East Carolinian

Issue date: 9/4/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: AP

Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer started his postgame press conference last Saturday by saying, "Give ECU a lot of credit. They are a good football team."

At that moment, ECU's national image changed and the residue from the John Thompson days was officially gone.

"Coming in, I knew ECU was going to be good," said Beamer. "They are a solid football team and that quarterback puts them at another level."

Gaining respect from coaches like Beamer and from college football's national figures isn't easy for teams like the Pirates, who don't play in a BCS conference. Recently, teams like Boise State, Hawaii and Southern Miss have earned respect from college football's "big boys," but ECU now headlines that list.

The win over Virginia Tech coupled with last year's bowl win over Boise State vaulted the Pirates into Conference USA's record books and landed them right outside the Associated Press' top 25. ECU became the first team in C-USA's 13-year history to record back-to-back victories over nationally ranked teams.

ECU now has consecutive wins over two of the nation's top-five winningest programs in the past ten years. Boise State has the best wining percentage of any team in the country in that 10-year span, and the Hokies check in at number five.

"It was a great win from an image standpoint, when you look at it on the national stage," ECU coach Skip Holtz said on Monday. "I think we got a lot of people's attention around the country and they're saying, 'Wow, maybe what they're doing in Greenville is for real and maybe we ought to look at what ECU is doing.'"

"After the [Virginia Tech] game last year, I pulled the team onto the field and I talked to them about remembering what that atmosphere and national stage was like. I told them that you belong on this stage, but nobody is going to give it you. The only way that we are going to earn respect from people around the country and from a lot of the big-time programs around the country is to go out and win one of these games."

That task started as soon as Holtz stepped foot in Greenville.

In the 1990s, under Head Coach Steve Logan, ECU was well respected around the country and was consistently in the top 25 and playing bowl games at season's end. However, Logan only won four games in 2002, and was fired at the end of the season.

Then things got even worse.

The Pirates hired John Thompson, a defensive coordinator from Florida. Thompson won a total of three games over the next two seasons and ECU's national image hit rock bottom. ECU's football program had suddenly turned into a laughing stock and was severely frowned upon by its ACC neighbors.

Continued...

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