news-record.com

RALEIGH -- East Carolina's dream season came crumbling down in a nightmarish place Saturday afternoon, the one place on earth the Pirates didn't want to lose.

A season already destined to take its place among the most memorable in ECU history was marred by the one thing Pirates hate more than anything -- losing to N.C. State.

This one ended in overtime after a game controlled by ECU came apart in the final minutes inside angry Carter-Finley Stadium. This one ended after the Pirates lost the lead for the only time all day. This one ended all the talk of BCS bowls and postseason glory, the kind that has eluded East Carolina for years.

The fun part's over now. ECU has no more national games, no more regional holy wars, no more opportunities to grab the country's attention. The 15th-ranked Pirates will now slip into the shadows of Conference USA and hope for the conference crown that has also eluded ECU and pray the dream season comes back into focus against all odds.

Skip Holtz said the odds of East Carolina being 3-1 right now weren't good to begin with.

"We have four games under our belt at this point," the ECU coach said. "We're 3-1. I think if you would've told us at the very beginning of the year 'You could be 3-1 after the first four games and you were going to play N.C. State, West Virginia, Virginia Tech and Tulane,' I think some people would say 'Well, you know that's not a bad start'."

The bad finish Saturday couldn't be explained away as easily. State trailed most of the game, and until a goal-line stand inside the 5-yard line early in the fourth quarter it didn't appear the Wolfpack had a chance. After that, N.C. State slowly took control in front of its rabid fans and the stunned ECU faithful.

"The way we played football for 60 minutes made me proud," State coach Tom O'Brien said. "They played like my kind of team."

They actually played beyond 60 minutes and much of it not very well, but when the fake canons fired behind the end zone at the end, there was the sense that the best team had won.

State was a different team Saturday, one ECU simply hadn't seen on film. Russell Wilson, the Wolfpack quarterback who was knocked out in the South Carolina loss, had the look of a seasoned runner, more like Pat White of West Virginia than, well Pat White of West Virginia looked against ECU.

Wilson was faster than the Pirates defense, something no one expected. Without its best player, injured linebacker Quentin Cotton, ECU looked slow and tired from the grueling schedule that preceded the State game. The truth be told, ECU had looked tired the week before in a dramatic win over Tulane.

Every game has been dramatic for the Pirates so far, and that's the problem now facing Holtz. With the remarkable run behind it and Houston coming into Greenville next week, East Carolina has to try and regain the magic that carried it to its best start since 1999 and arguably its best start in school history.

Holtz said the rest of the schedule, not the first four games, will define this season for ECU.

"If we had to lose this game, and we win the conference, I would tell you this may be the best loss in the history of the program," he said.

Holtz said he'd give the team 24 hours to mourn the loss. It might take a lot longer for a fan base that hasn't gotten over last year's loss to State in Greenville. This was to be the one of those historic games, a barometer of programs, proof that ECU had once again caught its eastern N.C. rival and, once again, passed it.

The talk coming in was about the long-range future, not Houston next week. O'Brien said he'd given his team three weeks to listen to people talking down his team, a period Wilson needed to clear the cobwebs and become comfortable with an offense no one had even seen until Saturday.

"I think they listened to the trash talk about how they couldn't score and how they've been scoreless for so many halves," O'Brien said.

State closed the 2007 season with a shutout loss and opened this season with a 34-0 loss at South Carolina. Somewhere after that, apparently sometime earlier in the week, Wilson figured out the spread offense. No one, especially not ECU, expected it.

And even then, not until the fourth quarter Saturday did the nightmare dawn on the Pirates. Their worst fears came true before their very eyes. State, previously 1-2 and feared by no one, took down previously undefeated ECU and ruined the Pirates' season.

At least the one that ended in overtime Saturday inside angry Carter-Finley Stadium.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com