COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - It was no “Rocky Mountain High” Saturday for South Carolina State at Air Force Academy.
Instead, the Bulldogs descended Falcon Stadium in low spirits after opening their 100th season of football getting swarmed by the Falcons 34-3.
The much-anticipated first-ever game against a Football Bowl Subdivision foe was the second-worst season-opening loss in school history for SCSU. The 31-point margin of defeat was also the most lopsided loss suffered under head coach Oliver “Buddy” Pough.
SCSU was overwhelmed by the Falcons’ defense which held it to just 160 total yards, limiting the ground game to 70 yards. The blitzing scheme employed by new head coach Troy Calhoun kept constant pressure on quarterback Cleveland McCoy, sacking him five times and holding him to 10 of 22 passing for 84 yards.
The Bulldogs’ defense was equally inefficient in failing to prevent the Air Force offense from scoring on five of six opportunities in the "Red Zone". Numerous missed tackles, blown coverage assignments and personal foul penalties made for a productive day for the Falcons’ offense which finished with 450 total yards, half coming from quarterback Shaun Carney.
“It worries me a little bit that we weren’t effective more offensively,” Pough said. “I thought that we played pretty medium, pretty poorly on both sides of the ball and the fact that we pretty much knew what they were going to do even though we didn’t have anything, the stuff that we practiced was the stuff that they did. So, we’ve got no excuses except for the fact that those guys just kind of came out and outplayed us and made plays in circumstances when our kids didn’t make plays. We’re not quite there yet, but we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’ll see what happens once he get more experience.”
SCSU drove the football just past midfield on its first possession, but was forced to punt after a the first of four first-quarter sacks taken by McCoy and an incompletion.
While McCoy went 0 of 3 passing on his first series, Carney was the complete opposite in leading the Falcons downfield for the game’s first score. His three completions accounted for 50 of the 79 yards on the scoring drive which ended with a 1-yard run by Kip McCarthy, who rushed for 129 yards and a score.
Air Force threatened again to score on its next series, reaching the SCSU 21. On third down and with 49 seconds remaining in the first quarter, Carney was picked off by strong safety Markee Hamlin who returned the football to the 35-yard line.
As the second quarter ended, the Falcons’ blitzing defense sacked McCoy twice for -20 yards. SCSU was forced to punt again, but this time Aaron Haire hit a career-high 61 yarder which backed up the Falcons at the 30-yard line.
Air Force proceeded to drive the football 70 yards on 11 plays, with Carney connecting with tight end Travis Dekker for a 10-yard touchdown to extend the lead to 14-0 with 10:03 remaining in the second quarter.Carney finished 11 of 18 passing for 176 yards and rushed for 50 yards.
The offense’s woes continued as McCoy’s third-down pass on SCSU’s next series was tipped by linebacker Drew Fowler and landed in the hands of cornerback Carson Bird who was tackled at the SCSU 33. Air Force capitalized 74 seconds later when Ryan Harrison booted a 48-yard field goal through the uprights.
Bird collected another turnover at SCSU’s expense 20 seconds later. After a 45-yard kickoff return by Travance Jackson, McCoy completed a short pass to Terrance Smith. As Smith tried to advance the football, it was knocked loose by linebacker Austin Randle and recovered by Bird at the 24-yard line.
Once again, the Falcons embarked on another long scoring drive. This time, it took 12 plays, 76 yards and four minutes and 50 seconds to reach the end zone on a 4-yard touchdown run by Chad Hall.
As time expired in the first half, SCSU finally got on the scoreboard on Stephen Grantham’s 51-yard field goal. It was a career-best for Grantham and a yard shy of the school record held by Cedric Oglesby.
For the half, Air Force outgained SCSU 255-114 with the Bulldogs accounting for just 39 yards on the ground. While Ford and Woods combined for 65 rushing yards, McCoy lost 26 yards on five carries.
“We thought we got beaten up some inside and that surprised me a little bit,” he said. “We didn’t feel like that we got quite as good an effort upfront on the offensive line as we thought we should have. Nygel Pearson broke his hand a week or so ago and we moved James Lee from guard to tackle and we moved a couple of guys around. But that shouldn’t have had that big of an influence on how poorly we played.”
Air Force kept up the pressure in the second half. A 50-yard carry by McCarthy set up a one-yard touchdown run by Savier Stephens that pushed the lead up to 31-3.
After a 22-yard field goal by Harrison made it 34-3 with 14:02 remaining, SCSU freshman Malcolm Long was inserted into the game. Like McCoy, the former South Carolina "Mr. Football” had a hard time against the Falcons’ blitzes as he was sacked once and completed just 1 of 5 for six yards in his lone appearance.
“Defensively, I was pleased with our effort,” Calhoun said. “Overall, credit has to go to our players and assistant coaches, the whole group.”
SCSU will now look to shake off Saturday’s performance as they head to Daytona Beach, Fla. for the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference opener against Bethune-Cookman.
“The most important thing for us now is to get ready for Bethune-Cookman next week,” he said. “We’ve got to get ready for those guys in a way where we’ve got to totally put this behind us. We’ve got to get back tonight and get them tomorrow morning and we’ve got to make sure that we clean up some of these things.
The best thing to happen to us was that we got beaten up pretty badly. But let’s face it. You can see that there’s something there that you can possibly get to come together for you. So I think we’ll be all right. Wofford came out here three years ago, got beat 49-0, and had the best year they’ve had in years. We’ve got beaten. We need to just go back and keep our heads up and do everything to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes next week.”
GAME NOTES: The worst season-opening loss suffered by SCSU took place in 1988 in a 38-0 setback to eventual national champion Furman. Ironically, Air Force Academy offensive line coach Clay Hendrix was beginning his first season as a position coach for the Paladins…As part of the Air Force tradition, the cadets storm the endzone after each score to do pushups for every point. The cadets who end up completing 93 pushups on the day…SCSU dropped to 3-3 in openers under head coach Oliver “Buddy” Pough and 44-31-2 in school history…The loss snapped the Bulldogs’ three-game winning streak and the Falcons’ four-game losing streak…Air Force improved to 12-0 against Football Championship Subdivision opponents.
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