2011 North Carolina Tar Heels Football: North Carolina @ East Carolina

The East Carolina Pirates love taking on a bunch of big brothers from the Atlantic Coast Conference. Locked in Conference USA, the Pirates relish each chance they get to strut their stuff against Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, and other teams from the BCS league in their own backyard.

Saturday, ECU gets one more shot to take down an ACC foe. It will make the occasion sizzle with intensity on the first day of October.

The North Carolina Tar Heels travel in state to Greenville, North Carolina. They’ll do so coming off a loss to Georgia Tech. The strength of the Tar Heels squad is the defense, which retains significant talent from the Butch Davis era, but the Tar Heels’ defense was abused by the triple option of Georgia Tech. On the bright side, UNC was the first team all year to hold Georgia Tech to under 500 yards, and few teams will fare better against the Yellow Jackets’ potent offense this year. Even after giving up nearly 500 yards to Georgia Tech, the Tar Heels are still giving up only about 350 yards and 21 points per game. The defensive line is extremely strong, with Tydreke Powell and Kareem Martin holding the line while linebackers Kevin Reddick and Zach Brown gobble up ballcarriers with 27 and 25 tackles, respectively. Tre Boston and Matt Merletti lead the secondary.

UNC’s defense will have a much easier time stopping the run against ECU than they did against Georgia Tech. ECU is averaging just 83 yards a game on the ground, which ranks the Pirates among the bottom ten rushing teams in the FBS. ECU has looked good at times this year – opening up an early lead over South Carolina and losing by only a TD to Virginia Tech, followed by a win over UAB – but if the group from Greenville is going to beat UNC, it will have to do so in a defensive battle, because North Carolina’s strong defense should be able to slow ECU’s average offense.

> Check out our great selection of North Carolina Apparel & Merchandise!

Pirates’ quarterback Dominique Davis is completing over two thirds of his passes, but he averages only 5.5 yards per attempt. Justin Hardy and Lance Lewis get the bulk of the throws their way, with each having over 20 receptions. Reggie Bullock gets most of the carries out of the backfield with 47 carries for 246 yards so far.

ECU’s defense has been outstanding against the pass, giving up just over 50 percent completion rate and only 168 yards per game, but the Pirates have been gashed on the ground for nearly 200 yards per game, though two of the games have been against run-heavy offenses Virginia Tech and South Carolina.

Opposing East Carolina’s fragile run defense is North Carolina running back Giovani Bernard, who will try to continue his impressive freshman season this weekend. Bernard averages over 100 yards rushing every gameday with 402 yards on 54 carries, an outstanding 7.4 yards per rush average. Sophomore UNC quarterback Bryn Renner has come down to earth a bit after a very strong start of the season, but he still maintains an outstanding 77 percent completion clip, completing 74 of his 95 attempts for 897 yards. His favorite target is Dwight Jones, who already has 27 catches for 421 yards and four scores. North Carolina’s balanced offense can beat you through the air or on the ground. If ECU’s defense is as poor against the run as it has indicated in early games, Bernard could run early to open up the passing game for Renner and create a long day for the ECU defense. If the Pirates can shut Bernard down and force Renner to pass and can pick off a few (Renner already has thrown 6 INTs), then the Pirates have a chance to pull off the upset at home.

North Carolina Tar Heels @ East Carolina Pirates Preview