THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9408250751
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: R15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Football Preview: College Football '94
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
To call last year's East Carolina football team a rudderless ship is putting a good face on what was more than a Mayday situation.
The Pirates were flotsam, so much deadwood ascribed to nothingness after quarterback Marcus Crandell was lost for the season in the second quarter of the second game and his backup, Chris Hester, went down four games later.
Reduced to a freshman passer wholly unprepared for duty - Perez Mattison threw 16 interceptions in eight games - coach Steve Logan's lost souls finished 2-9 and did not, could not, generate anything approaching the offense Logan's teams are known for.
Granted, 5-foot-6, 174-pound running back Junior Smith piled up a school-record 1,352 yards. Entering his senior season, Smith, the country's second-leading returning runner (behind Wisconsin's Brent Moss), needs 348 yards to top East Carolina's all-time rushing list.
But the Pirates wound up averaging only 147 passing yards and less than 300 yards in total offense per game. They had 22 interceptions and just seven touchdowns. Soon enough, Logan tried to salvage the season by looking toward the future.
He made sure that nearly his entire team, top-heavy with freshmen and sophomores, saw game action. As many as 18 freshmen or first-year players started at various times, and only eight players on the roster failed to get into a game.
So that is why Logan's August optimism was keen as he began his third season as the Pirates' head coach. Smith is back. Crandell, still an untested yet talented redshirt sophomore, is back. Sixteen lettermen from a defense that improved from No. 105 to No. 47 in the country are back. So are dozens of players who, figuratively, got their teeth kicked in during a tough apprenticeship. It is presumed they'd like to return a couple favors.
``We wanted to keep morale high last year, and one way to do that was to play a lot of kids,'' Logan said. ``We've got a lot of defensive kids back, a good running back, my quarterback's healthy, and we have a sophomore-oriented team but most of them have played. I'm looking forward to it and they are, too.''
Just three seasons ago, the Pirates went 11-1 and wound up ranked with the nation's top teams. Logan, 41, was the quarterback coach and offensive coordinator back then for coach Bill Lewis, and quarterback Jeff Blake was his prize pupil.
Crandell has assumed that position. Crandell, one of Logan's first recruits, apparently has rebounded well from the fractured fibula and dislocated ankle he suffered early in a victory over Central Florida last September.
``Marcus brings a level of creativity that you don't coach,'' Logan said. ``A designed play does one thing, but at the end of that part of it, he's liable to create something else. He's coming back at full speed. He had a good spring.''
Logan has charged Crandell with restoring the excitement in his offense, but Smith should have at least as much to say about that subject. Smith carried 278 times last year. The running back with the most attempts behind Smith had 30.
Smith scored nine of East Carolina's 10 rushing touchdowns on the way to becoming the first Pirate in 20 years to compile back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. No East Carolina runner has ever gone for 1,000 yards three years in a row.
Smith has always presented a bit of a puzzle, to tacklers and talent evaluators, by being so low to the ground. He can run a 4.4 40 and bench press 325 pounds, but pro scouts aren't sure what to make of him, Logan said.
Division I coaches faced the same quandary four years ago as Smith, from Fayetteville, finished high school as the second-leading rusher in state history with 2,454 yards. Smith was probably headed to Division I-AA Appalachian State until East Carolina ``pulled the trigger'' on him late, according to Logan.
The Pirate coaches guessed Smith could be good, Logan said, but not this good.
``He's a big-time college football player in every respect,'' Logan said. ``You don't gain 1,000 yards one season and 1,300 the next by accident. I anticipate a good senior year.''
Same for Smith, who was a rookie in 1991 and sees the talent level rising again at East Carolina. He hopes to lead the revival of mental tenacity that is talent's essential complement.
``We've got the attitude that there are no excuses. We've got to get the job done,'' Smith said. ``You could see how that '91 team developed a lot of confidence in itself. That's what we're trying to develop in ourselves. Going into any game that year, we knew we were going to win. We hung in and at the end we saw how we were going to win.''
The Pirates' first chance to win doesn't come until the opener on Sept. 10 at Duke, followed by 10 consecutive weekends against the likes of Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Auburn. And they do have chances - which is an improvement in itself. by CNB