In the 28-17 victory over South Florida, did the East Carolina Pirates look vulnerable? That is the question I struggled with as I watched and re-watched the game from last weekend.
I honestly can’t say that the Pirates looked vulnerable. Beatable, yes. Vulnerable? No. After breaking down that game, I have pinpointed three areas of concern in high, medium and low concern levels and hope these things get worked out during the bye week.
High Level Threat: Pass Coverage
On the first day of playing organized football as a child, one of the first things that is bear into your brain time after time is that worn out cliche that defenses win championships. It’s true that they do, and ECU can improve in the pass coverage to keep the hopes alive for the conference championship.
I have never been a fan the zone coverage. I feel that the secondary should be fast enough to man up on a receiver and take care of business. That typically will not and cannot happen on any level of competition, but ECU needs to figure something out to stop the pass. USF had many big yardage passes that found the holes in the coverage effortlessly, especially USF’s first touchdown that went for 51 yards.
Luckily for ECU, the coaching was better in the second half and the coverage got better in the second half. Of the 257 yards the defense gave up in the game, 143 of them came in the first half. What happens later in the season when the Pirates are facing a better team than USF? That is when these problems of holes in the secondary need to be fixed.
Medium Level Threat: Offensive Line Play
The high octane performance of the offense so far this season would not be anything without those big ol’ hogs out there smacking defense linemen around.
However, I felt that the offensive line couldn’t decide what game they wanted to play against USF. At times they looked great and made time for Shane Carden and all the right holes for the running backs to make great reads and make big yardage plays. Then in the same drive they would miss a block and Carden would make a rushed throw or even be sacked and the drive would stall.
For an offense, you need consistency out of your offensive line or you will not be very successful at all. If USF can do that to the Pirates, what would a Central Florida team do with, in my opinion, the best front seven in the conference?
Low Level Threat: Shane Carden’s Inconsistency
Statistically, this was Carden’s worst outing in total yardage this season. Carden ended up with 250 yards, one touchdown and one interception. I am not saying that his play was awful in any way; e is everything you want in a quarterback: a leader, a playmaker, confident and calm.
Carden was a bit too confident in his ability to hit receivers. There were many throws that I thought he should not have been making. Some of them should have been intercepted, and some of them were just dropped.
I bring this up as a small, almost microscopic concern for ECU because he is a very smart and competent quarterback. However, confidence can lead to cockiness and when he tries to make those type of big play throws, they may not just fall innocently to the turf but may find their way into the defenders hands.
I do need to applaud head coach Ruffin McNeill on seeing these same problems during this game and fixing them at halftime. I was astounded by how night and day different this team was. South Florida is not a very good team and I don’t think the Pirates would be able to make that kind of comeback against Temple or Central Florida.
That is why they need to fix these problems now to claim their throne (or treasure chest if you will) in this conference.
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