Editor's Note: Dick Weiss, a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, has covered college sports in Philadelphia and New York for more than 40 years. He will be providing regular commentary for the American Athletic Conference during the 2014-15 season.
Five years after nearly going unnoticed by FBS programs, record-setting quarterback Shane Carden has East Carolina poised for a successful debut in the American Athletic Conference.
NEWPORT, R.I.-- East Carolina's fifth-year senior quarterback Shane Carden has yet to play a game in the American Athletic Conference, but his reputation precedes him.
Carden was selected MVP of Conference USA last season and brings some glittering statistics with him to his team's new league. He was one of the most prolific passers in Division I football last season, completing 70.5 percent of his 549 passes for 4,139 yards as a junior. He threw for 33 touchdowns compared with just 10 interceptions as the Pirates (10-3) did some serious damage with an up-tempo, Air Raid offense that was reminiscent of Mike Leach's high-scoring Texas Tech teams. No surprise there since Pirates coach Ruffin McNeill spent eight years on Leach’s staff before coming back to his alma mater in Greenville, N.C.
McNeill, along with a young, innovative prodigy of an offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, who had Texas Tech roots as a player and coach, have installed their version of the Air Raid at East Carolina, where they recruited enough elite experienced skill position players in the last five years to turn the game into a wild ride for near-sellout crowds at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. East Carolina averaged 40.2 points per game last season.
As impressive as the Pirates' 37-20 victory over Ohio in the Beef ‘O' Brady’s Bowl was, perhaps more impressive was East Carolina’s first sweep of in-state opponents North Carolina and NC State, both on the road.
"I don't like to say that we were in the shadows of those schools,'' Carden said. "We were just a little East.”
Carden, along with fifth-year wide receiver Justin Hardy, who caught 114 passes for 1,284 yards and eight touchdowns, were the focal point of a season where the Pirates shattered 52 school records. There is every reason to believe Captain Carden and the Pirates will continue that onslaught in the American, gaining long overdue national exposure from playing in a higher-profile conference that has prime-time Thursday and Friday night games on ESPN.
East Carolina could be this year's UCF, which went 12-1 and defeated Big 12 champion Baylor in the BCS Fiesta Bowl last year. The Pirates are a similar under-the-radar team with a chance to make a run at a New Year’s bowl if it can successfully negotiate a difficult nonleague gauntlet that includes road games at South Carolina and Virginia Tech and a home game against North Carolina.
And Carden could be this year's Blake Bortles in terms of what he brings to the position.
No one is projecting Carden as a top-five NFL draft pick, at least not yet. But he has the best resume in a league that is developing a reputation for becoming an assembly line for high-level quarterbacks like P.J. Walker of Temple, Gunner Kiel of Cincinnati and John O'Korn of Houston.
The 6-2, 221-pound Carden, a Dean's list student who earned a bachelors' degree in sports studies and participated in East Carolina’s fall commencement exercises last Dec. 14, prior to the Pirates' departure for the bowl, is one of the more improbable success stories in college football because he was considered a better baseball prospect when he was younger and was almost overlooked as a football prospect coming out of Episcopal High in Houston.
Carden comes from an athletic family. His father, Jay, had an eight-year professional baseball career playing in the farm systems of the New York Mets, Atlanta Braves and Montreal Expos. His mother, a volleyball player, was the first female athlete to earn a scholarship to Cal Poly, and his uncle was the starting quarterback at USC. His two older brothers both pitched in college at Rhodes College and UC-Davis.
Shane, who was highly competitive with his brothers, was on track to follow in their footsteps and he stuck with both baseball and football in high school before deciding to concentrate solely on football, Initially disappointed that his son was giving up his best sport, Jay Carden devised a daily workout schedule to make sure his kept in shape for football because he could see his son had potential after he watched Shane get his middle school team together for summer workouts in the 100-degree heat.
It just took college coaches a little longer to agree with his assessment.
Even though he led Episcopal to a 52-7 victory over Kinkaid in the Southwest Preparatory state championship game and was selected as Houston's 4A offensive player of the year, he was almost overlooked by Division I recruiters alltogether. He drew interest from Houston but then the Cougars’ innovative offensive coordinator Dana Holgerson, himself a Mike Leach disciple, left for a similar position at Oklahoma State. He was considered a Plan B at Texas Tech. Carden did not have an firm offer until the last week before signing day when Central Michigan and East Carolina jumped into the picture.
McNeill first heard about Carden from B.J. Symons, a former NFL quarterback and friend of the family who set the Texas Tech school single season passing record with 5,833 yards and 52 touchdowns in 2002, his only year as a starter. Symons learned the system from Leach, who was then still the Raiders' offensive coordinator.
Carden visited campus and was immediately sold on McNeill and the system. He was the last player McNeill signed in the class of 2010.
But he has the potential to be the best quarterback in school history, ahead of David Garrard, who played for the Pirates in the late '90s and went on to a productive NFL career.
Carden has been a three year starter who has flourished in an offense that thrives on throwing the ball between 30 and 50 times a game.
“When you’re kind of underrated, to get over that and show people that you missed out on me, it’s always a good feeling,” Carden said. “There will always be people who say it’s luck, but we’ve got to continue to prove those people wrong. I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder.”
Carden has worked hard to increase his arm strength.
"I worked with the strength coach who works with baseball pitchers, working on shoulder strength to give me a lot of power to keep my arm strong all season,'' he said. "We throw 50 passes a game at times so I throw about 250 passes in practice. When we go into camp and you are doing that 16 straight days, you got to prepare yourself for that.''
Riley, a hot commodity who spurned offers from Notre Dame and North Carolina in the off-season, has added to Carden's confidence by giving he freedom in his calls.
“He's helped me do things I didn’t know I could do,'' Carden said. "We check off a lot of plays at the line of scrimmage. With the receivers we have, it makes it an easy job.''
Carden has passed for more than 400 yards on three occasions and has surpassed 350 yards seven times during his career, throwing five touchdowns on four occasions.
“There’s enough talent around the country that creates a little bit more parity than people are talking about now," McNeill said. "I know they're trying to talk about these conferences and those conferences. Well, I've been to those conferences, and there are good football players in each league."
East Carolina promises to be the most exciting new team in a now stable conference and another reason to watch this league.
"I don't care who we're going to play,'' McNeill said. "I always think we have a chance.''