Football
The ECU Pirates football team plays its home games at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on the ECU campus. Football started in 1932 and the Pirates have been to 12 bowl games. In 2006 the Pirates ended the year with a 7-5 record and were invited to the Papajohns.com Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama. The head coach of the Pirates is Ruffin McNeill. Also in 2008 the pirates went to the C-USA Championship game in Tulsa Oklahoma who in which the ECU Pirates ended up beating The Golden Hurricane 27-24 Nineteen Pirate student-athletes have been honored as football All-Americans in addition to other awards. ECU has had 52 players selected in the NFL Draft since 1961. The Pirates have had at least one player chosen in 12 of the past 16 NFL drafts with two first round selections. The No. 24 overall pick in the 1992 and 2008 drafts. ECU has produced eight players who have played in 11 Super Bowls dating back to 1985. Five of those Pirates have won World Championships. In 2007, ECU was chosen to play in the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl against the Boise State Broncos. The Pirates stunned the #24 ranked Broncos, quelling a late Broncos-rally, on a game-winning field goal 41-38. Running back Chris Johnson was the game's most valuable player, setting an NCAA record by gathering 407 all-purpose yards. In the 2007-2008 season, ECU produced upset victories over #17 Virginia Tech and #8 West Virginia. The Pirates rode the wave all the way to their first C-USA championship by beating Tulsa, only to lose a heart breaker to Kentucky in the Liberty Bowl. In the 2009 season The Pirates lost two early season games to North Carolina and West Virginia before going on to win the C-USA East Division Title for the second straight year. East Carolina finished the 2009 regular season at 8-4 over all 7-1 in conference play. ECU won the 2009 C-USA Conference Championship game in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium on December 5, 2009 at 12 noon, upsetting the 18th ranked University of Houston, 38-32. The East Carolina Pirates are the first Back-to-Back C-USA champions since divisional play was started in 2005. The Pirates lost another heart breaking Liberty Bowl on January 2, 2010, in Memphis, Tennessee. The Pirates lost to Arkansas 20-17 in overtime after ECU missed a game winning field goal to end regulation play. The 2010 Auto Zone Liberty Bowl tied ECU with Arkansas, Air Force, Alabama, Louisville and Mississippi for the most Liberty Bowl appearances at 4 each.
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Famous quotes containing the word football:
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“In this dream that dogs me I am part
Of a silent crowd walking under a wall,
Leaving a football match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)