Here’s why ECU should be confident heading into 2016

With the 2016 college football season still a couple months (ugh) away from starting, now is the time of greatest optimism for most teams.

Among that group of enthusiastic teams is East Carolina, which is coming off a rather disappointing 5-7 record but looks forward to bouncing back in 2016. But will it? It’s still very early on, so it’s hard to make any definitive statements on the Pirates. Still though, they have plenty of reasons to be confident going into the upcoming season.

Questions answered

Confidence can spring from many places. The obvious places like talent and scheme are important and we’ll go a little more in-depth on them later on, but one of the biggest reasons the Pirates should be confident going into this season is because there’s no real guesswork in terms of who is going to be where on the depth chart.

The event that led to all of ECU’s pieces falling in place was the transfer of quarterback Kurt Benkert back in April. In one fell swoop, the Pirates went from being locked in a battle at the most important position on the field to having a full-time, experienced starting quarterback in senior Philip Nelson. Having their most significant position established, the Pirates can now focus on getting Nelson in tune with some of the other important pieces on the offense. Not only that, but it provides a clear focus for the Pirates moving forward, and also gives them the added confidence that they know exactly who will be where when the season kicks off on September 3.

Make the leap

Another reason the Pirates should be confident heading into the season is due to the leaps that several players made during the spring. ECU already had proven commodities in players like senior receiver Zay Jones and junior linebacker Jordan Williams, but over the course of the spring, the Pirates had several players who made the most of their reps.

On the offensive side of the ball, running back Anthony Scott emerged as a home run threat in the backfield, while receivers Quay Johnson and Trevon Brown showed that they are able make an impact catching passes. Brown opened the Purple-Gold game by catching a 75-yard TD pass, while Johnson is poised to have a big season behind Jones.

Defensively, a myriad of players gained momentum during the spring. Williams will be the galvanizing force in the middle of the defense, but he won’t be alone in terms of being able to wreak havoc on opposing offenses. Junior linebackers Yiannis Bowden and Darius Commisiong are both poised for breakout seasons alongside Wiliams, while Fred Presley will anchor the defensive line. Possibly the biggest leaps of the spring came in the secondary, where corner DeShaun Amos was named Defensive MVP of the spring game. Elsewhere, Dadrick Hawkins, Corey Seargent and DaShawn Benton all had moments of excellence during the spring.

Why not?

There’s no denying that the Pirates have the potential to have a successful season in 2016. The question is: how successful? As it stands right now, ECU is firmly entrenched in the middle of the pack in AAC. That obviously isn’t good enough for the Pirates’ extremely passionate fan base, even with the pieces being in place to move up. When that happens exactly remains to be seen, but with a break or two, it could be this season.

One reason to believe comes from the coaching staff. Yes, they’re new. Yes, they’re unproven. But the zeal and enthusiasm with which Scottie Montgomery, Tony Petersen, Kenwick Thompson and the rest of the ECU coaching staff have attacked their new positions has to give the Pirates confidence heading into 2016.

Since Day 1, Montgomery hasn’t backed down from any of the challenges inherent in the post, and has made no bones about his expectations for the program. Each coach has brought their own unique style, but they’ve all melded together for the common goal of making sure the Pirates play a fundamentally solid, attacking brand of football.

With such leadership in place, where success is the expectation rather than the hope, it would be hard for the Pirates to go into this season as anything less than confident.

The ultimate source of confidence is in success. ECUwill have to wait until the season gets under way before it can put it to the test, but in the meantime, it can look around and see plenty of reasons to build that confidence going into the season.