NORFOLK, VA. — As the mistakes and turnovers mount for the East Carolina football team, so do the wins.
The Pirates overcame four interceptions from quarterback Jake Garcia, a missed extra point in the first quarter and a drive at the end of the first half that came up empty after miscommunication with the field goal unit.
With the help of an aggressive defense, however, ECU rolled up a 20-14 road win against Old Dominion on Saturday.
“Good win. They're all good,” ECU coach Mike Houston said. “It's good to be 2-0. I told the kids in there I felt like we probably should have won that one by a couple of touchdowns. Obviously we have some mistakes we have to correct but you cannot question how hard the players played, how they competed, our physicality and just the conditioning that we're in.”
Both teams were forced to rely on their conditioning as the offenses looked like a blur at times, moving with urgency and pace.
The Pirates ran 89 plays on offense while ODU took 75 offensive snaps.
“Plus special teams snaps, that's a lot of football and I thought our team handled everything very well,” Houston said. “You know, there at the end, we weren't panicked, we weren't just dead, we were able to get some guys in and out of the game. That's what having great depth will do for you.”
The Pirates aren’t concerned just yet about their depth at quarterback and are prepared to let Garcia figure things out in real time. The quarterback has shown an ability to spread the ball all over the field while making quick reads in the up-tempo offense.
But Garcia has also displayed a tendency to throw interceptions. He has seven on the season after throwing four on Saturday, with three coming in the first half. He also threw three picks in the season opener.
He finished 25-of-38 passing with 283 yards, no touchdowns and four interceptions, but ODU was only able to turn one of those turnovers into points.
“It's tough, man. There's times where I just have to throw the ball away,” Garcia said. “I mean, there has to be some accountability to this and I'm taking full accountability for it. At the end of the day, it's all on me, right? I'm the one that has the ball in my hands, so if it's not there, I just have to be mature enough to throw that ball away.
“Check it down, throw it away, look to play another down and just handle it like that. I just have to do a better job of that. But my defense did a great job picking me up, and so did the rest of the offense as well just trying to pick me up on the sideline and making sure that I'm in a good headspace.”
Winston Wright Jr. was the top target against the Monarchs as the receiver hauled in a game-high seven passes for 66 yards. Anthony Smith had another big game, pulling down five catches for 70 yards.
Nine different players had receptions.
ECU showed off its depth at running back against the Monarchs after not needing the ground attack against Norfolk State. Rahjai Harris had a standout game and showed a burst of speed in the open field, while Marlon Gunn Jr. turned 10 carries into 31 yards after Javious Bond went down with an injury late in the first quarter and didn’t return.
The Pirates looked forward to having Harris fully healthy this season after he went down with a season-ending knee injury in 2022. The running back looked to be operating at full capacity against the Monarchs as he rushed 26 times for a game-high 131 yards and two touchdowns.
He burst through the line and outran the defense for a 63-yard touchdown on the Pirates’ first possession of the second half to give the Pirates a 14-7 lead. Garcia hooked up with Chase Sowell in the back of the end zone to complete the two-point conversion.
“I told him I'd have been all in your butt if you got caught on that run once he broke away,” Houston said of Harris. “Because he talks about his breakaway speed so it was good to see. But I thought our offensive line did a great job of giving him holes and I think he did a great job of toting the rock tonight.”
The Pirates never trailed after the touchdown, and they added some necessary breathing room soon after.
ODU muffed the ensuing kickoff and ECU took over at the Monarchs’ 20-yard line. Andrew Conrad converted a field goal for a 17-7 lead.
The Monarchs cut their deficit to 17-14 with 4:11 remaining in the third quarter, but never got any closer. Conrad added a 50-yard field goal with 9:09 left in the game to extend the lead to 20-14 and cap the scoring.
ODU took a 7-6 lead into halftime, but the Pirates had an opportunity to take the lead before the buzzer when Sowell caught a 19-yard pass to bring ECU to the Monarchs’ 11-yard line with five seconds remaining in the first half.
But they were caught between the decision to either race the field goal unit onto the field or clock the ball.
With no timeouts, ECU couldn’t clock the ball in time and instead was flagged for a false start and the half ended.
“We just had some confusion on the sidelines and I knew what was going on but obviously I got to do a better job with making sure that everybody's on the same page,” Houston said. “That'll be in our situations in practice next week.
“The whole second half I'm thinking, ‘God, I hope this doesn't bite us in the rear end.’ You want to be aggressive because I knew it was going to be a game where there was going to be limited scoring opportunities so you wanted to take one more shot at the end zone. And we should have been able to easily go up there and spike it and kick the short field goal.”
The Pirates produced 506 yards of offense against Norfolk State in the season opener and gained 466 against Old Dominion. The offense has found success moving the ball through the first two games, but the number of points left on the field is growing each week as the Pirates have been hampered by turnovers and mistakes.
Through two games, the Pirates have committed 10 turnovers, with seven coming via interception. Harris said that mistakes will happen as the team learns and adapts to a new system.
“There is definitely room to grow,” Harris said. “We're not settling. We are trying to go. We’re trying to do more and more each week. We practice that way, it’s not like we just show up on game day and it’s there. We’re pushing ourselves to go do this.”
The defense has helped to limit the damage. Shavon Revel Jr. picked off a pass in the second quarter, and the defense recorded four sacks with nine tackles for loss. The unit held ODU to 287 yards of offense, good for just under four yards per play.
“Time and time again there in the fourth quarter the defense responded and got stops,” Houston said. “That defensive line made life really tough on (ODU quarterback Grant Wilson) back there in the pocket and that was the difference in the ball game.”
The Pirates host Appalachian State on Saturday at 4 p.m. inside Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
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