COMMENTS (10)

Seeing Hokies on TV doesn't change Holtz's plan

By Nathan Summers
The Daily Reflector

Sunday, November 01, 2009

East Carolina football coach Skip Holtz watched every play of North Carolina’s upset of Virginia Tech last Thursday night.

For all he saw, he doesn’t see any reason to tweak his own team’s game plan for the Hokies’ Thursday trip to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, especially considering the Pirates themselves also proved to have a winning game plan in their own upset of Tech last season.

“We’ve just got to look at it and say, what can we do within our system?” Holtz said of the 5-3 Pirates’ preparation for the Hokies. “You don’t say each and every week, let’s take their game plan or their game plan because their game plan may be great for them if they have the personnel to do it. We’re going to stick with what we do.”

Holtz said game planning must include extracting important tidbits and tendencies from all of an opponent’s previous games, not just the last one.

While the fine-tuning happens when players and coaches begin breaking down one-on-one matchups during film study sessions, watching the live television broadcast can help coaches get a feel for what kind of offensive rhythm and style an opponent will present, according to Holtz.

The fifth-year coach also said last week’s telecast was a good preview for the environment that generally surrounds Thursday night games broadcast nationally on ESPN.

“Watching the game itself on TV gives you an idea of the flow and the type of football game, the competitive nature that it was, the type of atmosphere that you get on Thursday night,” Holtz said. “But then when we come in here and watch the film, and you take all that out of it, then it just gets down into the scheme.”

As for last year’s blocked punt triumph over the Hokies on opening day in Charlotte, Holtz admits he’s watched the film a handful of times in the last week alone, perhaps making game prep a little easier this year.

But Holtz said it’s important to avoid relying solely on what he sees on tape.

“As coaches, we probably break things down too much, we overanalyze things too much,” Holtz said.

Lindsay injury

Senior rushing leader Dominique Lindsay will likely be battling at least some pain in his previously injured shoulder and ankle for the rest of the season, but Lindsay clearly isn’t planning on letting it stand in the way of his playing time.

After practicing in a limited capacity last week leading into the Pirates’ game at Memphis, Lindsay erupted for 139 yards against the Tigers.

While the pain likely hasn’t gone, especially in the ankle he injured Oct. 17 against Rice, Holtz said his lead back is actually doing fine heading into ECU’s final non-conference tilt against Virginia Tech.

“He is much better from where we started,” Holtz said of Lindsay, who has a team-best 570 rush yards this season. “He’s the same as he was at the (Memphis) game, so we started this week much farther ahead than we were a week ago. He’s not limited at all.”

Contact Nathan Summers at nsummers@reflector.com or (252)329-9595.