ECU Preview
September 01, 2004 04:06 PM | General
September 1, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – According to West Virginia University coach Rich Rodriguez, the unknowns will heavily outweigh the knowns when his Mountaineer football team takes on East Carolina Saturday in the 2004 season opener.
 Thompson |
 Pinkney |
 Townes |
 Moore |
The Pirates, coming off a disappointing 1-11 season under first-year coach John Thompson, have a brand new offensive coordinator in Steve Spurrier disciple Noah Brindise, a relatively new starting quarterback in 6-foot-3, 209-pound sophomore James Pinkney, and a whole new approach for this season.
“From past experience I know you are better the second year under your new staff than your first year simply because of retention and your program is settled,” Rodriguez said.
Pinkney started the final three games of 2003 against South Florida, Tulane and Southern Mississippi and held off nine-game starter Desmond Robinson (5-10, 210, Sr.) during fall camp to keep the quarterback job. Pinkney completed 43 of 87 pass attempts for 422 yards and two touchdowns. Robinson completed a much higher percentage of his throws (66.2 percent compared to 49.4 percent) in 2003, but also tossed 11 interceptions.
Rodriguez is inclined to believe Pinkney is a good fit for Brindise’s Fun-n-Gun system, “From what I understand he’s better suited for what they do now instead of what they did last year. They are really excited about the way he’s played and they think he’s really suited for their Fun-n-Gun.”
Giving the Mountaineer defense problems is the fact that East Carolina has two 1,000-yard rushers healthy and available for Saturday’s game. Art Brown (5-9, 203, Sr.), a 1,000-yard gainer in 2002, missed all of last season with a knee injury and is back for 2004. His replacement, Marvin Townes (6-0, 200, So.), reached the 1,000-yard mark last year and is listed ahead of Brown on the depth chart.
“They like throwing the ball around but they’ve also got two 1,000-yard rushers,” said Rodriguez. “We’ve got to expect that they’re going to use those two guys who are two of their best football players.”
ECU plans on starting three juniors up front in center Hunter Wood (6-3, 283, Jr.), right guard Gary Freeman (6-1, 331, Jr.) and right tackle Chris Sellers (6-2, 296, Jr.). On the other side, the Pirates will line up with sophomore left tackle Eric Graham (6-6, 312, So.) and senior left guard Hagen Mason (6-1, 284, Sr.). Freeman and Graham are both 300-pounders.
Tight end Shawn Levesque (6-4, 242, Jr.) claimed the starting job after transferring from Kilgore (Texas) College.
Sophomore Bryan Howard (6-2, 170, So.) and senior Demarcus Fox (5-8, 179, Sr.) are ECU’s top two wide outs. Howard caught nine passes for 67 yards in 2003 while Fox caught six balls for 131 yards and a touchdown.
Jermarcus Veal (6-1, 241, Jr.), a converted linebacker, will start at fullback.
On the other side of the ball, East Carolina will employ a small but aggressive defense in the mold of defenses Thompson coordinated at Florida, Arkansas and Southern Mississippi.
“We know a little bit about his system and they’re running the same things,” Rodriguez said. “They run all kinds of blitzes and they’ll have a couple defenses where they’ll have nobody down. All 11 guys will be standing up and they’re moving around.”
East Carolina’s front four consists of defensive ends Shauntae Hunt (6-5, 268, Jr.) and Richard Koonce (6-0, 237, Jr.), and down-men Dontre Brown (6-1, 287, So.) and Michael MacDonagh (6-3, 249, So.).
The anchor of the ECU defense is junior linebacker Chris Moore (6-1, 228, Jr.), a preseason honors candidate. Moore led the Pirates with 148 total tackles, 13 tackles for losses and added a sack. Junior Dashaun Stephens (5-11, 233, Jr.) flanks Moore on one side and junior Jamar Flournoy (60-, 205, Jr.) lines up on the other. Stephens produced 30 tackles with 3 ½ TFL as a sophomore in 2003.
Both Pirate corners are under 6-foot tall in sophomore Erode Jean (5-9, 177, So.) and senior Donald Whitehead (5-10, 179, Sr.), while the starting safeties are expected to be junior Zach Baker (6-2, 208, Jr.) at free and sophomore Kyle Chase (5-8, 195, So.) at strong. Chase played in nine games and produced 21 tackles in 2003.
“You don’t know who is blitzing and who’s dropping out,” said Rodriguez of Thompson’s complicated defensive scheme. “You just hope their first game our guys don’t blow gaskets and let guys come free.”
East Carolina is grooming five new starters on defense and six new starters on offense.
By comparison, West Virginia returns an extremely veteran starting lineup consisting of 10 players with starting experience on defense and eight players with starting experience on offense.
Quarterback Rasheed Marshall is looking to bolster a Mountaineer passing attack that ranked last in the Big East in 2003 with an average of 156.5 yards per game. Rodriguez, for one, is more interested in having offensive balance as opposed to posting gaudy passing numbers.
