Saturday will mark the final installment of UCF's longtime series with East Carolina.
The Knights and Pirates have met 20 times on the gridiron which is currently deadlocked in a 10-10 all-time series tie. Since 2005, the two schools have been conference rivals and have played every season except one (2013).
ECU had the edge in the early games, but UCF has now won six consecutive games in the series dating back to 2016. That includes a 20-16 victory in Orlando last season that was decided in the final minute.
The most memorable game is undoubtedly the 2014 contest. ECU was leading 30-26 late in the fourth quarter, but poor clock management on their part gave UCF an opportunity with 10 seconds left and backed up on their 35 yard line.
The Knights then perfectly executed two plays: Justin Holman connected with Josh Reese for a 14-yard gain, then Holman chucked it up deep and found Breshad Perriman in the end zone for a 51-yard touchdown.
The "Hail Perriman" play clinched a share of the American Athletic Conference Championship for UCF and signaled the beginning of a downturn for ECU. The Pirates suffered through six losing seasons before finally breaking through with a 7-5 year in 2021.
To preview Saturday's meeting in Greenville, N.C., we caught up with Jared Shafit of The Boneyard Podcast.
To get started, we talked about ECU's four-overtime 47-45 victory against Memphis this past weekend. The Pirates are 4-3, but are a couple plays away from being 6-1. They missed a potential game-winning field goal against NC State and also lost a double-overtime game to Navy.
ECU has seen a resurgence under Mike Houston, who arrived in Greenville in 2019 following a successful stint at James Madison. Houston replaced Scottie Montgomery, who finished with 3-9 records in all three of his seasons (2016-18).
Offensively, the Pirates are led by quarterback Holton Ahlers, a Greenville native. A fifth-year starter, Ahlers already holds both the school and American career passing records. ECU also had a stud running back in Keaton Mitchell, who leads the AAC in rushing with 97.0 yards per game. ECU is averaging 33.1 points per game.
Defensive, ECU ranks No. 16 nationally in red zone defense (UCF is No. 1 in that category). Among AAC teams, the Pirates rank fifth in scoring defense (24.6). According to PFF, ECU's top performers on defense have included cornerback Malik Fleming, safety Gerard Stringer and linebacker Jeremy Lewis.
Since Eastern North Carolina barbecue has been a hot topic this week, Jared and I talked about several food recommendations for those traveling to Greenville this weekend.
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