Collegiate Times

After entering the season with a national title chance and another Atlantic Coast Conference championship expected, the Virginia Tech football team and its fans find themselves in an unexpected situation.

With expectations lowered and the hope for another ACC title slipping away, what do the Hokies have left to play for?

For one, they’ll be playing for pride, and this week especially they’ll be going after revenge.

The East Carolina University Pirates stunned Tech in its season opener last year in Charlotte, and the players have put consecutive losses to two ACC opponents behind them in an effort to avenge the defeat last season.

Redshirt junior starting cornerback Rashad Carmichael made clear his feelings about the upcoming game against the Pirates.

“This is one of the games that I’ve been looking forward to, and I know the rest of my teammates have been looking forward to it since we lost the opener last year,” Carmichael said. “It’s going to be an exciting and emotional game for us.”

Sophomore wide receiver Dyrell Roberts feels the same way, and he believes this game will be a chance for the team to regain its composure.

“Just thinking back to this game last year, starting off the season with a loss to the same team, just looking at them on film. What we’re really trying to do is go back out there and get our season going back in the right direction and get our confidence back up and showcase what it is we can do,” Roberts said.

Despite looking forward to the game with great intensity, righting the ship against ECU will surely be a tall task for the Hokies.

“They’re just a really good football team and going down there it’s going to be an exciting atmosphere, and we need to get ready to play a great football game,” head coach Frank Beamer said.

The Pirates return eight seniors on defense, and despite a total defense ranking of just 60, ECU forces turnovers and buckles down in the red zone.

For the season, ECU ties for 17th in the country with 11 interceptions and ties for 10th overall with 21 turnovers gained.

In addition to a defense that feeds on turnovers, the Pirates excel when forced to defend inside their own 20 yard line.

They are tied at 16th overall in red zone defense, only allowing points 73 percent of the time. Opponents have scored 19 times on 26 trips into the red zone.

For Tech, this may be an issue. The Hokies have not struggled to move the ball down the field as an offense, but once inside opposing territory, the drives have been stalling.

“It’s very frustrating because we put in the time and effort, we’re driving down the field, putting together great drives and not being able to finish off. It’s like leaving a whole lot of points out there that need to be scored,” Roberts said. “We can’t dwell on it. All we can do now is try to fix the problem and just go into each one of these games, and every time we get into the redzone, score 100 percent of the time.”

On offense, the Pirates return senior quarterback Pat Pinkney who picked the Tech defense apart in the 2008 game. He went 19-23 with 211 passing yards, a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown.

Against a weaker defense this year, Pinkney may again put up big numbers against Tech.

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