“Rasheed can throw the ball: he can make all the throws, he’s smart enough to run the offense and he understands defenses,” said Rodriguez. “But the best thing he can do is run. He’s got to be one of the fastest quarterbacks in the country and we’d be foolish not to use that in some regards.”
Marshall is within 400 yards of topping Syracuse’s Donovan McNabb for the Big East rushing record for quarterbacks with 1,561 yards. Marshall ran for 666 yards and 13 touchdowns as a sophomore in 2002.
Rodriguez still hasn’t named a starter at tailback with senior Kay-Jay Harris and Jason Colson battling it out.
“It’s neck and neck,” said Rodriguez. “Maybe we’ll put them both out there.”
Behind those two is true freshman Pernell Williams, who will also play special teams. Third-teamer Bryan Wright probably won’t dress Saturday due to a preseason ankle injury. Fullback Hikee Johnson can also play tailback in an emergency.
“We’re scary thin there,” said Rodriguez.
The wide receiver corps is nearly back to full strength with the return of seniors Miquelle Henderson and Eddie Jackson. Rodriguez said Tuesday the top four are junior Chris Henry, senior John Pennington, Henderson and junior Brandon Myles with Jackson and sophomore Joe Hunter in the rotation.
Rodriguez says backup quarterbacks Charles Hales and Dwayne Thompson will also get time Saturday at wide receiver.
“One of the pleasing things that came out of camp is that we’ve developed more depth at receiver because of our quarterbacks,” said Rodriguez. “You still get a little nervous because quarterback is their main deal. But it’s going to be fun to come up with some things for those guys.”
Recently, Rodriguez added defensive backs Jermaine Moye and Abraham Jones to the mix to provide receiver depth.
“They’re two athletic guys who can run and make plays,” he said. “Both of those guys are behind on the learning curve but they’ll be in the mix as well.”
With Hales and Thompson getting reps with the receivers, redshirt freshman Adam Bednarik has moved into the No. 3 quarterback slot behind Marshall and Hales.
WVU has two solid starters at tight end in senior Ryan Thomas and junior Josh Bailey. Up front, the Mountaineers will either go with senior Tim Brown or sophomore Jeremy Hines at center. If Brown starts at center, then junior Garin Justice will slide in at right tackle. The other three starters should be senior Jeff Berk, sophomore Dan Mozes, and senior Mike Watson. Brown could also start at right tackle.
West Virginia’s defense is set with a veteran group up front in defensive ends Ernest Hunter and Jason Hardee, with senior Ben Lynch in the middle. WVU could use as many as 10 defensive linemen during Saturday’s game.
The linebacker corps has been retooled somewhat with sophomore Boo McLee taking over for consensus All-American Grant Wiley at strong lienbacker, but he teams with two experienced holders in senior weakside linebacker Scott Gyorko and senior middle linebacker Adam Lehnortt.
Lehnortt and Gyorko both produced more than 100 tackles last year and will be asked to help get the front seven aligned properly this fall.
“Adam Lehnortt is in a different role than he’s ever been in. Ben Lynch is in a different role. Even some of the guys that have played are going to be in different roles as far as leadership goes and I expect them to do well with that,” said Rodriguez.
WVU has a potential shut-down corner in junior Adam Pac-Man Jones, who came of age during last year’s game at No. 2-ranked Miami. Jones will team with junior Anthony Mims at the other corner spot, with juniors Mike Lorello and Jahmile Addae back at safeties. Hard-hitting senior Lawrence Audena returns as the team’s bandit safety.
The coach noted that Jones, Myles and backup cornerbacks Antonio Lewis and Vaughn Rivers will be deep on kickoffs, with Jones, Rivers, and Mims back on punts.
Phil Brady, an ECU castoff, is expected to get the nod at punter and senior Brad Cooper will handle the place kicking chores.
Game time is 6 pm and there is no live television for the contest. Tickets still remain and can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging onto WVUGAME.com.
Briefly: Mountaineer coach Rich Rodriguez said Tuesday that’s he’s anxious to erase the memory of last year’s performance against Maryland in the Gator Bowl, “We haven’t gone against anybody since last year and in our last game we were awful so I’m anxious to see if we’ve gotten any better …” Rodriguez says his team is currently made up of 82 scholarship players … Fifty five of those are freshmen and sophomores, “I’m not a math major but that’s 67 percent of our roster,” said Rodriguez … The coach mentioned Tuesday that all of the freshmen except for Pernell Williams are slated to be redshirted this year … Rodriguez said last week that he might take a look at defensive end Doug Slavonic but has since changed his mind … Rodriguez hinted that there may be a time or two Saturday when three quarterbacks are in the game at the same time … Rodriguez will be a guest via satellite on the ESPN2 morning show “Cold Pizza” at approximately 7:15 am Thursday morning.
