100-years in the making: SCSU getting ready for USC

By THOMAS GRANT, T&D Senior Sports Writer

To South Carolina State supporters, Saturday’s game at 17th-ranked University of South Carolina is a matchup 100 years in the making.

Yet for all of the growing hullabaloo surrounding the historic in-state clash, one of the head coaches in the center of the action is trying to maintain perspective on what is essentially another non-conference game.

"I could, but I won’t," said SCSU head football coach Oliver "Buddy" Pough at Monday’s press conference when asked about discussing the significance of the first-ever meeting between the Bulldogs and Gamecocks. "We’re going to play a football game. The one thing that I can tell you is that I’m not going to make it like it’s World War III. It’s just like we’re going to play (North Carolina) A&T except we’re going to Columbia. We’re excited about going to play. But more than anything else, we want to go out and we want to show up well."

Although the Bulldogs should have sizable fan support at Williams-Brice Stadium, having sold its allotment of 4,300 tickets, Pough knows it will be a more hostile environment compared to what he experienced during his five seasons as Gamecocks’ running backs coach and SCSU’s three previous appearances in the Palmetto Capital City Classic.

"When we played Benedict, I thought we were the fan favorite," he said. "It was more for us than it was for them. Well, I think that’s turned now. I think the very best thing to happen to us is that it gets real loud in there and the only reason that would happen would be because the game is somewhat competitive."

Of more importance for Pough is instilling in his players a belief in victory against a Gamecocks’ squad brimming with confidence following the 16-12 victory over previously 11th-ranked Georgia.

"I’m going to try to convince my guys that we can compete," he said. "That’s what our main objective is in these kind of settings. You want to go out and actually compete favorably and hang in there. If that were to happen, then you go about the task of saying ‘Maybe we might be able to win’. I don’t think you can fool your players on the disparity of all the things that you think about when talking about whether you can lose or not.

"You’re talking about a Top 20 national power here and one of the best college football coaches (USC head coach Steve Spurrier) I’ve known in my lifetime. You’ve got a lot of things there that would make you think that this would be a huge mismatch. The trick for us is to get in there and find some things that we can do to them to stretch them out a little bit and give us a chance to hang in there. If we can do that, it would be a success for us."

Pough said the "ripple effect" from defending Football Championship Subdivision champion Appalachian State’s win over Michigan will have USC even more prepared for Saturday’s game. At the same time, Pough said it will be a challenge for SCSU matching up with USC, particularly against a Gamecocks’ defense which presents even more challenges than season-opening FCS opponent Air Force Academy.

"They’ve got a couple of guys on their defense especially that I don’t know if we can block," Pough said. "That’s the one factor that we didn’t necessarily have in the Air Force situation. I didn’t think there was much of a talent mismatch with us and Air Force. But now they are a couple of guys at South Carolina that we don’t match up with."

Defensive tackle Marque Hall and the Brinkley twins at linebacker, Casper and Jasper, especially stood out on tape to Pough as "special players" and he believes this is the best USC defensive team he’s seen in years. Offensively, quarterback Blake Mitchell could present problems to an SCSU secondary which had its difficulties against option teams like Air Force and Bethune-Cookman and will be without defensive leader BANDIT Marshall McFadden. The Lamar native is expected to miss 2-3 weeks with a hyperextended elbow ligament on his right arm suffered in the first half of Saturday’s 24-13 win over Bethune-Cookman.

Even without McFadden, the Bulldogs managed to hold the Wildcats without an offensive touchdown and are currently ahead of the offense in terms of team progress after two games.

"I think we’re coming along defensively," he said. "I was really proud of our defense and how they played Saturday. We’re still struggling to find ourselves offensively. We’ve got to play a little bit better at quarterback. We’ve got to play a little bit better upfront."

Quarterback Cleveland McCoy may have to carry much of the burden on offense should Pough opt to rest injured running back Will Ford and Jonathan Woods to insure they are healthy for the resumption of MEAC play in October. Backup Malcolm Long is also expected to see action at the place where he led Gaffney to back-to-back Class 4-A Division I finals.

Pough expects the Gamecocks to assert themselves quickly with the goal of resting its starters for the Sept. 22 showdown at second-ranked LSU.

"Putting the game away and getting their first-line people out of there," said Pough about USC’s approach this Saturday. "That’s generally what they try to do - hurry up and get them put away. And then at that point, we go ahead and play the back-ups and the guys who don’t get to play as much."

SCSU will hold team practices in Orangeburg today and Wednesday starting at 2:50 p.m. and will have a walk through in Columbia on Friday.

Photo: (L to R) Buddy Pough, Cleve McCoy, Will Ford and Willie Jeffries.

NOT JUST A PAYDAY

"We are about the task of getting to be like the Furmans and Appalachians of this world who can go out and compete favorably with those guys week in and week out. Now, they can’t, believe it or not, actually week in and week out do that, but they can occasionally once or twice a year. If we would get to the point where we improve because of that, it would have a big effect on our overall situation where we would become a lot better Football Championship Subdivision team."

CENTRAL FLORIDA NEXT?

SCSU hopes to schedule an FBS team for 2009, thus assuring the school will have such an opponent on the schedule every year through 2011. The Bulldogs are set to play Georgia Tech in 2010 and have a rematch with USC in 2011.

"We think that’s the best case scenario for us," Pough said. "Once upon a time, HBCUs played in the Classics and they made fairly decent money during the Classics. But, this is the method that we like to use for bringing a little extra income into the program. And for us, we get an added advantage in the fact that we get a competition factor that gives us a chance to really see how we match up with these styles of teams. Eventually, we want to get to the point where we can compete favorably with them because if we do, that means we will be much, much better in our division."

For the first time, Pough acknowledged the Bulldogs will most likely open next season against another Football Bowl Subdivision opponent in Central Florida. This is the first of two meetings over the next four years between the Bulldogs and Gamecocks. The Bulldogs will earn $230,000 this Saturday and $250,000 in 2011, although Pough insists the guaranteed money is not the only reason why these type of games are beneficial for SCSU.

"The one thing that I think that we get out of the games of this sort ... people think we’re going to get a guarantee," Pough said. "People think it’s more about money for us. But it’s not about money for us. It’s more about the preparation and the actual competition with people who are bigger than us and what we hope will happen is that we emulate them in a way where we become better ourselves.