Exactly what is it like to be an official in the Southeastern Conference?

Penn Wages was able to give those gathered Thursday at the Cinema for the Orangeburg Touchdown Club meeting an idea of what he goes through on Saturdays during college football seasons.

“Oh, it gets wild in the SEC,” Wages told the crowd. “It gets wild in a lot of our conference games.”

Wages, a football official with nearly 35 years of experience, went on to discuss the new rule changes in college football, like the 40-second play clock and the horse collar tackle. He also shared stories of encounters he’s had during his stint in the SEC with various coaches, including former Gamecock head coach Lou Holtz. Before he allowed the audience to ask questions, Wages told them that “all of his coaches are his greatest coaches and all of them are his worst coaches” based on what the scoreboard says.

One coach that Wages was quite familiar with was SCSU head coach Buddy Pough. He and his Bulldogs were successful in defeating Winston-Salem State last weekend and are headed to Tallahassee this Saturday to take on a Florida A&M team that could pose some problems after being down for a while.

“The condition of that program and what they were about all those years was so strong that it was really kind of strange to see them not being very good for the last four or five years,” Pough said. “No more. Joe Taylor is there. He’s the head coach at FAMU now. He was the head coach at Hampton. That Hampton week of practice was a knockdown, drag-out week of practice for us. It was a week that we knew that we had to really get prepared to play.”

S.C. State has been preparing to face a two-headed monster at quarterback as the Rattlers will use a combination of Eddie Battle and University of Kentucky transfer Curtis Pulley.

“They kind of play one guy in one series and one guy the next and they moving it that way the whole game,” Pough said. “You’ve got to be on your P’s and Q’s as to which guy is in the game.”

Orangeburg-Wilkinson quarterback Jayson Leverett and Denmark-Olar defensive end Kendrick Frazier were tabbed as this week’s Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week. Leverett turned in a 22-of-34 passing performance for 350 yards with three touchdowns along with a rushing touchdown in the Bruins’ first loss of the season. Frazier recorded 15 tackles in the Vikings’ win over the Mohawks.

-- T&D Sports Writer Emery Glover can be reached by e-mail at eglover@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5532. Check out his blog, Cover 2, at www.TheTandD.com.

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