Pirates point to youth

Skip Holtz opened East Carolina football practice Friday with the hopes of seasoning his inexperienced team as much as possible before the Sept. 1 opener at Virginia Tech.

"We're 28 days away from Virginia Tech, and I wish we were 48 days away from Virginia Tech," Holtz said jokingly.

After the spirited 2-hour, 25-minute session, Holtz said that some of the newcomers and younger players who redshirted last year will be competing for starting positions this fall.

"We're young, and we're inexperienced," said Holtz, who is entering his third year as the Pirates' head coach. "When you look at some of these freshmen that are going to be fighting for playing time because they have so much talent, ... we need every piece of live teamwork against each other where they can see things going at that quality and that speed, and you can't replace that."

For the first time since 2003, ECU started fall practice without former quarterback James Pinkney commanding the first-team offense. Pinkney started a record 38 consecutive games in his career, which ended in ECU's 24-7 loss to USF in last year's Papajohns.com Bowl.

Redshirt sophomore Rob Kass -- the only quarterback on ECU's roster who ever has attempted a collegiate pass -- is the leading candidate to replace Pinkney.

"The offense isn't going to change dramatically, he's been it for three years now," Holtz said of Kass. "It's just him making decisions under fire, he has to continue to make decisions and see the speed that will be coming at him on opening day. ... I don't think there's that much to learn, but he has a lot of experience that he needs to gain sitting behind that center."

Holtz was impressed with his players' effort on the hot August afternoon.

"We picked up kind of where we left off mentally," Holtz said. "We got in formations and ran plays, they're running around and know what they're doing, They worked extremely hard over the summer, and they looked great."