A season-opening three-game homestand, which includes a meeting with perennial Atlantic Coast Conference contender Virginia Tech, and in-state battles at North Carolina and North Carolina State highlight East Carolina’s 2013 football schedule released Wednesday by Conference USA.
While contests against the Hokies, Tar Heels and Wolfpack all continue long-standing series’, the Pirates will face four opponents for the first time this fall. In addition to C-USA newcomers Florida Atlantic, Florida International and Middle Tennessee, ECU will welcome Old Dominion to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium to kick off the campaign on Aug. 31.
The opener against the Monarchs, who finished 11-2 with a No. 6 national rank in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) in 2012, will be followed by a visit from Florida Atlantic a week later to start league play.
After a one-year hiatus, the Pirates and Hokies will resume their series that was renewed in 2007 and now features annual meetings until 2020. Virginia Tech, which captured a 13-10 decision over Rutgers in the Russell Athletic Bowl last December, returns to Greenville on Sept. 14 for the eighth overall time and its third appearance in the last five years after recent defensive-oriented 16-3 and 17-10 victories in 2009 and 2011, respectively.
Following the first of two bye weeks during the season, East Carolina will make the short trip to Chapel Hill to visit the Tar Heels on Sept. 28. The matchup at Kenan Stadium will mark the fouth-straight season the two programs have squared off and feature a pair of divisional co-champions from a year ago.
The Pirates remain on the road the following two weeks with C-USA contests at Middle Tennessee and Tulane before returning to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium to host Southern Miss on Oct. 19. The series with the Golden Eagles currently ranks as the Pirates’ longest, featuring 38 games and dating back to 1951.
A journey to Florida International on Nov. 2, which represents East Carolina’s first visit to the city of Miami since 2003, follows another bye week before the Pirates return to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium to close out their home schedule with contests against Tulsa and UAB. The defending C-USA champion and AutoZone Liberty Bowl winner Golden Hurricane return to Greenville for the first time since Ruffin McNeill’s head coaching debut that featured a Hail Mary catch by Justin Jones as time expired in a wild 51-49 ECU win on Sept. 5, 2010.
ECU wraps up the three-game ACC portion of its slate by meeting NC State at Carter-Finley Stadium on Nov. 23, extending a 27-game series between the Pirates and Wolfpack that dates back to 1970. Since 2006, the two programs have split the last four games in a home-and-home format – the last two in overtime, both in Raleigh (NCSU/2008) and Greenville (ECU/2010).
– News release