The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers offense has recently hit a stalemate. The team has only managed to put up 20 points in 12 quarters of football so far this season.
The team would host the East Carolina Pirates on Saturday night at Brooks Stadium in front of another capacity crowd. But the ever-so-popular fan experience at Coastal has been the only bright spot to the season thus far. It was the third-largest crowd ever for a Coastal Carolina football game.
The Chanticleers went with sophomore quarterback Tad Hudson to start the game over MJ Morris, who has recently turned the ball over too many times, and had 3 interceptions last week against FCS opponent Charleston Southern. Although Coastal would get the win 13-0 in that contest, they came in as a heavy favorite of 23.5 points. Head coach Tim Beck felt as if the team needed a spark, and Hudson was able to lead a scoring drive late against the Buccaneers to ignite a bit of a spark. It wouldn’t carry over to a much bigger and better opponent in East Carolina.
Coastal was only able to manage 2 first downs in the 1st quarter. The defense was doing just enough to keep them in the game, but they would be shut out in the 1st half by a score of 10-0 in favor of East Carolina. In the third quarter, the Chants were penalized after two big plays of 47 and 21 yards, all but halting the momentum once again. With the score 17-0 in the 3rd quarter, the Pirates would continue the stingy defense and force Coastal to turn the ball over a couple more times, leading to three straight scoring drives for East Carolina.
Coastal Carolina would lose the game 38-0 to the Pirates. The Chants turned the ball over five times, and East Carolina would capitalize on a couple of those by scoring 14 points off of them. The Coastal offense has not found a way to stop turning the ball over, and the quarterback change did not help in that way much in this one, with Hudson throwing two interceptions and getting sacked five times on the night. The Chants were not able to run the ball against the Pirates after handing the ball to eight different ball carriers 26 times for only 67 yards.
Tad Hudson received a QBR rating of 13.5 after completing only 19 passes out of 39 attempts with no touchdowns and two interceptions. The Chants were also not great on third down, converting on 5 of 14. The Chants were their own worst enemy, with too many turnovers and not being able to protect the quarterback. The Chants will need to get back to the drawing board if they still want an opportunity to compete for a Sun-Belt conference championship.
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