Whats the big deal about this schedule?

Well BSU it is great to have all those local BCS teams around because it makes our OOC schedule kind of easy to make because they will agree seeing as they do not have to travel far to get here. Especially with the gas prices high like they are. I went and got gas in Williamston yesterday and it was $3.73.

I think that the UCF and So Miss games are really packed every season because they are always competitive games and seem to come down to the end. The best game for our defense last year was the UCF game where we forced like four straight turnovers and scored off of every one. If we could have that intensity for all it would be awesome. I would love to play Boise St again but i dont know how that would fit in because we kind of have a set schedule through 2013

Piratefan, what you just mentioned is actually really important for us this season. Everyone talks about Chris Johnson, and what a big loss that is for us. That is certainly true, but another major factor in our success last year was our take-away versus turnover ratio. We had 31 take-aways last year, for a +17 turnover ration. That was #4 in the nation. If we can keep up that kind of intensity on defense, we should do well.

Gas for $3.73? How I would love that! Cheapest I can find it out here is $4.55

   $3.73 ??? 

I was going to complain.......

But I better keep my mouth shut after seeing cali's post   

We are paying $4.09..... 

It actually got lowered yesterday to 3.72 but I am sure that it is going to go back up in a week or so. We were paying like 3.99 but they had a new gas station open there and they dropped it down. Cali that is rediculous to pay or a gallon of gas. Im sure it will reach the same price out here soon.

Cali, thx for agreeing with me on the defensive intensity post. We do need that intensity throughout all the games that we play. I really dont see the big difference in whether you pick off a pass vs Va Tech or whether it is against Marshall or Memphis. We need to have the same mind base for all the games, total shutdown. Work towards that goal and you will be successful, especially in CUSA.

I understand all the optomism of the Pirate Nation after a strong season ending with a great win against a quality Boise State team.  Your program is headed in the right direction and I for one would love to see you win all of your non-conference games.  Right now, you have a legitimate shot at beating any of your non-conference opponents, but winning them all would be difficult.

Not to be disrespectful, but I'll be suprised if you go undefeated in the Conference.  Your schedule sets up nicely in that two of your Western Division oppenents are in the bottom half of the conference and Houston has to come to Greenville.  But I think your most dangerous part of the schedule will be @UCF then 13 days later @Southern Miss.  Marshall is good enough to be a trap game between those, but should be after the loss in Huntington last year and this year's game being in Greenville where you thumped us two years ago.  But last year showed, there are no longer any easy games in C-USA.  Most of you have it right in that the main goal is winning the Conference.  Good Luck! 

but I'll be suprised if you go undefeated in the Conference.

I'd be surprised to, personally, I think CUSA is top to bottom better than the WAC, which IMO is why ECU loses on the road to Rice or Marshall the last couple of years, what looks like a cakewalk is no cakewalk.

Getting back to the question of this thread, keep this in mind, when a lot of Pirate fans look at A schedule, they look at the whole schedule and the schools we are playing, not looking at conference games.  It has taken and will take awhile for those conference games to take additional importance from the 80's and 90's when the schedule looked the same as it does this year.  Forget about conference affilation.  Look at this schedule:

South Carolina, Pittsburgh, @Illinois, Memphis, Akron, East Tennessee St(RIP), @Virginia Tech, Tulane, etc...

This is an excerpt from the '91 team and when Terry Holland took over he looked at ECU's schedule this way, which is why he set up, what most consider, great OOC games;  All he did was get it back to what we were doing.  He recognized that CUSA's conference schedule can be filled with non-descript teams like Memphis, Rice, and UTEP and if you fill the schedule with teams like UNC, VIrginia, and NC State, it gets more fans interested and sells more tickets.  My in-laws (ECU grads) dont know that UTEP is a conference game (we weren't in a conference for 20 years) but they know NC State is an important game for East Carolina University.  They want to beat South Carolina more than they want to beat Tulane.  Most ECU fans, me included, look at this CUSA thing as a temporary situation.  I want to win it, but I want to beat NC State as well.