As the September 20, 2014 game ended, the sky turned purple-haze, enveloping Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium and crowning the historic Pirate thrashing of UNC, 70-41. Hopes for a gridiron blowout had brought the biggest turnout in school history, 51,082 fans. The Pirate nation was not disappointed: what transpired was an unprecedented, second in a row rout, redoubling the 55-31 whipping given the Tar Heels just the year before. On top of that, the week prior to the 2014 pasting, the Pirates had upset Virginia Tech, 28-21, for ECU’s third straight victory over an ACC team, all of them on the road. That streak began in 2013 with ECU’s domination of Chapel Hill and then reached a record-setting four in a row with the 2014 reconquest of the Tar Heels, this time on ECU’s home turf.
UNC was not unaware of their humbling in 2013. Indeed, they were cautioned in practice preps against letting it happen again. Yet rather than a mere replay of 2013, which was ECU’s first victory in Kenan Stadium since 1975, the Pirates in 2014 pounded the Tar Heels mercilessly, trouncing UNC like so much gridiron mush. Making matters worse, this game didn’t stay in Dowdy-Ficklen; it was televised, giving the Pirates a nationally broadcast golden moment against the state’s flagship football team.
UNC spirits were, admittedly, low due to the multiyear scandal still unfolding in Chapel Hill. Word of the deeply rooted athletic-academic scandal surfaced in 2010, shocking the NCAA, not to mention North Carolinians statewide. It soon led to the firing of head coach Butch Davis and the resignation of Dick Baddour, UNC athletic director. NCAA-imposed sanctions included a 2012 postseason ban, reduction in the number of football scholarships, and three years probation. In 2014, the nationally shamed Tar Heels were at an all-time gridiron low.
Yet the game might have provided UNC with an opportunity for brief glory and redemption even while being punished by the NCAA: it was the 17th matchup with ECU in a series that UNC led, 12-3-1. Admittedly, all but four of the previous contests had been in Kenan Stadium, giving
the Heels the home advantage. But then again, the last game in Dowdy-Ficklen, played in 2011, had not helped ECU: the Heels, unfazed on the road, proceeded to whip the Pirates 35-20.
The Pirates knew that fully well, and were hell-bent on avenging 2011 and continuing the roll established in 2013, upping their humble ante in the series win column. In 2013, the Pirates had 603 total offensive yards, the second most ever by an opposing team in Kenan Stadium. Breaking that record anywhere seemed like a tall order, but the Pirates rose to the occasion in 2014, posting 789 total yards offensively, a new school record, for a whopping 70-point tally. Never before had the Tar Heels forfeited so many yards or so many points in a single game. Prior to 2014, the Pirates had only one Dowdy-Ficklen win over UNC: on September 8, 2007, Skip Holtz’s Pirates had prevailed, 34-31, on the strength of a final-second field goal. The next victory, in 2014, unfolded with strength from the second quarter forward, making it all the more remarkable, satisfying, and well savored.
Early in the game, the Tar Heels had a clever moment when punter Tommy Hibbard passed to Eric Albright on a fake field-goal play, resulting in a touchdown and a crafty lead, 20-14, in the second quarter. Quickly enough, however, the Pirates’ offense replied with three straight TDs for a 35-20-halftime lead. Trick plays or not, UNC simply could not muster sufficient defensive strength to slow the Pirates’ onslaught.
Pirate quarterback Shane Carden completed 30 of 48 passes for 438 yards through the air, including four touchdown tosses, upping his career total to 67 TD throws. Carden also rushed for a pair of scores, giving him a combined 12 touchdowns against the Tar Heels in two years – seven passing, five rushing. The 400-plus passing game was the fifth of his career. Following the game, Carden, then with 1,469 yards passing, was third in the nation. By comparison, Tar Heel quarterback Marquise Williams went for 14 of 25 passes for a mere 127 aerial yards.
Justin Hardy emerged as one of Carden’s favored receivers with six receptions for 92 yards, while Isaiah Jones grabbed eight of Carden’s throws for 116 yards and a touchdown. Trevon Brown was a big offensive player, with 210 all-purpose yards – including five catches for 117 –
and two touchdowns. Less than a minute in the game, Brown got the Pirate rout rolling by catching a Carden throw for 55 yards and the Pirates’ opening touchdown. Adding to the Pirate’s stellar offensive performance, Breon Allen carried the ball 18 times for a career high 211 yards and two touchdowns. Overall, ECU rushers averaged 7.5 yards a carry against the befuddled Tar Heel defense.
Head coach Ruffin McNeil praised his team’s chemistry, working “as one breath, one mind, one heartbeat, one spirit, one Pirate.” The momentum carried forward: four years later, September 8, 2018, the Pirates, led by the ill-fated head coach Scottie Montgomery, defeated UNC soundly, 41-19, in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. It was not a record-breaking win on multiple counts, but it did extend the Pirate’s streak over the Tar Heels to three in a row, evening the series a bit to 12-5-1. In 1975, after the first Pirate victory over the Tar Heels, 38-17, head coach Pat Dye said it was possibly the most historic in ECU football history. Perhaps so, but surely the 2014 Dowdy-Ficklen rout, 70-41, was right up there, tied for top honors.
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