterward, things were looking up for first year Pirate head coach Mike Houston.
“Really solid practice. I think probably our best so far in this preseason camp. I thought we had incredible effort,” Houston said, “I thought guys were really flying around. I thought we had positive enthusiasm with guys trying to encourage each other. Was it perfect? We still made some mistakes and stuff but our effort and trying to do what you’re coached to do was definitely there today.”
Today is what we needed going into our first day of full pads tomorrow. We had our first inside run drill today. It was thud. It will be live once we get in full pads but I really liked the way we competed and the positive attitudes we had today,” said Houston.
Houston was complementary of the work of the wide receivers’ blocking on screen passes which he says has been an area of emphasis. He talked about the quality of the installation both offensively and defensively.
“We took one more step today. We put in couple of new pressures and two more coverages on defense. We put in a couple of pass plays and a couple of new run plays on offense,” Houston said, “We continue to evolve. By the end of the week we’ll be pretty close to full install on offense. It will probably be the middle of next week on defense.”
The return of Bruce Bivins on defense is one that has caught the attention of Coach Houston along with Xavier Smith at linebacker. Demetrius Mauney has also made his presence known in his first fall camp with the Pirates and Houston said he could see action early on.
Defensively, Houston said his squad did a pretty good job on third down. Communication is improving in the secondary. They are catching on to the intricacies of coverages in complicated situations.
He said Tyler Sneed along with Juwan Powell, Jaquan McMillan, Milik Fleming, Blake Proehl, Darius Pinnix and Demetrius Mauney are all getting a stong look in terms of returning kicks and punts.
Zach Byrd and Jeremy Lewis are adding to the numbers at tight end which should make for good competition moving forward as the Pirates continue their preparation for N.C. State on August 31.
“Both of those guys are talented and they’ve both done some very good things. I thought Jeremy had a really good practice today. He’s a young guy who has the physicality aspect - a good athlete with good hands but he can block. So how ready is he to be “a guy”, I don’t know but I’m very pleased with his attitude and his effort and he’s going to be a great player for us down the road.” Zech is a big human being and he’s very raw but he’s working very hard to come along and I think he’s going to be a player who will play significant minutes for us this year.”
Catch Coach Houston’s Tuesday post practice comments in their entirety as PirateIllustrated.com coverage of the 2019 ECU fall camp continues.
