Spring Break
Revenge on their minds
Marshall presents roadblock yet again
Kellen Holtzman
Issue date: 11/6/08 Section: Sports
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Last season, the Thundering Herd abruptly ended the Pirates' dreams with a dominating 26-7 victory in Huntington, W.Va. ECU was in control of its own destiny before the loss cost the team its first trip to a C-USA title game.
"[Last year] we had an opportunity to go to the conference championship game up in West Virginia and unfortunately we didn't execute," said quarterback Rob Kass. "We really didn't do our job and that's obviously in the back of our minds."
This season, both teams are 3-1 in conference play and tied for first in the East Division. The winner of this year's matchup will take firm control of the division.
The Pirates will be forced to bounce back quickly from Sunday night's thrilling win over UCF, while Marshall has been resting up since its 37-23 win over Houston last Tuesday.
"I think Marshall is a very good football team," said ECU coach Skip Holtz. "They've had a difficult schedule as they have played Wisconsin and West Virginia on the road and Cincinnati at home. You look at their win-loss record and say they've lost some football games, but they've lost to some very talented BCS football teams."
The talented teams Holtz mentioned all won in convincing fashion over the Herd (4-4, 3-1). Marshall lost the games against Wisconsin, West Virginia and Cincinnati by an average of 28 points.
However, the Herd seem to be playing their best football of the year after last week's strong win over Houston, a team that ran ECU (5-3, 3-1) off the field in September.
Once again, the battle at quarterback is the hot topic surrounding the Pirates this week. Both Patrick Pinkney and Kass saw action on Sunday night, but neither gave spectacular performances. Pinkney went six-for-14 for 84 yards off the bench while Kass went seven-for-19 for 65 yards with one interception.
"I can't really say this is definitely what we're going to do this weekend," Holtz said of this week's plan. "Looking back at it right now, there's a possibility they could both play. We're just going to have to see what we're going to do as a game plan and how it fits."
Holtz inserted Pinkney against UCF when the offensive line struggled to contain the Golden Knights' pass rush-and re-inserted Kass when the Pirates aimed to pass the ball downfield.
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