Teams struggle to find paydirt

East Carolina unveiled a spiffy new midfield logo for its nationally-televised football game against Virginia Tech and both teams proceeded to spend a lot of time stepping on it.

Neither the Pirates nor the Hokies planted their cleats in the end zone very often, unless they were chasing one of the four punts that bounced their way over the goal line for touchbacks.

Virginia Tech, ranked 22nd in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll, scored the game's only touchdown in a defensive battle that ended with the Hokies winning 16-3.

Neither team scored after halftime until Tech's Matt Waldron kicked his third field goal of the game with 1 minute, 13 seconds left to play in a contest that was mostly a battle of field position and dueling punts from Tech's Brent Bowden and ECU's Matt Dodge.

“We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game,” Pirate coach Skip Holtz said. “I think the difference was us turning the ball over twice down here inside the red zone.”

The most crucial giveaway came early in the third quarter with the Pirates trailing 13-3 and driving on their second possession of the second half. Giavanni Ruffin fumbled at the Tech 18-yard line, Tech's Lyndell Gibson recovered and ECU's offense didn't get that close to the Hokies' end zone the rest of the game.

To East Carolina's credit, its defense didn't let VT break the game open as Bowden and Dodge spent nearly the entire second half trading punts. Dodge booted the ball eight times for a total of 372 yards and a 46.5 yards per punt average while Bowden finished with seven punts, 314 yards and a 44.9 ypp mark.

“I've talked about the respect I have for (Tech) coach (Frank) Beamer and his program,” Holtz said. “They're not going to beat themselves. They're not going to turn the ball over. They're going to play sound, fundamental football and that's what they did tonight. ...We had our opportunities, we just didn't capitalize on them.”

Missed chances

Pirate quarterback Patrick Pinkney missed at least four wide open receivers in the first half with overthrows and the Pirates, despite running only four fewer plays (35) than Tech (39), finished with 182 total yards of first half offense to the Hokies' 252.

Six first half penalties totaling 60 yards contributed to ECU's lack of offensive productivity while Virginia Tech helped its cause by committing only one penalty for 10 yards before halftime.

That miscue didn't occur until there was 7:33 left in the second quarter.

Extra points

The game against the Hokies was the first Thursday night contest for ECU since a 39-34 loss to Louisville on Nov. 15, 2001, in Dowdy-Ficklen...Tech lost the coin toss for the ninth time in nine games this season.

Contact Tony Castleberry at tcastleberry@reflector.com or (252) 329-9591.