UCF @ East Carolina Preview

Pirates seek to put pieces together, snap two-game skid in CUSA opener

Date: Saturday, September 26, 2009

Location: Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, Bagwell Field (43,000); Greenville, NC

Time: 3:30 (EST)

Television: WITN ( Eastern NC)

Records: East Carolina (1-2 overall); UCF (2-1 overall, 0-1 CUSA)

Rankings: None

All-Time Series Record: East Carolina leads 7-1

Last Meeting: November 2, 2008— East Carolina 13 UCF 10 (OT)

Injury/Personnel Report:

East Carolina

RB - JR - Rogers, knee; out

WR - Michael Bowman, arm; out

RB - Dominique Lindsay, shoulder; out

DT - Antonio Allison, foot; out

SS - Levin Neal, ankle; probable

CB - Emmanuel Davis, shoulder; probable

UCF

WR - Brian Watters, toe; out

General Overview
East Carolina has dominated its series with UCF. The Pirates have taken seven of the eight meetings—including three straight—against the Knights. UCF’s lone victory in the series came in Skip Holtz’s first season when the Knights won 30-20 in Greenville.

Last season, East Carolina overcame a 10-0 halftime deficit to pull out a 13-10 overtime victory in a Sunday night, ESPN game. Ben Hartman hit a 39-yard game-winner in OT after Norman Whitley tied the contest on a two-yard plunge with just less than two minutes remaining in regulation.

The Knights’ last visit to Greenville resulted in a 52-38 loss. UCF led 28-17 at the break, but the Pirates took advantage of an almost unheard of five third quarter turnovers to put up 28 points in the period.

Following last season’s conference title, the Pirates began this year with hopes of busting into the BCS. After suffering consecutive double-digit road losses at West Virginia and North Carolina, Skip Holtz’s club must begin to pull things together as they prepare to begin league play.

Meanwhile, George O’Leary and UCF will bring a 2-1 mark to town after coming from behind to defeat Buffalo, 23-17, last week.

The Knights trailed the Bulls, 17-7, at halftime, but responded with a dominating 16-0 performance after the break.

After surviving a scare against Samford in its opener—UCF squeaked out a 28-24 fourth quarter win, the Knights dropped a 26-19 decision at Southern Miss.

East Carolina Offense vs. UCF Defense

Advantage: UCF

The Pirates’ offensive struggles continued against a very talented Tar Heels’ defense, as ECU managed just 17 points and 247 yards. It was the second straight game in which it failed to reach the 250-yard mark. The unit is now mustering just 22 points and 268 yards through its first three contests.

While the production was again limited, East Carolina executed more efficiently after halftime than it had in its first two outings. The problem was the Pirates didn’t finish their drives and had a mere three points to show for their efforts.

Without any explosion plays, ECU currently has a very small margin for error and must execute with precision on essentially every play to methodically move the ball down the field. Thus, it’s even more important for the Pirates to finish when they get into the red zone. In the second half against North Carolina, they had a 13-play, 45-yard drive that ate up over six minutes and a 15-play, 73-yard drive that consumed over seven and a half minutes of clock. With such lengthy drives, the Pirates just had the ball four times in the second half.

It wasn’t a stellar day for the passing game, but it was much better than the first two weeks. Patrick Pinkney completed with 19-of-30 for 157 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions. Alex Taylor had five receptions while Dwayne Harris, Jamar Bryant and Joe Womack all had four.

However, the inability to connect on the few deep shots taken continues to haunt this offense. Pinkney’s touchdown pass to Reyn Willis versus Appalachian remains the only pass he’s completed over 25 yards down the field.

The Pirates knew it was going to be difficult to run the football against a very stout Tar Heel front and they managed just 55 yards on 30 carries. They have not produced a run over 12 yards in the last two games. Brandon Jackson toted it 12 times for 35 yards. Jonathan Williams and Giavanni Ruffin ran the ball four times each and neither had more than seven yards. Williams also had a costly second down fumble, which ended a potential scoring drive in the second quarter.

With its offensive struggles, the Pirate coaching staff knew it must be creative to find ways to get the ball in the hands of its top playmaker in Dwayne Harris. They did so in a variety of ways. He caught four balls, ran it four times and hooked up with Joe Womack for 35 yards on an option pass. Most, if not all, of his carries were out of the Wildcat formation and he scored on a six-yard run out of the set.

Continued improvement will be a challenge this week, as the Pirates will face a very capable UCF defense that is allowing 22.3 points and 324.7 yards per contest.

The unit, which returns six starters from ’08, is led by its defensive line. Jarvis Geathers and Bruce Miller are talented on the ends. Geathers has four sacks—three of which came last week against Buffalo—while Miller impressed the Pirates’ offensive linemen a season ago. Torrell Troup (6-3, 314) and Travis Timmons (6-4, 297) help plug the middle for a defense that allows just 2.8 yards per carry and 98.3 yards per game.

Their linebackers are fast and physical like North Carolina’s. They aid the front four in getting heat on opposing quarterbacks to mask a young secondary.

Safety Derrick Hallman, who had eight tackles, forced a fumble and made the game-clinching interception against Buffalo, is the lone returner. However, corner Josh Robinson and former quarterback turned safety Michael Greco are coming on strong to shore up the secondary.

UCF Offense vs. East Carolina Defense

Advantage: East Carolina

The Pirate offense wasn’t alone in its struggles. After allowing 509 yards at West Virginia, East Carolina surrendered 433 to a Tar Heel offense that was shutout for three quarters at UCONN the previous week.

