ECU Pirates ready for tonight’s Birmingham Bowl faceoff with Coastal Carolina

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WITN) - It’s game day for the ECU Pirates as they look to snag a bowl game win tonight. If they can it would be the program’s 10th bowl victory all time.

ECU is set to play Coastal Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl at Protective Stadium in Alabama on Tuesday at 6:45 p.m.

The teams held their final walkthroughs at the field on Monday.

Both coaches feel their teams are ready to go.

“Literally we were at this point last year when the military bowl got canceled. We were on this day,” said ECU head coach Mike Houston. “East Carolina University has 9 bowl wins in the history of the program. That’s great, but that’s not a ton. It’s not like we’ve won 30 bowls. So, to get a tenth bowl win, that’s significant. That’s been really the thing that what we’ve focused on with the players is just the significance of being in this situation and having the opportunity to do something special.

“They have a lot of weapons. I probably don’t have enough time to list all of them. Running backs extremely good, quarterbacks, man he seems like he’s been there twenty years. He can do it all,” said Chad Skaggs, Coastal Carolina’s interim head coach.

Finally, almost Bowl day for ECU football after they had their Military Bowl canceled last year. ECU seniors have been waiting their whole careers for a chance to play in a bowl game. For a bunch of seniors it might be their last football game. The captains spoke about leaving it all out there.

“It is hard to think about this is your last go round. We had walkthrough today, it’s our last walkthrough as a team, even though we have one tomorrow and stuff,” says ECU quarterback Holton Ahlers, “Life is going to be different. Whatever comes my way, I am just going to attack it at full speed. But you know we just focus on this game and this senior class wants to go out with a win.”

“Last year it was taken away from us. We got to go to a bowl game but didn’t get to play,” says ECU senior linebacker Myles Berry, “So, now being able to play we are able to showcase what we have been practicing, what we have been able to do. We are ready for it.”

Sports Director Eric Gullickson will be at Tuesday’s game and have preview coverage beginning on WITN First at Four.

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