The celebration and sense of accomplishment for the South Carolina State football team following the 35-13 victory over Hampton last Saturday lasted through the evening.
By Sunday morning however, head football coach Oliver “Buddy” Pough was ready to turn the focus on this week’s big game against defending Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion Delaware State.
“We were pretty much done with the Hampton game by the time I got through with the TV show,” said Pough at Monday’s weekly press conference. “Our guys have pretty much closed the game out and because we’ve been through this situation now a couple of times the last couple of years - almost the exact same scenario of having beat Hampton and then playing Delaware, we really want to pay attention to every little possible detail to make sure that we’ve got everything that we can possibly get in place so that we can have a chance to win the game.”
Although the Hornets (3-4, 3-2) have struggled this season, recent history has worked in their favor against S.C. State (6-2, 4-0). Not only has Delaware State taken three of the last four meetings against the Bulldogs at Alumni Stadium, but its three victories against Pough have taken place following a win over Hampton.
There’s also the noticeable pain Pough still experiences when he reflects on the two, one-point losses suffered the past two seasons to Delaware State. Both defeats ended the Bulldogs’ MEAC title hopes, a trend Pough does not want to continue now that his team has sole possession of first place in conference play.
“This team seems to have our number and they tend to take advantage of our mistakes and make our lives miserable,” Pough said. “I still remember the feeling from last year’s game (the Bulldogs lost on Homecoming 17-16 after a 38-yard field goal in the final seconds by Peter Gaertner) and I don’t like to think about it. So we’ve got our work cut out for us and it’s going to be a tough game for us.”
Given its conference record and coming off a 20-3 loss at Morgan State, Pough expects a superior effort by Delaware State to keep alive any repeat MEAC championship hopes.
“You can bet that they’ll feel that the fact that they lost to Morgan is not quite as bad as thing as you think it is now,” Pough said. “Their big deal now is to try to salvage their season and they figure now that if they beat us and they win out or Morgan beats us ... they’ll feel like everything is probably going to be in the two-loss range and that possibility does exists. So, we’ve got to make sure we don’t get that opportunity to come to fruition.
Getting a carryover offensively from Saturday’s 35-point second-half explosion would help the Bulldogs’ chances. In the last three meetings against Delaware State, S.C. State has averaged 12.6 points on offense which Pough credits to the defensive schemes of Hornets’ head coach Al Lavan and defensive coordinator Ray Petty.
Weather has also played havoc with S.C. State’s offensive execution whenever it’s played in Dover, Del. Pough cited the heavy winds during a 10-9 loss two years ago as having a major impediment to the team’s passing offense.
“Delaware is very similar to maybe Charleston or some place of that kind,” Pough said. “It’s always going to be windy because you get a certain amount of wind off the water and you’ve got to have yourself prepared for the fact that they’re going to be times when there are things you are going to be able to do and there are things you’re not. Just be aware to act accordingly. Don’t just go in there just thinking you can just be the same thing all the game. There are times when you are going to have to take the wind into account.”
S.C. State could benefit from a 1 p.m. start, especially if preliminary weather forecasts out of Dover indicating temperatures in the mid-50s, partly cloudy skies and low winds hold up.
There’s also a couple of favorable “omens” working in S.C. State’s favor. Saturday’s game will be shown via tape delay on ESPNU, the first of two straight appearances on the network for the Bulldogs. S.C. State is 8-0 under Pough in games aired by the ESPN family and 14-0 overall in nationally-televised games. In addition, the game is taking place on the first day of November, a month the Bulldogs have dominated with 17 consecutive victories.
A victory Saturday would also not only give Pough a winning record against every MEAC team, but tie him with Bill Davis for second place on the school’s all-time career coaching wins list with 54. Instead of focusing on the milestones, Pough is more concerned about getting a complete game from his offense rather than rely on a second-half explosion.
“Our key is to continue to improve our execution,” he said. “We’re still kind of hit and miss in our execution and Saturday was really disappointing in the fact that key player didn’t play well and I’m going to challenge those guys this week because anybody can play well against the kind of medium teams. But, when I need you against great teams, when I need you in the tough situations ... we’ve got to go back and see if we can clean up some of that stuff that we had Saturday because we didn’t play as good as I like for us to play.”
There’s also the rash of nagging injuries to key players like linebacker Marshall McFadden (shoulder), safety Markee Hamlin (neck) and wide receiver Phillip Morris (knee). Pough did not go into details about their status for Saturday’s game, except to say he expects all three Bulldogs to play.
Pough did acknowledge the team will lighten the practice workload given they are in a stretch of three games in 12 days.
“I think we’ve got to be smart about how we approach our practices for the next three games,” he said. “We get to the point of the year where we’ve had a long stretch, we had some time off and now we’re going through the final stretch run. We will probably try to take as much of a physical activity out as we possibly can over the remainder of the year.
“We don’t practice in pads anyway. We practice most times in shorts and then sometimes not even shoulder pads. The reason we do that is to keep guys off the ground and try to limit injuries during the season. Hopefully, we can continue to keep our guys healthy the way that we’ve been practicing and maybe take some of the other kinds of stuff out so that our guys can have really good legs on Saturday.”
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 on-line at TheTandD.com.
BULLDOGS AT HORNETS
WHO: South Carolina State (6-2, 4-0) at Delaware State (3-4, 3-2)
WHERE: Alumni Stadium in Dover, Del.
WHEN: 1 p.m.
TV: Tape Delay at 10:30 p.m. on ESPNU (Channel 160 on Digital Time Warner Cable, Channel 148 on The DISH Network and Channel 609 on DirecTV)
RADIO: WQKI (102.9 FM) and WOIC (1230 AM) in Columbia