series preview: East Carolina

Well, two-thirds of a series preview. The 'Hoos have already kicked off the baseball season on the right foot with a 6-2 win earlier today in Greenville.

The main thing to take away here is that this ECU series will be as good a sneak peek at the regular ACC lineup as you'll get for the next couple weeks, until we actually get to the Florida State series to begin the conference season. Not a single unfamiliar face started this first game, although juco transfer Kenny Swab did pinch hit for Danny Hultzen late.

Speaking of Hultzen, it's nice to know he's picking up where he left off last year. OK, the first inning could have gone a little smoother, but in the five innings after that, ECU managed only two hits. The Pirates are no joke of a lineup to deal with, either. They really only had two big losses from a lineup that was 15th in the country in batting average and 23rd in runs per game, as well as being one of only 14 to hit more than 100 home runs last year. So holding ECU's Trent Whitehead and Austin Homan, for example, to 0-for-3, is just what you like to see, as they hit .376 and .354 last season, respectively.

Another guy who doesn't appear to be rusty from the offseason is Steven Proscia, who drove in four of the team's six runs. Good to see him out there hitting home runs - not that the offense is going to be lacking hitters, but Proscia's going to be counted on to slug a little bit too.

Tomorrow we'll send Robert Morey to the mound, who along with Hultzen is already pretty much penned into the weekend rotation. After that, the audition begins on Sunday when juco transfer Cody Winiarski gets first crack at the third weekend spot. Couldn't ask for a better audition. This ECU series is a much better way to start the year than just easing into it with a few tomato cans. ECU counters with a pair of guys who are graduating from all-around utility pitcher to full-fledged starters: Kevin Brandt on Saturday and Brad Mincey on Sunday. Both are tough, but Brandt especially so. Last season he was named to a few freshman all-American squads and had one specially nice gem of a game when he shut out North Carolina for eight and a third innings. Mincey's luck against UNC wasn't as hot - in ECU's elimination game in the NCAAs, Mincey managed to allow three runs in a measly third of an inning.

Oh, and here's your human-interest tidbit of the day: in summer league baseball last year, not only were Mincey and UVA's own Will Roberts teammates with the Newport Gulls, but they were both called upon to start championship-clinching games. When Newport failed to close out the NECBL championship over Vermont in Roberts's start (through no fault of his own, by the way: Roberts pitched six shutout innings) Mincey got the opportunity in the rubber match of the best-of-three and the Gulls sealed the deal.

So the moral of the story, as if you couldn't tell by the ranking numbers next to ECU's name, is that they're very, very good, which might just make this the most important series of the entire regular season. Yeah, you heard right. I don't want to hear any more lamebrained idiocy from the selection committee trying to justify why we got shipped to the absolute worst regional they could think of. If we can win the series against ECU here (on the road no less) and if ECU's as good as advertised, which I don't doubt, then there won't be any of this BS about weak nonconference schedules. (It would be nice also if the Coastal Carolina game doesn't get rained out this time around.) We've already avoided a sweep, which yes, my paranoid mind was worried could cause another #2 seed in a California regional somewhere. Now to unleash the bats and show everyone why that top-five ranking is justified.

game preview: East Carolina

TV: Raycom

History against the Pirates: 0-2

Last matchup: ECU 31, UVA 21 (2006)

Team records: UVA 2-3 (1-1), ECU 3-2 (1-1)

Last week: UVA beat Maryland 31-0, ECU off

Line: ECU by 5.5

ECU hangouts: Boneyard Banter

ECU season preview here.

Injury report:

OUT: OT Landon Bradley, LB Aaron Clark, TB Max Milien, FB Keith Payne, TE Joe Torchia

DOUBTFUL: OG Zak Stair

QUESTIONABLE: DE Kevin Crawford, LB John-Kevin Dolce, K Yannick Reyering, TB Hall Simmons

PROBABLE: OG B.J. Cabbell, WR Maurice Covington, TE Andrew Devlin, CB Vic Hall

It was really very rude of this team, going off and proving me quite the idiot last week. I wrote a snarky post that was full of rainclouds and doom instead of the uncannily sharp insight I normally provide, and they go off and bust some Terrapin skull. In the span of three all-too-short hours, a season that appeared to be headed for historical infamy suddenly looked rosy and, dare I say it, bowl-y, again. And as an added bonus, ECU, after a promising start to the season, has hit the skids and is tumbling fast. This looked like a surefire loss three weeks into the season; three more weeks changed everything.

