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The Blake Harrell era will soon no longer be an interim one. East Carolina is expected to name Harrell its next head coach. The ECU Board of Trustees is planning to make the hire official and officially approve it with a board meeting on Wednesday.
Harrell, the team’s defensive coordinator, took over as the interim coach after the dismissal of former head coach Mike Houston on Oct. 20. He’s since guided the Pirates to four consecutive wins, including a remarkable 40-28 victory at North Texas this past weekend that occurred after ECU trailed 21-0 late in the second quarter.
Harrell, 45, was considered a long shot to get the job long-term when he took over as interim. But the Pirates have looked like a completely different team since. The defense has been solid, but it’s been the offense under first-year coordinator John David Baker that has truly taken off, as the insertion of quarterback Katin Houser has led to consistently dominant offensive outputs. ECU has posted 500 or more yards of total offense and more than 200 yards rushing in Harrell’s first four games as coach.
Harrell will be the 23rd head coach in East Carolina football history. He’s the first to get the ECU job as a promoted interim coach. Several players took to social media after the Pirates’ win over North Texas to voice their support for Harrell becoming the permanent head coach.
“He deserves it. He truly does,” ECU fifth-year senior running back Rahjai Harris said. “He’s an even better person than a coach. I think he’s the perfect guy. I’ve been in the program a couple years. I know.”
Since taking over as the team’s head coach, Harrell has seen the Pirates take their record from 3-4 to 7-4, and improve the conference standing to 5-2. The seven wins guarantee ECU a winning record and the Pirates will have a chance to get an eighth regular season victory – the most since 2014 – this Friday against Navy at 12 noon ET. ECU has never won more than five games since entering The American in 2014. The Pirates can also top that mark with a victory over the Midshipmen.
Harrell was hired by Houston ahead of the 2020 season to coordinate ECU’s defense. He quickly turned the unit into one of the best in the conference, led by an aggressive style that forced several tackles for loss and turnovers. Harrell, a native of North Carolina from the western part of the state, attended Western Carolina and Lenoir-Rhyne before getting into coaching via a student assistant role with Western Carolina in 2002. He then embarked on a high school coaching career from 2003-06, before joining up with Houston at Lenoir-Rhyne at the Division II level. Harrell served in various roles with the Bears, including defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator. He followed Houston to The Citadel, where he spent time there from 2014-18, eventually getting the defensive coordinator job at Kennesaw State in 2019. After an 11-3 campaign with the Owls, Harrell was hired at ECU in 2020.
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