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East Carolina

Pirates · American Athletic

Head coach Blake Harrell Year 1 with East Carolina

Year-1 HCs (2015-2024) averaged -0.19 W vs SP+ expected · n=83

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims
8.0
Expected wins
8-4
Proj record
5 to 11
Win range (90%)
#41 (22–66)
Final rank (90%)
1%
Make playoff
12%
Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

1%

Baseline projection.

  • at Alabama
    Away · Sep 5
  • at Memphis
    Away · Oct 22
  • at Old Dominion
    Away · Sep 19
  • at Army
    Away · Nov 21
  • vs South Florida
    Home · Nov 7

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2025

46 PCI
  • Quarterback 33% (2/6 players)
  • Offensive line 50% (10/20 players)
  • Skill (RB/WR/TE) 58% (19/33 players)
  • Front 7 (DL/LB) 50% (17/34 players)
  • Secondary 46% (13/28 players)
  • Special teams 50% (4/8 players)

PCI weights returning production by position group (QB/OL heaviest). 70%+ is healthy continuity; 45-70% is a normal rebuild; below 45% is a meaningful turnover.

If QB1 is out (Katin Houser)

GIE projects a -0.8 rating drop and a -3.4pp shift in playoff probability if East Carolina loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=1 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank
  • 3rd-down conversion 44.5% 91th — elite
  • Red-zone TD rate 15.0% 53th — average
  • 4th-down aggression 48.2% 91th — elite
  • Late & close 5.5 yds/play 63th — average

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.