Will Holton Ahlers start at QB for ECU next Saturday?

ECU football suffered its fourth loss of the season Saturday night, but one positive is that head coach Scottie Montgomery may have finally found his starting quarterback.

Sophomore Reid Herring saw the most snaps in the Pirates' 42-20 loss to Houston, but it was true freshman Holton Ahlers who led ECU on its two best series of the night. The D.H. Conley graduate engineered a pair of fourth quarter touchdown drives, including his first career passing score to Trevon Brown.

"I thought that Holton came in at the end of the game and gave us a tremendous boost," said ECU head football coach Scottie Montgomery. "That's something that will not go unnoticed. It's time that we have to really not look at opening it up but look at production and what's going on in football games. And we've gotta have a boost right now offensively. Offensively I'm not satisfied whatsoever with what we're doing."

Now granted Ahlers produced in garbage time, but he did display confidence in his throwing arm, finishing 11-of-18 for 137 yards passing against the Cougars.

With the redshirt option officially expired for Ahlers, we'll have to wait and see what Montgomery decides to do when the Pirates host No. 9 UCF next Saturday at 7 p.m. inside Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.