Tonight the Connecticut Huskies and East Carolina Pirates will face off against one another in a matchup of two schools from the American Athletic Conference.
Connecticut and East Carolina have gone in opposite directions this season. The Huskies are 1-5 while the Pirates are 5-1. Connecticut Huskies has won six of its last 10 games.
The Connecticut Huskies have lost four straight games and have shown little sign of turning things around with a horrible defense. relies heavily on its defense to keep things close, as the Huskies are allowing 25.7 points, 325 yards, and they’ve forced five turnovers and seven sacks.
EastCarolina hasn't been on a roll like this in quite a while. For these 18th-ranked Pirates, there's really no time to savor it -- not with so much more left to pursue.
They're off to their best start in 15 years, have settled into their first national ranking since 2008 and have a prime-time audience for their latest high-scoring show tonight
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The Pirates (5-1, 2-0 American Athletic Conference) haven't started 6-1 since 1999. A win over four-touchdown-underdog Connecticut Huskies will make them bowl eligible for the eighth time in nine years.
It will also keep them on track for a pretty big one.
East Carolina remains positioned to earn a spot in one of the big New Year's bowls that goes to the highest-ranked champion as determined by the selection committee from the so-called Group of Five -- the American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, Mid-American and Conference USA.
The top-ranked champion from one of those five non-contract conferences will most likely earn a spot in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
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Some things to know about East Carolina's first Thursday night game of the season:
Carden party: Carden ranks among the national leaders in just about every major offensive stat category. The East Carolina QB ranks fifth in yards passing (354.8 per game), fifth in total offense (367), seventh in completions (27.7) and 12th in points responsible for (19).
Husky D: UConn is doing something right on defense. The Huskies allow a league-best 325 total yards per game and have allowed 17 or fewer points in three of their last five games. Diaco says his defense is "not a feast-or-famine outfit" that chases sacks and negative-yardage plays at the expense of occasionally being burned. "Our objective, and we are built, because we want to keep the points down," Diaco said. "So nothing is going to compromise that charge."
ECU'S D: The Pirates' prodigious offense gets most of the headlines but East Carolina's defense has quietly been productive, too. The Pirates trailed South Florida by 10 in their last game but held the Bulls scoreless in the second half of a 28-17 victory. East Carolina has the nation's 15th-best defense against the run.
Skip ties: East Carolina and Connecticut have never met in football but the schools share one thing in common: Skip Holtz. He spent five years at each program, leading the Huskies from 1994-98 when they were still playing at the Division I-AA level, and guiding the Pirates from 2005-09.
UConn vs. Top 25: Connecticut is chasing just its third victory against a team in the AP Top 25. The Huskies are 2-21 in those games with the wins coming against No. 19 Louisville in 2012 and against No. 11 South Florida in 2007.
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