History appears to be on South Carolina State's side entering Saturday's Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference game at Morgan State.

SCSU (5-4, 4-2) has won 12 consecutive games in the month of November under head football coach Oliver "Buddy" Pough. SCSU also owns an overwhelming 25-5-1 advantage in the series and have not lost a game in the city of Baltimore since 1974 -- Pough's junior season as an offensive lineman.

It's the recent history that was most fresh on Pough's mind on Monday. The Bears handed the Bulldogs their last November loss in 2002, Pough's first season as head coach, and with exception to last year's 65-15 rout in Orangeburg, have generally provided a strong challenge.

He expects the same, especially with Morgan State (5-5, 4-3) playing its regular-season finale and looking to post a winning season.

"They've played really well lately," Pough said. "They've got the elements to give a team like us a tough time. They are the best rushing defense in our league right now and part of it is because they've got a scheme that's designed to go up against what we do pretty good, and then they've got really good personnel. They've got two transfers ... (Defensive tackle Robert Armstrong) from Maryland is a big-time player and they've got a linebacker, Darius Leak, that you see everywhere on tape. So they've got the people to give us a tough time."

For the second time in three weeks, SCSU will play a Saturday night game in possibly cold, windy conditions. However, Pough promised a more aggressive offensive game plan for their first appearance in three years at Hughes Stadium than what they used two weeks ago in Dover against Delaware State.

"I hope it does help that we had that experience," Pough said. "I think we've got to give our guys more of a chance to make plays than we did in the Delaware State game. I thought we may have restricted our package maybe too much considering the elements. I'm hoping that we learned our lesson as coaches."

SCSU is also looking to avoid another slow start after needing a dominating second half to pull away from Howard 28-10 this past Saturday for Homecoming.

"I think we'll go in and play better Saturday night against Morgan State than we played against Howard," Pough said. "Hopefully, we'll continue to improve and play a little bit better each week toward the end of the year.

"We played pretty flat for a half and eventually got to the point where we got our stuff somewhat together in the second half," he said. "I'm just appreciative of the fact that our guys were focused enough to come back and get that task done."

Leading the second-half charge were running back DeShawn Baker with a season-high 170 yards to surpass the 1,000-yard mark for the second straight year and a defense which forced six turnovers. The Bulldogs also received strong production from several second-team players on the offensive and defensive line whose playing time is expected to increase with two games remaining.

SCSU could still conceivably win the conference title and make the Division I-AA playoffs by winning its last two games, Hampton losing to Florida A&M this Saturday and Delaware State dropping its last two MEAC games. However, Pough is not optimistic about having those developments work in his favor.

"I think what we do is we just simply play as hard as we can to the end of the year and if something of that kind should happen, then we'd be very, very excited and happy to go ahead and play," he said. "But at this point, we just don't feel that that many possibilities of things happening for us could happen."

T&D Senior Sports Writer Thomas Grant Jr. can be reached by e-mail at tgrant@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5547. Discuss this and other stories online at TheT&D.com.

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