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FOGGY: Strange beginning and one wild, wild ending
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Published: September 6, 2009
Updated: 09/06/2009 01:50 am
GREENVILLE -- Despite the screaming certainty of TV experts, despite the warped expectations of deluded boosters, the college-football season usually opens in a mysterious fog.
Few games ever verified the prevalence of strange beginnings like East Carolina's 29-24 victory over Appalachian State yesterday.
The kickoff arrived a few minutes after noon, with a summer sun beating down on 43,279 witnesses and two relatively fresh teams. The game ended less than an hour later, or so it seemed when ECU's Dominique Lindsay ripped through the ASU defense on a 21-yard touchdown run for a 24-0 lead.
With 43 minutes remaining and the Pirates' side of the scoreboard going bonkers, some Appalachian fans got those queasy Louisiana State feelings, just like last year. The referee, from Conference USA, even mispronounced the school name while announcing penalties ("App-a-LAY-shun"). Point-spread devotees did the math and estimated that ECU might match one oddsmaker's line for Florida-Charleston Southern: 10 touchdowns, more or less.
But the surefire blowout never caught the wildfire wind, and the Mountaineers never dismissed their comeback chances until Travaris Cadet's high pass eluded CoCo Hillary's grasp with 16 seconds on the clock.
You might have missed the scouting report on this Cadet fellow. Army has Cadets, as everyone knows, but ASU unveiled a Cadet about whom ECU knew virtually nothing. Naturally.
The 210-pound sophomore quarterback from Miami wowed the recruiting gurus, but those guys live to be wowed. Besides, Cadet played his last high-school game three years ago, about the time Wake Forest showed up for the Orange Bowl.
He ventured off to Toledo as a redshirt quarterback, and then he transferred to an institution of higher learning named Pearl River Community College, in Poplarville, Miss. Cadet wasn't all that popular. He played two games at wide receiver, and then he moved to Boone.
It turned into a game after all
Cadet didn't figure in Coach Jerry Moore's immediate plans until quarterback Armanti Edwards, merely the best player in the NCAA's second-best division, lost control of a lawnmower and cut up his right foot before the first practice. Moore turned to sophomore backup DeAndre Presley, but ECU's potent defensive front turned Presley into a tackling dummy.
Finally, down 29-7 with about five minutes left in the third quarter, Moore inserted Cadet. The ASU light switch clicked on. ECU's adjustable light switch dimmed radically. The game was afoot.
Van Eskridge, a decorated ECU free safety, understood the reasons behind the day-night upheaval. "They changed quarterbacks, put in No. 7," Eskridge said. "I think his name is Cadet. He's a great athlete, and he made so many good plays."
Cadet ran pretty much like Edwards, escaping fingertips and slicing through narrow gaps. He threw passes with his left hand, like Edwards, and he threw them better on the big stage than in practice, completing seven of nine for 55 yards.
He juiced up an offense that didn't manage a first down in the first quarter and wallowed in negative yardage until Presley directed a touchdown drive early in the second quarter. Cadet supplied verve that bordered on cockiness.
"We played their game in the first half, which was straight-up," Cadet said. "We played our game in the second half, which is speed and agility. They're bigger than us, so we can't play their game. It's got to be our game."
Appalachian took the game away from ECU. The crowd's murmurs evolved into moans, and the Mountaineers' supporters raised their previously silent voices.
Punter Matt Dodge, who transferred to ECU after playing for the first of ASU's three NCAA championship teams, expected a rally. Ben Hartman, the ECU kicker from Winston-Salem, figured the Mountaineers wouldn't quit whatever the early margin.
"I mean, what have they got -- four or five national titles?" Hartman said. "Everybody knows about them going up to Michigan, so we knew they weren't going to come out scared to go play the second half. We knew they were going to come back and put up a fight. Even without their quarterback, Armanti, they still played a great game. We've got to take our hats off to them. They showed up and gave us everything we could handle."
ECU will need 60 minutes vs. WVU
Dodge and Hartman made persuasive arguments, but tailback Lindsay said that many Pirates didn't buy the logic at halftime, leading the Mountaineers 27-7.
"I think they came out with the heart of a champion, always coming out and throwing punches," Lindsay said. "I think that's something we need to work on a lot.... We went into the locker room, and I guess some guys got that attitude: Well, we've got this wrapped up. It's football. Every game's going to be 60 minutes, nothing less."
Coach Skip Holtz will emphasize the 60-minute goal as ECU prepares for a trip to West Virginia, the No. 2 pick in the Big East Conference despite the loss of running quarterback Pat White, the model for a thousand Armanti Edwards comparisons. Cadet might join the conversation right away.
Holtz identified flaws in his quarterback, Patrick Pinkney, and his offense generally, but he insisted that in a 12-game odyssey, coaches should celebrate wins of all kinds.
"Do I wish we would've played better?" Holtz asked. "Yes. Do we have a long way to go? Yes. Will my temperament in this team meeting room tomorrow be positive, upbeat and Chuckles the Clown? No, it will not be. I may kick the cat tomorrow, but tonight I'm not going to. That's the object of what you're trying to do. A one-point loss is a loss. A one-point win is a win."
A five-point win is also a win -- and an opening-day enigma wrapped inside a mystery.
■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com
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