Most preseason publications had the winner of the Nov 22nd BYU-Utah Mountain West showdown as the best possibility of a member outside the Big Six of crashing the BCS Bowl party. After just two weeks of college football, there’s a new sheriff in town and its name is East Carolina.
After a 27-22 come-from-behind gut check win over #17 ranked Virginia Tech and a 24-3 throttling of #8 ranked West Virginia, the Skip Holtz led Pirates have leapfrogged both BYU and Utah in the AP poll and are poised to run the table in Conference USA.
A perfect regular season is not a given for the now 14th ranked Pirates but very attainable. ECU is a 13-point road favorite at Tulane this weekend followed by road games at ACC lightweights NC State and Virginia. After facing the Houston and Memphis at home, the likely 7-0 Pirates have a bye before facing what should be their final regular season test at Central Florida. Home games with Marshall and UTEP and roadies at Southern Miss and UAB are all very winnable setting up a likely CUSA Championship game matchup with Tulsa.
Since Skip Holtz took over the helm at Greenville in 2005, East Carolina has been an ATM machine for bettors going an amazing 8-3, 10-3, 8-5 and 2-0 for a highly profitable 28-11 slate. ECU has taken care of business at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium posting an 8-3 mark as a home favorite and the Pirates are a lights out 13-2 in the role of road dog.
Vegas has been seemingly slow to adjust to the emergence of East Carolina. This week the Pirates are just 13 point favorites at Tulane. These same two met in the final game of last year with ECU smoking the Waves (with Matt Forte) 35-12 as 12 point home favorites. When you factor in the standard plus/minus three-point home/road adjustment to last years squads, we’d make the theoretical line this week to more or less a touchdown. Considering ECU’s Hawaii Bowl win over Boise, 16 key returning starters (nine on defense), and opening wins over the Hokies and Mountaineers, this week’s extra six or seven seems cheap.
Getting right down to the nitty gritty, if the Pirates run the table and go a perfect 13-0, how do you keep them out of the BCS ???
Forums
