Cool Kass leads Pirates to victory

GREENVILLE -- Beneath thick clouds that hung like a gray canopy over Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, Rob Kass found his spot in the sun Saturday.

On an afternoon when quarterbacks kept going down, Kass stepped into the spotlight and helped East Carolina snap a three-game losing streak with a 30-10 win over injury-troubled Memphis.

Almost a forgotten man on what was a fading ECU football team, the patient Pirate subbed for starter Patrick Pinkney on the third series, a predetermined game strategy. Exuding an opportunist mentality, Kass threw two touchdown passes, adroitly managed each of the Pirates' five scoring drives, and never came out.

"Good things come to those who wait,'' said Kass, who hadn't started since last year and had thrown only 11 passes prior to Saturday. "[The game] came back to me like riding a bike, like it had never left."

Memphis' quarterbacks weren't so fortunate.

On the sixth snap, Tigers starter, Arkelon Hall, broke the thumb on his right hand, a hand that had thrown for 1,806 yards in six games.

Then, six plays later, backup Will Hudgens went out with a knee injury. So Memphis wound up playing the final three-plus periods with its No. 3 and No. 4 quarterbacks.

"I'm not going to sit here and say that didn't hurt us," said coach Tommy West. "We had a 10-7 halftime lead and couldn't move the ball to start the second half, and that was it."

That was pretty much it for Memphis, which saw the Pirates' offense and defense dominate the last half.

ECU's offensive line opened holes and the backs ran with what coach Skip Holtz called "downhill" thrust.

Take Jon Williams, who broke a 68-yard scoring play for ECU's first TD and finished with a career high 108 yards. Take Norman Whitley (60 yards), who flashed swiftness and shiftness, churning and twisting.

Then there was a cool Kass distributing scoring passes to Brandon Simmons (42 yards) and Dwayne Harris (28 yards) as ECU broke the game open with 23-second half points that also included a Ben Hartman field goal.

"Rob did a good job managing the team," said Holtz, who watched Kass complete 9 of 17 passes for 167 yards. "He threw some pretty balls. He threw some bad ones, too. But he did a nice job managing the game."

While Kass helped ECU win the game, competition for the starting job will continue, said Holtz, who plans to use both quarterbacks.

As ECU's offense revved up each second-half possession, the defense was able to dig down and contain a heretofore explosive Memphis offense that turned more one dimensional with Hall's absence.

Pirates Pierre Bell, Nick Johnson, Van Eskridge and company held the Tigers to 184 total yards.

Holtz expressed symapthy for his coaching counterpart, West, who must have felt betrayed by the fickle fates. Yet the win still made Holtz feel like singing in the rain that fell in the second half.

"This is a much-needed win; there's a lot of energy and excitement in that locker room," Holtz exuded. "Now we can smile again."

The victory pushed the Pirates to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in Conference-USA, keeping alive their pre-season championship goal.

It didn't look promising at the start, when Memphis recovered a Darryl Freeney fumble at the ECU 7-yard line and then converted the turnover into a 7-0 lead.

Williams finally gave the Pirates a much-needed spark, breaking over the left side, bursting 68 yards and showing 41,216 fans why Holtz says "he can be a heck of a back."

The Pirates went on to establish a solid, grind-it-out running attack spiced with Kass' passes and good catch-run plays by Harris, Davon Drew, and Simmons.

"I tried to play within the offense, first and foremost protect the ball,'' said Kass, who had no turnovers and lavished his teammates with praise. "It was a great team victory."

While close friends with Pinkney, it's clear Kass wants to be in the cockpit, piloting the Pirates.

"It's been difficult,'' Kass said of standing on the sidelines. "I'm a competitive person. I want to be the guy. ... But winning and having fun, that's what it's all about."