The Harrell Huddle: ECU Turns Up the Heat as Camp Reaches “Fourth and One”

Tuesday’s fully-padded ECU practice had all the signs of a true Eastern North Carolina grind — humidity back in the air, the pop of pads, and plenty of competitive edge from both sides of the ball. Head coach Blake Harrell said the team responded well after what he felt was a flat Monday.

Opening Thoughts: Heat, Edge, and a Shoutout to the Indoor Project

*"Finally, feels like Eastern North Carolina again, little humidity back out there. Last week it felt like, straight November, December, nice, cool weather, and back at it this morning. And that was good for our guys to be under that and have a practice in those situations. And obviously we need a few warm days to kind of make sure we're ready to go and could obviously be warm on August 28 or anytime in September.

I do want to give a shout out to the men working on the indoor. If you guys haven't seen it, they made tremendous progress. Just all the dirt they're moving around, see them out there working at 7 am, 7:30 at night, all times, and just going at it… excited to see that thing moving and progressing forward. Sometimes things you don't really get too excited about them until they start moving along

Practice wise, didn't think we had the best day yesterday. I thought the energy was much better today. Got a little chippy on both sides, but I'll take that. Didn't think we had that at practice yesterday. We picked it up a little bit today. Still got a long ways to go… Friday go ahead and scrimmage one more time before we end camp here"*

Pushing Urgency: “Fourth and One” Mentality

Harrell said this is the point in camp where it’s easy for players and coaches to ease up and that can’t happen.

*"It's human nature, if you're not pressing forward just to kind of ease back, as coaches, as staff, as players. If we're not attacking every day with urgency, intent and purpose, and our opponent is, they're getting better, and we're getting worse. You don't stay the same

I told our coaches, it's fourth and one. And this is probably the toughest week we got. It's week three of camp and you can have a little slide, but we've got to keep our foot on the gas. Got to treat it like fourth and one, and we still got to go at it"*

Who’s Standing Out

Harrell pointed to multiple offensive and defensive groups making progress.

*"Those receivers doing a really good job catching the football out there, those running backs are showing you they got some depth. The offensive line, you've seen a little leadership there. The defense seems to have a little bit more urgency today and intent than they did a few days ago, we got to find ways to play to our strengths, too, on both sides of the football

That countdown clock in there keeps rolling and it'll never stop. So we're not buying more time, so we better push forward and keep pressing"*

Roster Decisions Coming Soon

*"You're starting to kind of hone in some special team. You're kind of getting down to the guys you think might travel. But you've got some bottom of the roster of guys that may not make the travel squad. They better get with it, or they're going to be sitting at the house and watching on TV instead of being in the stadium

I told them, we've got to push forward in everything, and it's got to be all 120 guys out there and every staff member in the building"*

Mock Game Week Mentality

*"You have to, going into scrimmage two… you want to treat it like a game week. Monday practice, Tuesday practice, Wednesday practice, get to day before a game. And then go play. That way we roll up to Raleigh, it's not the first time we've had the pregame meal, or pregame warm up

You want to rehearse that a little bit… so we definitely focus on that"*

Specialists and Position Battles

*"I think you've got two really good punters, and Tomas O'Halloran and Ryan Leavy… At kicker, it's the same thing. I think we got some guys kind of out in front. But is that going to remain the same through the week and through the season

I think Tristen O'Brien is doing a really good job of snapping. He's probably our snapper there"*

Defensive Line Leadership

*"We got a chance to start four seniors up front you can't lead from the back. You got to go lead from the front… They're freaking running into the ring that's how we got to be defensively

We lost some of those seniors last year, we have some older guys right now that… they got to grab it, the bull by the horns here, and take it on and step up front"*

Linebackers Need a Leap

*"To me, it is the linebackers. And I think, DJ Johnson did some good things today, but DJ, he's got to get over the last play

That's the position I see as it's gotta take the biggest leap this week. If they'll do that, I'll feel a lot better about where we are defensively"*

Quarterback Room Competition

*"I think anytime you create some competition in that room, not only has Mike made Raheim better. Mike's made Katin better. But Raheem looks like a different player from the spring

He looks like a guy that can play here and play at East Carolina and play in this conference, and he's doing a really good job"*