After East Carolina opened the season with upsets of Top 25 opponents Virginia Tech and West Virginia, the Pirates became the national media's darling, a status that disappeared almost as it quickly as it appeared.

The Pirates (3-2) come to Charlottesville on a two-game losing streak, and while they are favorites to beat the Cavaliers, coach Skip Holtz has to wonder what ECU team might show up.

The same thing could be said for a 2-3 Virginia team that was given up for dead after a 31-3 loss at Duke, then returned home to hand Maryland a 31-0 pasting.

Today's noon kickoff marks the second of three straight home games for UVa, which, unlike ECU, has never been within sniffing distance of the Top 25.

East Carolina got as high as No. 14 following a 28-24 victory at Tulane that elevated the Pirates to 3-0.

Holtz admitted it was difficult to keep his players focused.

"We addressed it and talked about how it's like poison," Holtz said. "It won't kill you unless you swallow it. When you start believing it, that's when you've got problems.

"For a group of guys that had never been ranked, it was difficult to get them to continue to play to earn something. It's almost like we were trying to protect something that we had never earned."

In particular, Holtz remembers an interview when the Pirates were 2-0.

"Somebody said, 'Now your hard games are out and it's looks like y'all will run the table," Holtz related. "I was like, 'whoa, whoa, whoa. There's 10 games left on the schedule.'

"You look around college football and it's crazy. You can't follow the system of 'they beat them and they beat them and they beat them.' You go through that and, by the end of the day, App. State is going to be the national champion.

"Obviously, we've been very humbled the past two weeks."

Actually, it's been three weeks, counting the Pirates' open date last Saturday. The Pirates lost 30-24 in overtime at North Carolina State, then suffered a 41-24 home loss to Houston in an affair that Holtz describes as "a debacle."

Houston amassed 685 yards in total offense against East Carolina, which will be without linebacker Quentin Cotton for the third game. Cotton suffered a season-ending knee injury Sept. 13 at Tulane.

Holtz, the son of legendary college coach and current ESPN analyst Lou Holtz, will be making his second trip to Charlottesville. In 2002, he was an assistant coach to his father when the Cavaliers defeated then-No. 22 South Carolina, 34-21.

Holtz was the Gamecocks' offensive coordinator for five seasons, 1999-2003, before his father demoted him to quarterbacks coach. Virginia has had a similar father-son arrangement, with Mike Groh serving as his father's offensive coordinator.

In three years with the younger Groh as coordinator, UVa's offense has not finished among the nation's top 100 Division I-A teams in total offense. Unlike Lou Holtz, who came from an offensive background, Al Groh's area of expertise is defense.

"With my father's background being all on offense and as much of an offensive coach as he was, it seems like every time we did something well it was 'Coach [Lou] Holtz and his experience,'" said Skip Holtz in a Tuesday interview with Virginia reporters.

"Every time we did something poor, it was 'that stupid son of his' calling the plays."

Today's game will be the second game of a two-year series that began in 2006, when the Pirates defeated the Cavaliers 31-21 in Greenville, N.C.

The only other meeting was in 1975, when visiting East Carolina romped to a 61-10 victory against a UVa team led by one-time ECU head coach Sonny Randle.

East Carolina athletic director Terry Holland, who was the Virginia AD when Al Groh was hired, has been successful in using his contacts to persuade multiple ACC teams to play the Pirates, whose Conference USA travel schedule is tough on the bottom line.

Just since 2006, ECU victims have included UVa, Virginia Tech, N.C. State, North Carolina, West Virginia and Boise State.

"Clearly, East Carolina is ACC-comparable," Groh said. "We're going to have to play the same kind of game [as UVa had against Maryland] to have a chance."