East Carolina Head Coach Mike Houston Assesses His Team After Spring Scrimmage

Joe Londergan | Apr 4, 2024

Nov 4, 2023; Greenville, North Carolina, USA; East Carolina Pirates head coach Mike Houston looks / James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

After a 2-10 season in 2023, Mike Houston's East Carolina Pirates are looking to get back to the winning ways they enjoyed in 2021 and 2022. Currently in the midst of their spring practice schedule, the Pirates ran a full-team scrimmage inside an empty Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium this past Saturday.

"Exciting first day in the stadium, from a scrimmage perspective," Houston told media after the practice. "Went about 100 plays today. Everybody got work. Saw a ton of positives. Obviously, things to correct, but I thought for the first scrimmage of the year, the thing I was most pleased with was just that we weren't sloppy. Our execution was pretty good on both sides of the ball for the first time in a game situation...A lot of enthusiasm, a lot of energy out there, big plays by both sides of the ball. Great way to cap off a really really solid week."

Offensively, the Pirates' quarterback room provides some intrigue. The starting job will likely go to one of two high-profile transfers: Missouri's Jake Garcia or Michigan State's Katin Houser. The Pirates worked several different quarterbacks throughout the day with mixed, but mostly positive results.

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"We've got to eliminate the turnovers," Houston noted. "That's very correctable, though. I thought we made some great throws today. We threw some receivers open. I thought the receivers did a great job of being consistent with making plays. "

ECU's offensive players also have the added challenge of learning the ins and outs of a new offensive coordinator this spring in John David Baker, who spent the previous two seasons as Co-OC at Ole Miss. Based on their progress, however, Houston is starting to think things will get to where they need to be, come August.

"These players are a couple of weeks into a brand new offense. So for them to come out and be as clean as they were today with all the stuff we threw at the defense, you got to be excited about that," Houston concluded. "I told the kids, the challenge is we got to have a better week next week than what we had this week. If we have a better Saturday next week than what we had today, then I will be really pleased going into the last week of spring practice."

ECU will have one more scrimmage this coming Saturday before entering the final week of spring practice,. The Pirates have their spring game scheduled for Saturday, April 13th at 1 p.m. (ET) at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.