East Carolina Is No Break From Tough Early Schedule
Sept. 23, 1999
By DAVID DROSCHAK
AP Sports Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Miami is one top 10 team that can’t be accused of asoft early schedule.
The ninth-ranked Hurricanes (2-1) have already played No. 2 Penn StateandNo. 13 Ohio State, with top-ranked Florida State waiting in the wings nextweekend before heading into Big East Conference play.
Miami’s breather between playing the nation’s top two teams is EastCarolinaon Saturday.
Some breather.
The Pirates, who play in Conference USA, are off to a 3-0 start and havegiven the Hurricanes trouble in the past. In fact, East Carolina rolled overMiami 31-6 in the Orange Bowl in 1996 – a season in which the Hurricanesfinished 9-3 and 14th in the nation.
“They lost to Penn State in a heartbreaker, then they got Florida Stateafter us, so I don’t think they’re going to worry too much about us,” EastCarolina running back Jamie Wilson said. “They know we’re 3-0, but they reallydon’t respect the way we play.”
Miami coach Butch Davis is hoping his team doesn’t underestimate thePirates, who have allowed a total of 12 points in their last two wins overDukeand South Carolina.
“We have got to minimize both the Ohio State game and the Penn Stategame,” Davis said. “We’ve had way too many turnovers offensively and the bigpicture for this season for us, unless we expect to have an awful lot offrustrating Saturdays, we’ve got to minimize the mistakes.
“A lot of times the best teams don’t necessarily win and the team thatgenerally makes the fewest amount of mistakes has a great opportunity to win.”
Davis doesn’t favor this year’s schedule of five non-conference games toopen the season.
“The big picture is that we hopefully will be a better football team forhaving played a team like Penn State and help the football program continue togrow and get better,” he said.
“I don’t necessarily like playing five non-conference games and thenplaying all your conference games at the end of the season. It’s the way theschedule turns out and we’ll just have to deal with it.”
At least Miami caught one break this weekend. The game has been moved 80miles west to Raleigh from the East Carolina campus in Greenville because offlooding from Hurricane Floyd.
“It doesn’t help,” East Carolina coach Steve Logan said when asked aboutthe game being moved to N.C. State’s Carter-Finley Stadium. “We’re going to beon the road. We lost a home game, so to speak. But I’m really glad we’replaying the game, I didn’t want to lose the game, that would have been adisaster.”
The Pirates have also been stuck in Columbia, S.C., all week, meaningpractice time and space has been limited.
“We can’t get on schedule, we have to condense everything inside thatsmallfacility,” (South Carolina’s indoor practice field), Logan said. “We justreally can’t punt and our kicking game is really suffering. There’s not enoughroom to get their individual drill work done.”
Logan also noticed another trend with his team this week.
“For some strange reason everyone’s tired. I guess because we have tomovearound, move around, move around, get on the bus, I guess it takes a bit of atoll,” he said.
