Tremendous news; Why he left East Carolina Pirates Football

Preview: East Carolina University Football; Top Players; Top Transfers; Season Projected; Win Total: 2024

Okay, East Carolina, ha ha. You had your clunker relapse, now go back to winning lots of games.The program that was so good for so long in the mid-2000s to 2014 hit a wall. Six straight losing seasons hurt, and then head coach Mike Houston turned things around with 15 wins in two years before going 2-10 in 2023.

There were some bad runs over the decades, but 2004 was the last time ECU was this bad. It was a rough campaign, there wasn’t any offense, but …The schedule was sneaky-tough, the defense was decent for the first time in a very, very long time, and five of the ten losses could’ve very, very easily gone the other way.This year?

The transfer portal should fix several of the offensive issues, the defense should be every bit as strong, and best of all, the American Athletic Conference isn’t very good.Granted, everyone else in the league is thinking the same thing, but Memphis, Tulane, and probably South Florida are the three teams to worry about, and East Carolina doesn’t play any of them.And it doesn’t play Michigan this time around, or SMU, and there aren’t any games against Power Four programs to deal with.So call 2023 a reset, and rebuild, a down year, or whatever else. Call it quickly forgotten if 2024’s team does what it’s supposed to.NOTE: The previews were published early this summer. We tried to catch the changes, but if we missed anything, please let us know at @ColFootballNews and we’ll fix it right away.

– All of a sudden the East Carolina offense stopped working. The 2022 attack hadn’t put up that many points since 2014, and then the 208 put up in 2023 were the fewest in a season since 1986.The main culprit was the lack of a downfield passing game – the Pirates averaged just under ten yards per completion, among the fewest in the country. That’s potentially changing fast with two transfer quarterbacks with experience joining the fun.

Between Jake Garcia (Missouri) and Katin Houser (Michigan State) the ECU O will get a whole lot more out of the position. – The receiving corps has a potentially nice mix. Leading receiver Chase Sowell made 47 grabs for 622 yards and a touchdown in his freshman year, and Jhari Patterson is back as a short-range target, but Anthony Smith (NC State) and Winston Wright (Florida State) should crank up the production fast.- The running game didn’t help the cause. Three starters are back up front with a little help coming in from the transfer portal, and the backs are in place if they can get some room. Rajai Harris and Javious Bond combined for 716 yards and six scores, and now they need more carries.