Associated Press
The notebook …
GREENVILLE ó For a change, East Carolina is opening its season with a game ó not a catharsis.
No longer are the Pirates cast as the default villains while the nation rooted for Virginia Tech as the Hokies helped their community heal from a deadly campus massacre. A year later, and with the No. 17 Hokies once again first on East Carolina’s schedule, the focus is back on football.
It’s also on what coach Skip Holtz’s team learned from not only the daunting environment they faced that surreal Saturday in Blacksburg ó but how they nearly spoiled the Hokies’ script.
Not that simply hanging close is good enough for Holtz, whose four-touchdown-underdog Pirates were significantly more competitive than expected in last year’s 17-7 loss.
“You can never say, ‘We proved we can play with them,”‘ Holtz said Monday. “I don’t want that to be our confidence level, because I don’t think you gain confidence just from playing them close. I think your confidence level comes from knowing that you know what you’re doing and how to do it, and you’re doing all the fundamental things the right way that give you a chance to succeed.
“And we’re not there yet. I want to make sure that we don’t walk into that stadium with a false sense of security or false confidence just because we played them close a year ago.”
Still, if nothing else, the Pirates’ performance in that game went a long way toward further legitimizing the reconstruction project Holtz started when he arrived in 2005 and began talking of building East Carolina into a program that wouldn’t back down from the BCS’s big boys, opening this season with a pair of what Holtz called “great measuring stick” games against Top 25 teams Virginia Tech and West Virginia.
“The fear of getting your brains beat in is an unbelievable motivator,” Holtz said.
SEC-ESPNNEW YORK ó The Southeastern Conference has signed a 15-year deal with ESPN reportedly worth more than $2 billion to televise sporting events, including football and men’s and women’s basketball.
The agreement announced Monday is the longest ESPN has ever signed and matches the length of the powerhouse league’s deal with CBS earlier in August.
“This agreement makes the SEC the most widely distributed conference in the country,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.
MIAMICORAL GABLES, Fla. ó Miami coach Randy Shannon abhors distractions, which he loosely defines as any negative issue that can invade the psyche of his team. And his decision to suspend seven players, including starting quarterback Robert Marve, for Thursday’s opener against Charleston Southern would seem to qualify as a distraction.
Only he doesn’t see it that way.”It’s about how you handle adverse situations,” Shannon said. “You deal with them, you stay focused on the biggest product which is what you’re trying to get done, and then you move forward.”
FLORIDAGAINESVILLE, Fla. ó Fifth-ranked Florida may be without receiver Percy Harvin and middle linebacker Brandon Spikes for its Saturday opener against Hawaii.
Harvin, who is still battling a right heel injury that required offseason surgery, has been unable to go full speed since the second day of fall practice on Aug. 5.