ECU hopes to be better in all phases when they host South Carolina in home opener

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - The East Carolina University football team is looking for a big bounce back this week from their season opening defeat by App State.

The home opener against South Carolina is an extremely important game for the Pirates program.

One of the things I remember when I came down here when I was coach at my previous school. It’s one of the things that I remember from when I was growing up in this state. It’s with so many of these kids came here because of the great game day atmosphere and our enthusiastic fan base. It’s very important to all of us.

On the field ECU has beaten South Carolina before. It’s something offensive coordinator Donnie Kirkpatrick experienced firsthand.

We’d beaten them by about 40 some points the year before Williams-Brice. We came up here the following year, thinking this is some team we beat the year before, and got our tails whooped.

Whether it’s fair or not the Pirate success will ride on what Holton healers does with the offense.

Somebody I love watching him play. He is a weapon. He really is. He can run, he’s got size, when he scrambles he’s looking to throw

Nobody deserves to win more than he does. He is trying his tail off, he really is. It’s going to come it’s just not coming as fast as we wanted to come. If it was easy I guess everybody would do it.

In the Pirates defensive to make it a little more difficult for the Gamecocks this time around.

We’re gonna have to come downhill and do a great job tackling. That’s something we got to continue to focus on every day. Try to get better at every day. Getting downhill, triggering. Last week I think we are playing a little bit lateral and we got to get downhill and play fast and don’t second-guess ourselves.

Coach Houston has been on the guys all week at practice and channeled his inner Herm Edwards to sum up with this game means.

We play for wins and losses we are not going out there just to play.

ECU and South Carolina kick off at noon. We’ll have highlights and reaction on WITN.

As mentioned Thursday, ECU’s conference will be changing. Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston officially accepted to join the Big 12 on Friday. The league requires 27 months notice and all three will depart shortly thereafter.

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