The best era for every current AAC football school

East Carolina Pirates: Skip Holtz & Ruff McNeil days (2005-2014)

East Carolina has had a couple of good runs in their history. The Pirates have remained a respectable mid-major team for decades. Two eras could have received this honor. One choice was the run between 1972-79. Under coaches Sonny Randle and Pat Dye, ECU never had a losing season and won the 1978 Independence Bowl.

However, I decided to go with the more modern choice, between 2005-2014, when the program was under coaches Skip Holtz and Ruff McNeil. The year before Holtz accepted his first head coaching gig at the FBS level, the Pirates went through a tumultuous two-year stretch where the program went 3-20 between 2003-04.

Holtz's first season in Greenville saw the Pirates improve rapidly, with a 5-6 finish, and would serve as the foreshadowing for the most consistent run in school history. Over the next four seasons from 2006-09, ECU would appear in a bowl game in all four years. This would include a win in the 2007 Hawaii Bowl. The program would also become a regular contender in Conference USA in this stretch.

The 2006 and 2007 seasons saw the Pirates finish just a game behind the East Division champion and 2008-09 saw them capture back-to-back Conference USA titles. 2008 also saw ECU be nationally ranked after upset wins over No. 17 Virginia Tech and No. 8 West Virginia. After 2009, Holtz took a job with South Florida, and Texas Tech defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeal stepped in place.

In McNeil's first season, ECU took a step back, finishing with a 6-7 mark after losing to Maryland in the Military Bowl. However, wideout Dwayne Harris won the C-USA Most Valuable Player Award after catching 101 balls for over 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns. The next season, in 2011, saw East Carolina drop to 5-7.

Despite this mediocre two-year window to start McNeil's tenure, the Pirates would make the bowl season over the next three campaigns. In 2012, ECU barely missed out on another birth to the C-USA title game since they lost to East Division champ UCF. They would earn a trip to the New Orleans Bowl but lose a tight contest to Louisiana.

And 2013 was another year in which the Pirates came a game short of playing in the C-USA title game. This time they finished a game behind Marshall after getting blown out by the Thundering Herd in the regular season finale. Despite the shortcomings, they would blow out Ohio by 17 in the Beef O'Brady's Bowl, which earned them their first double-digit win season since 1991.

The 2014 squad earned some national recognition during the early portion of the season after transitioning to the American Conference. ECU started 3-1, which included a win over No. 17 Virginia Tech and a 70-41 dismantling of North Carolina. The Pirates would be ranked for six straight weeks from late September to late October. Their highest ranking was at No. 18.

They would end the year at 8-4 and suffered a close loss to Florida in the Birmingham Bowl. Since the end of 2014, the program has only appeared in one more bowl game, which took place in 2022. McNeil was relieved of his coaching duties following a disappointing 5-7 record in 2015 and the program went through losing years in six of the next eight seasons.