ECU’s season has been intriguing, but not surprising

East Carolina dropped its most disappointing game of the season this past Saturday, leaving some of the Pirate faithful depressed, wondering what could have been. Many fantasized of a media-accelerated, major bowl game against an Auburn or Alabama on New Year’s Day: an Access Bowl — two words that have been uttered far too many times in eastern North Carolina since ECU’s 70-41 Sept. 20 beat down of a hapless UNC defense.

“If we run the table” — a cliché phrase in fandom that can sometimes be articulated prematurely, even before the halfway point in the season has passed — can be the forerunner of rude awakenings.

And it’s not just fans. ECU head coach Ruffin McNeill has made us media folk look pretty foolish over the past few weeks. The fifth-year man has repeatedly deflected questions regarding rank and projections with answers like, “We just want to win by one point and get out of there,” and “We don’t focus on things we can’t control” (the uncontrollable, he calls them). Another common Ruffism is, “That’s not just a buzzword; I really mean that,” — a phrase he uses immediately following another Ruffism. But after the last handful of press conferences, we should have learned from McNeill and taken him at his word.

McNeill is confident in his team, but he understands what most people around ECU’s program knew before the season, then forgot following good performances against overrated power five opponents: An undefeated conference season for ECU would have been a blessing, not a realistic expectation for a team entering a stronger conference, especially considering the fact that under McNeill, the Pirates never won the weaker Conference USA, let alone ran the table.

Part of the problem may have been UCF, a first-year AAC (former Big East) member in 2013, setting the bar too high with easily the best season in its program’s history — 11 wins, a conference title and a BCS bowl victory. But the Knights achieved that feat by the skin of their teeth with probably their closest call coming against Temple, the owner of ECU’s first conference loss.

This ECU Pirate team that has been in Access Bowl discussions over the past month or so is the same team that has been penalized 35 times for 369 yards over the last three games, the most in both quantity and yardage for any team in the FBS this season in a three-game span. Most of those penalties, and the most impactful ones, were committed along the offensive line and in the secondary — two major positional areas of concern heading into the 2014 season.

The real Pirates aren’t the ones that hung 70 on the Tar Heels or the ones that scored an ugly 10 and lost five fumbles this past Saturday on a frigid and wet Philly afternoon; they are likely who we thought they were heading into the season: talented and well-coached, but somewhat inexperienced, probably inconsistent and unlikely to achieve a 2013 UCF type of season.

There were too many unknowns during the offseason and they never disappeared, even when ECU was playing well. Positionally, after last year’s 10-win season, ECU lost both of its safeties, its top corner and three starters on the offensive line. In terms of matchups, the Pirates were dominated by Marshall in ECU’s only brutally cold game of the season last year, so that should have been a concern. C-USA doesn’t feature wet Halloween weekends in Philadelphia and November night games in northern Ohio; the American does.

When the AAC schedule came out, fans and the AAC itself, as evidenced by its decision to place the game on Thursday night for exposure purposes, had the upcoming ECU vs. Cincinnati matchup circled as one of the league’s premiere games of the season. Coming down the stretch, both teams have stumbled at times, but it’s all going as planned; the winner of that game likely finds itself in the driver’s seat for a conference championship. And if the last few below-par ECU performances have taught us anything, wouldn’t a conference title be quite the bonus?