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The East Carolina Pirates are 0-4 against the Navy Midshipmen since September of 2015, but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Saturday. The Pirates and Navy will face off in an American Athletic battle at 3:30 p.m. ET at Jack Stephens Field at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. Coming off of a win even when the odds were against them, East Carolina has to be feeling especially confident now that the spread is in their favor.
It was all tied up 23-23 between East Carolina and the Memphis Tigers going into overtime last week, but East Carolina pulled a 30-29 win out of their hat in the final minutes. The team ran away with 16 points in the first half and mostly just sat on those in the second to pick up the victory. East Carolina's RB Keaton Mitchell did his thing and punched in one rushing touchdown. One of those touchdowns came as the clock expired to put the Pirates in the lead for good.
Special teams collected 12 points for East Carolina. K Owen Daffer delivered a perfect 3-for-3 game.
Meanwhile, the Midshipmen were expected to have a tough go of it two weeks ago, and, well, they did. They ended up on the wrong side of a painful 34-6 walloping at the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's hands. QB Xavier Arline had a memorable game, but not in the way you want to be remembered: he passed for only 18 yards on two attempts.
The Pirates are now 6-4 while Navy sits at 2-7. Two numbers to keep in mind before kickoff: East Carolina is stumbling into the game with the 167th most passing yards allowed per game in the nation, having given up 243.6 on average. Navy has experienced some struggles of their own as they are 248th worst in the nation in passing yards per game, with only 54.4 on average. It's possible one of these Achilles' heels will wind up tripping the losing team up.
