The Bearcats are fresh of a bye week meaning they have had two weeks to prepare for East Carolina this Saturday. Translation, bad news for East Carolina. UC enters the game 6-1, ranked 17th in the nation and looking to continue the march towards a conference title and a possible New Years Six Bowl game. East Carolina enters the week 3-5 (0-4 in American play), losers of three straight, and 24 point underdogs.
UC *should* have little trouble with ECU despite the game being in their stadium. ECU currently gives up 28.2 points a game while scoring only 21.5. Despite multiple games filled with offensive woes this season, the Bearcats still put up an average of 28.6 points a game, and when the offense really clicks like the Marshall game, they can put huge point totals on the board.
ECU is quarterbacked by sophomore Holton Ahlers and he comes into the game with a 55% completion rate, 1,672 passing yards and 7 touchdowns, but also has 7 interceptions. Ahlers is also the second leading rusher on the team where he has added another 256 yards and four scores. It is worth noting that the games against Temple, and William and Mary, are the only two games of the season Ahlers hasn’t thrown an interception. Saturday, he faces a Bearcats defense that currently second in D-1 with 19 takeaways.
Dmtrius Mauney is the leading rusher for the Pirates, but it is a rushing attack that never really seems to get going. Mauney only runs the ball for about 45 yards a game and he’s found the end zone just once this season. The Pirates are a more balanced team in the passing game however, with three different receivers eclipsing 300 yards on the year, with C.J. Johnson leading the way with 399 yards (32 catches, followed by Blake Proehl with 376 yards (28 catches) and Tyler Snead with 309 yards (22 catches).
Defensively the Pirates will be led by Linebacker Xavier Smith. Smith is leading the team with 54 tackles, four pass breakups and a forced fumble. The Pirates can be an opportunistic defense with 10 takeaways on the year, so Ridder and company will need to take care of the ball on Saturday. The bright side is ECU has given up an average of 417.2 yards per game, so I’d expect the passing and running game to look nice on Saturday.
Coming off the bye week in September, UC came out firing on all cylinders and put a 52 spot up on Marshall. With another bye week to clean up some things, get back to 100% health, and prepare for the final leg of the season, I expect a similar showing from UC. Ridder and Warren/Doaks should be able to pick up yards in big chunks for all four quarters and the defense has been consistently one of the best in the country all season and should remain so with this matchup. UC would have to have a catastrophic game in all phases for ECU to pull off the upset, I just think Fickell has this team too focused and they have too much to lose to let a game like this trip them up, look for UC to roll big on Saturday.
