Montgomery Talks About the ODU Win This Week's Game at Temple
ECU(2-2/0-1 AAC) hits the road this weekend for a Saturday for a high noon matchup with Temple(2-3/1-0 AAC).
Pirate defensive end Nate Harvey and placekicker Jake Verity were named American Athletic Conference Defensive and Special Teams Players-of-the-Week, AAC officials announced Monday morning.
Harvey had six tackles including four solos and three sacks in ECU’s 37-35 win over Old Dominion while Verity hit the game winning field goal from 38-yards out with just 46 seconds to play.
ECU head coach Scottie Montgomery says his defense did a good job and put forth unbelievable effort against the Monarchs and says they were well conditioned with 46 seconds to go in the game when Verity hit the game winning field goal.
This week, Montgomery says he hopes his quarterbacks will make great decisions and that he is happy with the creativity of the ECU run game. He was also pleased with the work of the special teams as well.
Fernando Frye will get the start for ECU at right guard for Brandon Pena who is out with an injury this week. Frye has worked his way up the depth chart from a virtual unknown and has continued to get better every week in practice.
Otherwise the Pirates enter this week's game pretty healthy in terms of the depth chart.
For ECU to come out successful this week, Montgomery says you have to be mindful of Temple's offense that causes stress with formations. The Owls get good play from Isaiah Wright who can play multiple positions. He lines up at wideout, running back and even in the backfield at quarterback at times and also returns kickoffs and punt returns.
At quarterback, Anthony Russo has connected on 48 percent of his 95 passes with one touchdown and five interceptions. They also use Frank Nutile who hits on 52.4 percent of his throws but also has four interceptions to go along with four touchdowns.
Montgomery labeled Ryquell Armstead as Temple's engine on offense. Armstead has rushed for 578 yards and five touchdowns so far.
Ventell Bryant, Brandon Mack and Isaiah Wright all have over 15 catches this year while Freddie Johnson and Randall Jones both average over 20 yards a catch in limited action for the Owls.
Temple's leading tacklers are linebackers Shaun Bradley and Chapelle Russell who have 40 and 32 tackles respectively while linebacker Graham Mobley and cornerback Rock Ya-sin have recorded 32 and 31 stops in their five games thusfar.
The Owls are coming off a 45-35 loss at Boston College while the Pirates picked up a one point 37-35 win over ODU last Saturday night in Greenville.
Temple has beaten both Maryland and Tulsa but have suffered losses to Villanova, Buffalo and Boston College.
ECU's defense has improved drastically with nine sacks last week. While offensively the Pirates haven't totally hit their stride yet, they continue to show signs of life. The Pirate defense held ODU to just 271 offensive yards while producing 492 yards on offense. That is a formula for ECU that could eventually produce positive results overall if it continues.
Scottie Montgomery met with the local press on Monday to talk about last week's ODU game and his team's second conference game coming up at Temple. PirateIllustrated.com was there for to bring you the very latest.