HOW WE CAN WIN

- Everything we did last week? Do it again. In particular the blocking. Austin Pasztor will get the start again in place of Zak Stair. Stair is listed as doubtful but one place he isn't listed is the depth chart; Pasztor starts and is backed up by Patrick Slebonick. The man was a bulldozer against Maryland, but he's a 17-year-old freshman. If he can shake the usual freshman inconsistencies and repeat that performance, that left side of the line will be wide open all day for Peerman.

- Zero in on Patrick Pinkney. Pinkney is the guy that makes the ECU offense go. The running game isn't really special unless it's Pinkney himself with the ball - even then, he's more of a scrambling quarterback than a running one. To make things harder he's accurate on the go. The linebackers must contain, contain, contain, and the cornerbacks have got to have the discipline not to leave their man early or Pinkney will find them for big gains. It's going to take some quality coaching to come up with the right scheme at the right time to keep this guy in check.

HOW WE CAN LOSE

- Complacency. Hard to believe a 2-3 team could be overconfident about anything, but these have been some crazy circumstances so far and most 2-3 teams aren't coming off a feel-good blowout win over a rival. It'd be easy - hell, it'd be human nature - to let the Maryland win simmer for too long, and for the team to find themselves in a 17-0 hole before they know it.

- The O-line play from last week turns out to be an anomaly. Look, they spent four games getting pushed into the backfield, and one not. Odds would seem to favor a return to the ways that led to horrible beatdowns.

HOW THE GAME WILL GO

Last week showed us what kind of talent there really is on this team. The skill position players are better than what offensive line allowed them to show off in the first four games. So now we have a pretty good bead on how the rest of the year will go, and it's simple: Offensive line good, team good, assuming the defense keeps up. It's been feast or famine all year and we can probably expect some more frustrating moments before the end. This should not be one of them. ECU is fading fast and losing key players. With Jamar Bryant out, half of Pinkney's favorite targets are gone, and Ras the Destroyer can lock down Dwayne Harris. This should take away a huge chunk of ECU's passing attack. I expect a win here: even if the the O-line can't repeat last Saturday's performance, I don't expect them to regress all the way back to Duke-game levels of suckitude, and the defense should be able to keep ECU in check.

REST OF THE ACC

Wake Forest 12, Clemson 7, Thursday

North Carolina vs. Notre Dame, 3:30

Georgia Tech vs. Gardner-Webb, 3:30

Miami vs. Central Florida, 3:45

BC, Md., VT, NC State, Duke, FSU off

season preview: East Carolina

Finally - the season previews are done, and I can focus on the team that I actually am supposed to be writing about. So here's the drill. I am in NoVa on business and will be here for another, oh, 22 hours or so. This is your big post for the day. Tomorrow, while I'm trying to waste three or so hours at the airport between the end of my Big Important Conference and my plane leaving, I'll try and write as much of the offense and defense previews as I can. This will likely be done without Internet access, so you'll see no actual product until late Wednesday evening when I get back. Offense will post then, defense will post on Thursday, and Friday morning, up goes the USC game preview. So now you know. And after this, you'll know about East Carolina, too.

Schedule:

8/30: Virginia Tech
9/6: West Virginia
9/13: @Tulane
9/20: @North Carolina State
9/27: Houston
10/11: @Virginia
10/18: Memphis
11/2: @Central Florida (Sun.)
11/8: Marshall
11/15: @Southern Mississippi
11/22: @UAB
11/28: UTEP (Fr.)

Projected starters:

QB: Patrick Pinkney (5Sr.)
RB: Brandon Simmons (5Sr.)
FB: Kevin Gidrey (rSo.)
WR: Jamar Bryant (Jr.)
WR: Dwayne Harris (rSo.)
TE: Davon Drew (5Sr.)
LT: Stanley Bryant (Sr.)
LG: Cory Dowless (rSo.)
C: Sean Allen (Jr.)
RG: Doug Palmer (Jr.)
RT: D.J. Scott (rSo.)

LDE: Zack Slate (5Sr.)
DT: Jay Ross (Jr.)
NG: Khalif Mitchell (Sr.)
RDE: C.J. Wilson (rJr.)
SLB: Quentin Cotton (Sr.)
MLB: Pierre Bell (5Sr.)
WLB: Jeremy Chambliss (rJr.)
CB: Jerek Hewitt (Sr.)
SS: J.J. Milbrook (5Sr.)
FS: Van Eskridge (rJr.)
CB: Dekota Marshall (rSo.)

K: Ben Ryan (Fr.)
P: Matt Dodge (Jr.)

Coach: Skip Holtz (4th season)

(Italics indicate new starter.)