North Carolina quarterback T.J. Yates was sacked six times by the Huskies. Therefore, the Tar Heels utilized a game plan that featured primarily a short passing game with selected shots down the field with max protection. This scheme was very effective at minimizing the impact the Pirates’ talented line had on the game while allowing the Tar Heels to take full advantage of some inexperience and poor execution in the East Carolina defensive backfield. Yates was 19-of-24 for 227 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions while the ECU pass rush didn’t produce a sack for a second straight week.

Poor tackling helped the Tar Heels rush for 148 yards and accumulate many “YAC” yards in the passing game.

Van Eskridge leads the Pirates with 26 tackles and had eight against North Carolina; however, he took poor angles at times and didn’t have his best outing. Fellow safety Derrick Blacknall continued to struggle, which resulted in Dakota Marshall seeing some time there in the second half.

Redshirt freshmen Rahkeem Morgan and Jack Schultz performed well.

The struggling unit should receive a boost this week, as it appears that corner Emmanuel Davis and safety Levin Neal will return to see their first action since the Appalachian State game.

The linebackers must do a better job of shedding blocks and making plays in pass coverage. Jeremy Chambliss is second on the team with 25 stops and three for losses.

The Pirates will face a Knight offense that is very similar to its own from a production standpoint. It is yielding just over 23 points and 262 yards per game. UCF has lacked explosion plays and has been forced to put drives together.

However, the unit’s last two quarters—the second half of last week’s Buffalo win—were probably their most efficient of the young season. They took advantage of four Bull turnovers and outgained them 219 to 101.

Wake Forest transfer Brett Hodges, who is a fifth year senior, made his first start under center in the contest after seeing considerable time off the bench in the first two games. Hodges showed that he is a dual threat quarterback against the Bulls. He went 15-of-20 for 141 yards through the air—including a perfect 10-of-10 after the break—and also ran for 71 yards on 13 carries. Buffalo coach Turner Gill was very impressed at the way Hodges kept drives alive with his feet. For the year, he is 40-of-63 for 428 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.

The Knights possess a very large and physical offensive line that features a pair of 6’7” tackles and a 6’6” tight end. However, they’ve only managed to rush for just over 100 yards per game.

Sophomore Brynn Harvey, who stands 6’1”, 205, is the team’s leading rusher. Harvey, who was two yards shy of a 100-yard outing against Buffalo, has 246 yards and four scores on the season.

Rocky Ross and Kamar Aiken give Hodges a pair of tall, veteran wideouts. Ross, who has caught 12 balls for 164, leads the team in receptions and receiving yards. Aiken, whose 39-yard reception versus Buffalo is the team’s longest play from scrimmage this season, has averaged 16.4 yards on his nine catches.

While Hodges isn’t as big nor as physical West Virginia’s Jarrett Brown, he is more comparable to him than North Carolina’s Yates. Thus, the Pirates must capitalize when they get pressure on him and not allow him to escape where he could hurt them with his feet or arm.

Special Teams

Advantage: UCF

The kicking game could play a huge role in what may be a very close, low-scoring affair.

The Knights get the advantage here because of the damage they’ve done on kickoff return. They average 32.5 yards per attempt and have already returned three for more than 70 yards—which includes Quincy McDuffie’s 95-yarder for a score against Samford. Darin Baldwin also had a 72-yarder versus Samford while Jamar Newsome took one back 89 yards at Southern Miss.

Meanwhile, the Pirates have averaged just 21 yards per attempt. Dwayne Harris has a long of 29 while Jonathan Williams’ best has been 30 yards.

While UCF has been much more successful at returning kickoffs, neither team is likely to have many opportunities to flip the field via that route in what has the makings of a low-scoring game.

There will likely be more punts and East Carolina’s Matt Dodge possesses the edge in this match-up. Dodge is netting over 39 yards per boot after averaging 47 yards on 18 attempts through three games. He has forced two fair catches and pinned the opposition inside its own 20 on seven occasions.

This effectiveness will need to continue as Rocky Ross is averaging nearly 14 yards per return.

Dodge’s counterpart, Blake Clingan, is averaging 36.9 yards on 14 punts. He has a long of 46, but has forced nine fair catches and placed three inside the 20-yard line.

Clingan would love to continue the trend of causing fair catches because Travis Simmons is averaging 21.5 yards after four returns and has a long of 38.

Give Nick Cattoi the edge in the kicking match-up. He is 5-of-5 with makes from 28, 50, 44, 42 and 22. ECU’s Ben Hartman is 5-of-7 with all but one of his made attempts coming from less than 30 yards. He had a 47-yard try blocked by interior penetration against North Carolina.

Intangibles

Advantage: East Carolina

Both clubs enter this match-up in need of a win. East Carolina is looking to avoid a three-game losing streak while UCF can ill-afford to fall to 0-2 in the league if it hopes to be a serious contender in CUSA's East Division.

The game will be played before a sell out crowd of 43,000-plus, which should fuel the Pirates and provide them with a much-needed 12 th man in a game that looks like it will be decided in the fourth quarter.

The Pirates are 16-7 at home under Skip Holtz. They have won four straight at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium and seven of their last eight.

Final Prediction & Analysis

While UCF comes in with the better record as a result of a weaker schedule, these teams have mirrored each other in many respects through the first quarter of the season.

Neither the Pirates nor the Knights have had much success on offense and both possess talented, experienced defenses. The defensive units are particularly strong on the front ends so don’t expect either team to rush for more than 130 yards or so. The Pirates’ will pressure Hodges while the secondary will benefit greatly from the return of Neal and Davis.

Matt Dodge will continue to help East Carolina flip the field and gain good field position while the offense will build on the second half effort at North Carolina to produce its biggest output yet.

Patrick Pinkney was more in sync in through the air against the Tar Heels and will produce his first 200-yard effort on the year against a somewhat young UCF secondary.

In the end, East Carolina will pull out a much-needed, hard fought win at home to even its record at 2-2.

East Carolina 27 UCF 20