By By BRIAN HAINES, Sports Writer
GREENVILLE — East Carolina will resume Conference USA play tonight as it tries to rebound from its costly 16-3 loss to then No. 22 Virginia Tech.
The Conference USA East-leading Pirates (5-4, 4-1) can clinch bowl eligibility for the fourth straight season with a win.
Thanks to Houston's 37-32 loss to UCF on Saturday, the Pirates are also in line to host the Conference USA championship game of they can win out for the remainder of their schedule, but will have to do it without a few key members of their squad when they kickoff against Tulsa (4-5, 2-3) tonight on the road at 8:15 (on ESPN).
Former quarterback turned tight end Rob Kass is out for the season with a torn ACL, and so is backup defensive back Dekota Marshall who broke his leg in two places.
Aside from Kass and Marshall, CB Darryl Reynolds (shoulder), LB Matt Thompson (elbow), DT Antonio Allison (foot), DE A.J. Johnson (knee) and RB Jonathan Williams (knee) will all be kept out of today’s game due to injuries.
The Pirates have three key players that are officially listed as questionable for tonight’s rematch of last season’s Conference USA championship game in WR Jamar Bryant (shoulder), RB Giavanni Ruffin (ankle) and DE Josh Smith (shoulder).
Luckily, out of all the injured players, Bryant is the only one who is a regular starter. However, the depth behind the starters is growing increasingly thin, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
The ECU secondary, which did a nice job against the Hokies, will be consistently challenged today by Golden Hurricane’s sophomore quarterback G.J. Kinne, a transfer from Texas, and a strong receiving group that is high-lighted by sophomore flanker Damaris Johnson.
The starting unit of corners Emanuel Davis and Travis Simmons along with safeties Van Eskridge and Levin Neal should be able to contest passes, but their backups do not warrant the same respect yet.
Sophomore corner Derek Blacknall is the only member of the four backups on the two-deep that is not a freshman. The rest of the crew is CB Leonard Paulk, FS Jack Schultz and SS Justin Venable.
In a season where one bad play on defense can wipe out a game’s worth of good plays, the play of the backup’s will be critical for ECU tonight and the rest of the season.
The Golden Hurricane’s confidence should be high as they went toe-to-toe with fellow Conference USA West member No. 13 Houston and fell one point shy losing 46-45 on a heart-breaking last minute field goal.
 The Pirates enter the game from the other end of the spectrum, as they come into Tulsa licking their wounds after a physical 16-3 loss against the Hokies in which both of their point totals still would not beat Tulsa’s.
Quarterback Patrick Pinkney has struggled all season as his inaccuracy has been a huge problem for the offense, and with only four games left it doesn’t seem like it’s going to improve.
Pinkney has hit of 156 of his 278 pass attempts (56 percent), which isn’t a bad except that most of his completions are under 10 yards. Pinkney has tallied 1,682 passing yards and eight TDs, but has 10 interceptions in nine games. The interceptions would be livable if he was making big plays as well, but that’s not the case.
“The turnovers and the lack of big plays in the passing game was very evident (against Virginia Tech),” Holtz said. “The inconsistency of the passing game is the best way to put it. We just had a hard time getting things going.”
East Carolina’s saving grace on offense is that its big offensive line has done a nice job in both pass protection and in creating holes for the running backs.
 While it seemed as if the Pirates went away from the run too early against Tech, look for Holtz on to use ECU’s leading rusher Dominique Lindsay (112-639) a whole lot more tonight.
On defense the Golden Hurricane run an attacking 3-3-5 system led by preseason all-conference selection MLB Mike Bryan whose 72 tackles are second only to safety DeAundre Brown’s 76.
Tulsa does a nice job of penetrating the offensive backfield and is 22nd in the nation in tackles for a loss.
Defensive end Un’Tavious Scott leads the team with six sacks, while preseason all-conference safety/linebacker James Lockett has 4.5.
In the secondary, senior cornerback John Destin has a team-high four interceptions.
Tulsa’s defense is tough against the run and the pass, and has let up only four rushing touchdowns all season.
Holtz said its aggressive style is tough to match up with because Tulsa likes to walk its linebackers down to the line of scrimmage right before the snap, or have an LB play as a down lineman to create confusion in the blocking scheme.
“They play a three down front, but one of the additions to what they did a year ago is that they are playing much more four down, but they are doing it with the same personnel,” Holtz said. “So schematically they give you a lot of confusing looks. The difference between three down and four down is that they give you another linebacker you have to account for.”
A good ground game will keep Tulsa’s Kinne and his crew on the sidelines, and hopefully off the scoreboard.
In his first year as a starting quarterback Kinne already developed a favorite target in Johnson. The 5-8, 170-pound do-it-all wideout leads the nation in all-purpose yards per game with 209. The sophomore set a career-high for all-purpose yards against Houston when he racked up 324 yards.
Johnson is the team’s leading receiver with 39 catches for 711 yards, both team-highs.
Johnson also returns punts and kickoffs, and may make more of an impact today on special teams because the Pirates have so many players hurt.
Aside from Johnson, Kinne’s other targets are 6-4, 200-pound senior receiver and Tennessee transfer Slick Shelly (24-458), as well as Trae Johnson (14-224) and A.J. Whitmore (21-209.
Tulsa’s weak link is a fairly new offensive line that had to replace three starters from last year, and a new running back.
The Golden Hurricane like to run Kinne (102-277), who has the most rushing attempts on the team, but its lead back is Jamad Williams (77-304).