Skip Holtz is considered something of a mini-savior at ECU, which is a little bit of a misnomer. ECU historically has never been a true doormat in the Duke sense, and the Steve Logan years of the ‘90s were pretty good, especially for a “mid-major” program that hadn’t been I-A for all that long. John Thompson came in for two years and was a complete disaster, and was quickly replaced by Holtz, who has brought the team back to more or less its historical levels of competency.

OFFENSE

Patrick Pinkney and Rob Kass split time almost down the middle at quarterback last year so that really neither could be called the actual starter. Pinkney’s numbers were generally slightly better than Kass’, and Pinkney is a capable runner besides, so when the coaching staff decided they wanted to settle on one for 2008, Pinkney got the nod. Besides being a slightly better thrower, Pinkney was also ECU’s second leading rusher in 2007.

The leading rusher, however, is gone. Chris Johnson will have to be replaced; Johnson was the Pirates’ running game in 2007, racking up 17 touchdowns and over 1,400 yards and earning his way to the first round of the NFL draft. The hope was that Dominique Lindsay would fill the void, but he was lost to a knee injury in fall practice, leaving Brandon Simmons large and in charge in the backfield. ECU may find they can use Simmons (who weighs in at 223 pounds) and Jonathan Williams as an effective big-and-small combo.

At receiver, Jamar Bryant returns having led the team in all receiving categories last year. Opposite him is Dwayne Harris, who the coaches use in multiple ways. Harris is also the team’s punt returner, and carried the ball 20 times last year as well, averaging nearly 10 yards per rush.

I had the hardest time coming up with a cute and pithy way to describe the offensive line. It’s weird. Experienced, but a little weird. I suppose you could say it’s got some versatility. The only senior, Stanley Bryant, is a D-II transfer that found himself in the starting lineup six games into last season. Cory Dowless was a starter as a true freshman in 2006 and earned unanimous selection to the freshman all-conference team….then redshirted 2007. Sean Allen moved over from guard to make room for Dowless. Doug Palmer did a stint on the defensive line before moving back to the offense. About the only guy without a story is D.J. Scott, who was a starter last year as a redshirt freshman, which is still kind of a story. All this means that the cohesion may not be there yet, but the talent and experience is, even though there isn’t a single lineman with more than a year of starting experience. They may be struggling a bit early on but they likely won’t by the second half of the season.

DEFENSE

This is where we get to make the joke about whether it’s a good thing if you return all your starters from a bad defense. C-USA is a little bit offense-heavy, which is the nice way of saying it’s defense-poor; ECU’s 83rd-rank in the nation in scoring defense was good enough for 4th in the conference. Interestingly enough they did very well against Virginia Tech: three turnovers, many many sacks, and only 33 yards for Tech on the ground, leading to a close 17-7 loss. Then they opened up the city gates and only three teams the rest of the year were held below 28 points.

You could say that they’re more experienced this year, which is the usual indignant response to the above overused joke. In the front seven there is only one player with less experience than redshirt-junior level (DT Jay Ross), and all of them except one started at least half of 2007’s games (LB Jeremy Chambliss, who started four.)

Talent is not completely lacking. Zack Slate and C.J. Wilson both earned second-team all-conference honors, so the defensive line will be solid on the ends. Safety Van Eskridge joins them on the second team. Eskridge was the team’s leading tackler in 2007.

So the extra experience - really only three players without extensive starting experience - will help. But this is still a team prone to royal clunkers like giving up almost 600 yards to 4-8 UTEP. Of course, the VT game shows they’re also capable of good things. Which defense shows up more in 2008 - the VT-game defense or the UTEP-game defense - will have a lot to say about the direction of the season.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Ben Hartman has missed fall practice with a “leg injury”, and legs being rather important to a kicker, his job is being taken over by a freshman, Ben Ryan. This may actually be an improvement; Hartman was woefully inconsistent last year, hitting just 13 of 22 attempts. He made his only attempt over 50 yards but also honked two inside 30 yards. Matt Dodge is a solid punter and the backup placekicker as well, with Hartman out.

OUTLOOK

ECU is hailed as an up-and-coming team with thoughts of contending for the C-USA championship. That will depend on the defense. They won’t be able to replace Chris Johnson, but the offense otherwise has its playmakers back and a line that should be able to clear the way for them. If the defense can improve, the Pirates indeed could find themselves playing for the conference championship. If it can’t? Well, ECU’s offense is good enough, and C-USA is weak enough, that they will still go bowling anyway. But it’ll be to the Please Sponsor Us Bowl, which is any one of the myriad crappy bowls that is too lazy to even come up with an interesting name and uses the name of the city or state instead. Kind of like how the softball team plays at The Park, which will remain so named until someone ponies up some money to buy them some better stands.