GREENVILLE — Scottie Montgomery relieved defensive coordinator Kenwick Thompson of his coaching duties. Defensive line coach Robert Prunty takes over a unit that gave up 56 points to West Virginia on Saturday.

“While these decisions are difficult to make, both from a timing and personal standpoint, my responsibility is to sustain the best interest for our program,” Montgomery said. “We appreciate coach Thompson’s efforts, but I feel a change in direction is needed at this time.”

With only two games under its belt, ECU has given up 90 points and an average of 616.5 yards per game. This poor play on the defensive side of the ball has the Pirates currently ranked 124 out of 129 teams in total defense, according to ESPN.

In Saturday’s game, several of WVU’s scoring drives came from big passing plays from Will Grier, starting with the second touchdown in the first quarter. On first-and-10 at the ECU 45 yard-line, Grier dropped a pass into the hands of Gary Jennings. ECU defensive backs Travis Phillips and Bobby Fulp were nearby, but not close enough to breakup the catch. This trend would continue throughout the game as the ECU secondary failed to defend Grier’s deep balls.

The Mountaineers’ offense continued targeting defensive backs Phillips and Fulp as they were not playing tight coverage on the WVU receivers. With less than two minutes to play in the first quarter, Grier led David Sills down the field for a 40-yard pass. Fulp was five yards behind. If the WVU receiver didn’t have to slow down to catch the pass, it would have led to a touchdown as Fulp was too far behind to make the play.

On West Virginia’s fourth touchdown of the game, the ball was on the WVU 42 yard-line, but a quick 52-yard strike would extend the Mountaineers’ lead to 28-3. Once again, the Pirates’ defensive backs were just not in a position to make play on the ball, allowing an easy score.

ECU was down 49-3 by halftime — a program worst for points allowed in the first half. WVU didn’t score much in the second half, and it didn’t need to because the damage had already been done and the game was out of reach for the Pirates.

“Defensively I don’t think that we spread the stress around equally,” Montgomery said. “I thought we played much harder as a team in the second half.”

Moving forward, Prunty will have a lot to handle as ECU prepares to host Virginia Tech this Saturday. Virginia Tech’s quarterback Josh Jackson, running back Travon McMillian and receiver Cam Phillips will present a similar challenge for the ECU defense. They have helped the Hokies obtain over 700 yards and 58 points in their first two games.

“Defensively, what we will have to do before this game is we have to simplify a few things,” Montgomery said. “Take the stress off some of our players and spread it around equally and I think that our guys will rally behind coach Prunty and the defensive staff to play at a higher level than we have played the last couple of games and that is what we are expecting to do.”