Check out comments from East Carolina head coach Mike Houston at the 2024 AAC media day event.
Stephen Igoe
East Carolina head coach Mike Houston represented the Pirates at the American Athletic Conference media days this week, speaking at the podium on Tuesday ahead of the 2024 season. Withreport date for preseason camp only a week away, the AAC event served as the unofficial kickoff to the upcoming campaign, which will represent Houston's sixth at the helm of ECU's program.
The Pirates are coming off a disappointing 2-10 season, including a 1-7 showing in conference action, leading to an offseason of change on the offensive side of the ball. In is new offensive coordinator John David Baker, as well as several new offensive players. Houston was joined by running back Rahjai Harris and cornerback Shavon Revel - two returning seniors - in Arlington at the media days. All three spoke to ESPN on Tuesday. Below are Houston's full comments at the podium, with select commentary from his interview with the ESPN+ sit-down broadcast feed as well.
OPENING STATEMENT
"Thanks a lot. Great to be here again this year. I think this is starting my sixth season at East Carolina, so the sixth time to be at this event. I was mentioning to a couple of the staff members over to the side. I think a lot of credit needs to go out to the American staff and the American conference office on the job they've done with this event this year because, in my opinion, they've raised the bar another level just with putting on this event, the creativity and some of the social media content and some of the opportunities for the student athletes. I just think they've made it a little bit more special this year. Just great job by them.
"I just want to say starting out, just best of luck and congratulations to Mike Aresco. Certainly, Mike did a tremendous job with this conference for over a decade and really put the American conference on the national stage and was very good to me in my time with him in this conference. Just excited about Tim Pernetti and his vision for our conference. Had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him last night talking about his vision, his plan, and just came away just with our changing landscape in college athletics, and in particular, college football. I think just his creativity, his thinking, his open-mindedness, innovative leadership, and positivity, those are the things that took away from my conversations with him. I think everybody at this event the last couple of days have probably had similar thoughts after their interactions. We're all excited about his leadership moving forward with this conference.
"It's an exciting time of the year. This event, and then we have an event in the Carolinas coming up on Friday. They kick off the fall and college football season for us, and probably as excited about this fall as any. This is my 14th year as a head coach at the college level, and probably been anticipating this one more than any. I was disappointed in our performance a year ago and the way things turned out, and knew we had a lot of work to do immediately, and knew that there needed to be a lot of change. For us, I think change not only was needed, but it was change that wasgood. Went to work last winter and really excited about the hiring of John David Baker as our new offensive coordinator. He has been the co-offensive coordinator at Ole Miss the last couple of years, and he's brought in a breath of fresh air on that side of the football.
"He and the staff that we put together, they did a great job this spring with our players. We were able to bring in some players in the winter that matched the scheme that he wanted to run. We were able to retain the current players that we had that fit maybe even better in this scheme than they did in the previous scheme. Coming out of spring practice, I think everyone in the program just had a huge amount of optimism about what the potential for us this fall was. We returned a lot of experienced players, particularly on the defensive side of the football. That defensive unit was a very strong unit last year, and we expect it to be as strong or stronger again this year. But just the cohesiveness in our locker room between our returning players on both sides of the ball and our new additions that have come in, just feel really good about our roster going into fall camp. Two of our players here today that we brought with us, Shavon Revel, all-conference corner, and I think one of the better corners in the country, and Rahjai Harris, former all-conference running back, who is as healthy as he has been since his freshman year.
"Both of them represent a lot of the qualities that are evident throughout our locker room. They're both outstanding players, and I expect both of them to have great seasons this fall. But if you spend time with them, they're more outstanding young men. I'm blessed to be able to spend my days with student-athletes like them. They're not the only ones in our locker room. But for me, that's really the highlight of my job, is my interactions with those young men and being able to work with them and what we're trying to do with our program. It's an exciting time for Pirate Football, and I'm very fortunate and blessed.
"As Tim said, East Carolina is a special place. We have passionate fans that care about our program. They show up on game day, and there is no more of a rowdy environment in our league. As rowdy as any in the country, isDowdy-Ficklen Stadium on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays in the fall, whenever game day is. All of us are looking forward to August 31st in our home opener because we get to start off the 2024 season and prove on the field what we all feel we can do internally.
"Our expectations are very high for this year. Our players believe in what we're doing, and they believe in each other, and we're excited to get started excited with it. We know we've got a tough non-conference schedule with games like Appalachian State at home and going to Liberty on the road. We know that we have a tough conference opener with UTSA coming to Greenville, but I'm excited they get to come to Greenville. It's going to be good to have a team of that caliber coming into Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium for the conference opener. Excited for our new conference member, Army. I've known Jeff Monken for quite a while, and he's doing a great job up there. It's going to be a very tough, tough road game for us there later in the season. But as you look at our conference, I think there are a lot of us that feel the same way, that a lot of us have a chance to win the conference championship this year, and I think the Pirates are part of that group. We'll figure it out on the field this fall. We all get our turn, but I couldn't be more excited about what's coming up."
