Can a high-powered offense, led by Holton Ahlers, lead to more success for ECU football in year two of the Mike Houston era?
East Carolina has had only one winning season since joining the AAC in 2014 and for a traditionally strong program, that’s incredibly disappointing.
The Pirates had a successful run under former coach Ruffin McNeill, but decided to move on from him and hired Scottie Montgomery in hopes that he could take the program to new heights. Needless to say, he was a disaster of a hire for the Pirates and had three straight seasons of only three wins.
Last offseason, ECU hired James Madison head coach Mike Houston, who had great success with the Dukes including winning a national championship, in hopes that he can guide the Pirates to success in the AAC.
Houston had a bit of an uneven first season with the Pirates and a lot of that was due to a poor defense and running game. The bright spot for the program was the play of quarterback Holton Ahlers who ranked ninth in the FBS in total offense and finished his season on a streak of good play.
Two of ECU’s wins came against FCS opponents and the other two against UConn and Old Dominion. Those are not particularly impressive wins, but the Pirates came close to pulling upsets against Cincinnati and SMU, who were two of the best teams in the conference. That has built some optimism around the team this year and given them some confidence that they can play with the best.
Any team in the AAC should be careful if they have to go against this powerful Pirates offense.