East Carolina, which is coming off a 5-7 season and returns a modest number of starters, cruised past Western Carolina last weekend. How much of that effort was real and how much of it mirage, though? That's the difficult thing to even guess about this time of year. (And NC State faces a similar question heading into the weekend.)
The Pirates last season were in six games decided by one score and lost four of them--the year could have ended up looking much different for them (and for Ruffin McNeill). Both the defense and offense had their good days, but neither was consistent enough.