On his most inspiring person growing up
"For me, that's a pretty easy answer. My dad. Growing up, he's the one that taught me how to throw a football. He's the one that taught me how to shoot a basketball. I I watched him get up early every morning and go to work. He was a tireless worker. We may not have had the most in the world, but he worked very hard to make sure that our family was taken care of. He was a strong Christian and lived his life as a great role model for me. He had always supported me throughout my high school athletic career, my college football career. He passed away the a week after my first game at East Carolina. But he was excited about me taking this job, and he thought this was a place that fit me and our family. I still think about him every day, but he's always been my hero."
On the parallels with Tulane's 2021 and 2022 seasons, with what may happen with ECU in 2023 and 2024
"Well, I think very much the way Willie (Fritz) felt then. He and I have known each other for a long time and faced each other at multiple different institutions. No one was surprised by the turnaround from 2021 to 2022 and what he did the next couple of years. For that group, a lot of it was just getting healthy and getting everybody on the same page. For us, it was getting a couple of positions, getting the right people in a couple of positions, and getting the right offensive philosophy for us. But I very much feel like you could see the same turnaround this year from our program that you saw from his.
"The reason I feel so strongly about that is, I've already mentioned, we have a lot of returning players in our locker room that have been here for a while, and we have a very, very strong culture. I know everybody talks about having great culture, but I challenge you, meet those two young men I brought with me today. Come and spend time around our young men. They're men of character. They're very driven. They're talented. Anytime you have a group where everybody's rolling in the same direction and you've got some ability, you got a shot.That's what happened to Tulane a couple of years ago, and that's what we're hoping happens to East Carolina this year."
On the QB competition between Katin Houser and Jake Garcia
"Well, obviously, we didn't play very well at that position last year, and that was our Achilles heel. We knew we had to bring in some talent in that room. We brought in Katin Houserfrom Michigan State, where he started the last, I think, seven games there last year, and then Jake Garcia from Missouri. Jake had started a couple of games at Miami the year before. Both of them were Elite 11, top recruit guys coming out high school. Both of them have incredible ability, talent. We brought in two because we felt like we needed the competition, and we didn't want to just have everything in one guy. I'll tell you, the spring, it couldn't have went any better. Both of them played at a very high level. We rotated them all throughout the spring, and I was excited for our fans that our spring game probably couldn't have went any better. They both came out and lit it up in the first half and showed the accuracy, the arm strength, the ability to read defenses, the ability to make the right checks. We're very excited about those two going into the fall. I honestly, and I know you guys don't believe us coaches most of the time, but it's a toss-up right now.
"It really is. For me, that's a good thing because I think we have two capable guys that can go out and win in this conference. We've got to make a decision before August 31st, and we got to get the timing and cohesiveness down with those guys and our receivers. But we go into theseason and we're all feeling very, very good about both of them."
On if the offensive change means ECU is going back to the Ruffin McNeill/Lincoln Riley offensive days
"This is a pretty drastic adjustment for me. At the Citadel, I ran the wishbone. This is probably as far from that as you can get, but it's a combination of... Coach Baker has a lot of influences, whether it's Graham Harrell or Art Briles or Mike Leach or Lane Kiffin. I think he's taken a lot from all those guys, and this is his offense. This is his version of the things that he is. As coaches, we all steal from each other. We're all stealing ideas from everybody. But it's going to be his ideas with what he's taken from all those offenses and put together. We are going to be extremely aggressive. We are going to spread the field vertically, and we're going to attack horizontally, and we're going to do it at a high rate of speed. We had to make sure that we had the personnel to match that, and that's why we were so aggressive in the transfer portal back in the winter. But we go into the fall camp feeling like we have the tools around the quarterbacks to run this system. That's why I can't wait for August 31st and every week after that to see what this staff and these players can do on that side of the football."
On when he would like to name a starting QB
"We would like to make a decision in the latter part of camp, so we have time to work the quarterback with that first unit going into the opener. We want to let the players make the decision by their play on the field. We're going to put them in a lot of competitive situations in camp. Two scrimmages will be the biggest evaluations, but we want to give them more situations besides that. We're very excited about both Katin and Jake. We think both can be winning, starting quarterbacks in this league. We think with the talent we have around them, whomever ends up being the starter is going to have a big season. We're just excited we have two."
On what changes were made across the board with the new offensive style
"We conditioned a lot more this summer. But we really looked at it from a defensive standpoint that we need to adapt some, to be prepared for probably playing more snaps, probably having to play more people. We have prepared for that with our depth chart, with our roster, and with some things we're doing schematically and positioning-wise. And I think probably people are going to be more aggressive throwing the ball downfield against us this year because hopefully they're going to be trying to match the offensive production we're putting on the board."
On having a more manageable non-conference schedule
"I don't know. I think I'd put App State up against any of the Power 5 teams we've played. I think it's challenging. On the road at ODU is going to be a challenge. App at home is going to be a big game for us. Dowdy-Ficklen will be sold out. It will be an electric environment. It's going to be a big game. Going on the road to Liberty, after what they did last year, it's going to be a great opportunity for our players. But I think that run right there of those non-conference games and going into UTSA as the conference opener, we're going to find out what we're about. You'd like to have it later in the season. But it's going to get us ready, I know that."
