Western Carolina at The Citadel, to be played at historic Johnson Hagood Stadium in Charleston, South Carolina, with kickoff at 2:00 pm ET on September 30, 2023.
The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Dave Weinstein will handle play-by-play, while Jason Kempf supplies the analysis. The sideline reporter is Taylor Wall.
The contest can be heard on radio via The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station. Other stations carrying the game include WQXL in Columbia (100.7 FM/1470 AM) and WDXY in Sumter (105.9 FM/1240 AM).
Brian Giffin will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze.
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Before starting with the nuts and bolts of this preview, I need to briefly note the obvious, which is that the last couple of days have been very difficult ones for many people associated with The Citadel, and the football program in particular.
The sudden passing of Stanley Myers on Wednesday has cast a pall over this weekend’s events on campus. I have little to add to what has already been said, and will continue to be said, about Myers’ exemplary life. I’ll just include a few quotes about him here.
Deon Jackson:
[Stanley Myers] is everything you think about when you think about a Citadel graduate. He represents the best of all of us. We lost one of our great leaders.
Jack Douglas:
The best way I can define Stan is a quintessential Citadel man. He fought for our country, became one of the top defense lawyers in the country and a judge advocate general. He just ticked off accomplishment after accomplishment after accomplishment. And he exuded Citadel excellence.
Jason Barley:
It’s a sad day for Citadel football. QB1 was the best. He represented the best of what cadet student-athletes at The Citadel are all about. He was the epitome of a Citadel alum on and off the field and in life. Everyone looked up to Stanley.
Stanley Myers was 47 years old. Condolences to his family.
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Links of interest:
– Western Carolina game notes and depth chart
– The Citadel game notes [when available]
– Maurice Drayton’s Monday press conference
– Season statistics for The Citadel (four games)
– Box score for The Citadel-South Carolina State
– Catamount Football Weekly with Kerwin Bell
– Box score for Western Carolina-Arkansas (WCU lost, 56-13)
– Box score for Samford-Western Carolina (the Catamounts won, 30-7)
– Box score for Western Carolina-Eastern Kentucky (a road win for WCU, 27-24)
– Box score for Charleston Southern-Western Carolina (WCU won, 77-21)
– Season statistics for Western Carolina (four games)
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Roster review:
– Of the 110 players on The Citadel’s online roster, 58 are from South Carolina. Other states represented: Florida (14 players), Georgia (11), North Carolina (11), Virginia (5), Alabama (2), Ohio (2), New York (2), Texas (2), and one each from Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
– Western Carolina has 123 players on its online roster. Of those, 44 are from North Carolina and 43 are from Florida. Other states represented: Georgia (13 players), South Carolina (13), Alabama (3), Tennessee (3), Texas (2), and one each from Nebraska and Virginia.
– WCU has 30 redshirt freshmen and 29 “true” freshmen. Of those two groups, 27 are from Florida, including 17 from the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area.
– There are 13 Palmetto State products on the Catamounts’ roster, representing 11 different South Carolina high schools: Lakewood (2 players), Northwestern (2 players), A.C. Flora, Byrnes, Clover, Fairfield Central, Fox Creek, Hartsville, Hillcrest, Seneca, and Thomas Heyward Academy.
As sharp-eyed readers will immediately notice, there are no graduates of Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School on WCU’s squad. The failure to recruit any stalwarts of the famed maroon and orange is a sad blot on Kerwin Bell’s record. Ronnie Carr, who made history in Cullowhee, cannot be pleased.
– Seven of the Catamounts are junior college transfers, while 24 members of the roster originally began their respective college careers at other four-year institutions. Among those FBS schools from which players have matriculated to WCU: Akron, Alabama, Coastal Carolina, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Florida, Toledo, UAB, and Virginia Tech.
According to Western Carolina’s game notes, 12 of those transfers are new to the program this season.
Redshirt junior defensive lineman C.J. Fann, Jr. started his intercollegiate career at Florida State before transferring to Akron. He is now in his first season at Western Carolina.
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Odds and ends:
– The weather forecast for Saturday in Charleston, per the National Weather Service, includes a 20% chance of showers after kickoff. The projected high is 81°, with a low that night of 65°.
– As I’ve previous mentioned, it is highly unlikely that a line for this game will be posted anywhere before Saturday morning.
– Massey Ratings: Western Carolina is ranked 26th in FCS, up one spot from last week. The Citadel is 109th (a 13-place drop).
Massey projects Western Carolina to win the game by a predicted score of 35-19. The Citadel is given a 17% chance of winning.
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Meanwhile, SP+ ranks Western Carolina 41st (32nd on offense, 57th on defense) and The Citadel 119th (125th on offense, 88th on D).
A selected list of SP+ FCS rankings entering Week 5:
- South Dakota State (1st)
- North Dakota State (2nd)
- Montana State (3rd)
- William and Mary (6th)
- Furman (8th)
- Chattanooga (16th)
- Jackson State (28th)
- Campbell (33rd)
- Austin Peay (37th)
- Mercer (42nd)
- Samford (46th)
- Kennesaw State (51st)
- Eastern Kentucky (52nd)
- Davidson (53rd)
- East Tennessee State (81st)
- Wofford (87th)
- VMI (92nd)
- Charleston Southern (95th)
- Bucknell (107th)
- Morehead State (123rd)
- Presbyterian (126th)
- Drake (128th and last)
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In other FCS ratings systems, The Citadel ranks 122nd in the Congrove Computer Rankings (a drop of 5 spots), 125th in the Laz Index (a decline of 4 places), and 120th in the DCI (down 9 spots).
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– Games involving SoCon teams this week [projected score per SP+ in brackets]:
- Saturday at 1:00 pm ET: East Tennessee State at Samford [Samford 35.0, ETSU 20.9]
- Saturday at 2:00 pm ET: Western Carolina at The Citadel [WCU 36.1, The Citadel 14.4]
- Saturday at 4:00 pm ET: VMI at Mercer [Mercer 31.7, VMI 12.6]
- Saturday at 6:00 pm ET: Chattanooga at Wofford [UTC 34.2, Wofford 13.2]
Furman is off this week.
– Among Western Carolina’s notable alumni: actor Sean Bridgers, composer Sarah Hutchings, and former major league infielder Wayne Tolleson.
– The Citadel has an all-time record of 6-6 for games played on September 30. The Bulldogs are 4-0 at home on that date, and 2-2 in league play.
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Maurice Drayton, asked about how The Citadel can improve on third down:
You have to win first down. You have to win second down, so that your third downs are manageable…in order to stay on the field (after) third down, we have to win on first and second down.
I decided to take a quick statistical look at The Citadel’s results on both first down and third down this season.
On first down, the Bulldogs are averaging 4.74 yards per play. While an individual first-down gain of 4 or 5 yards is generally excellent, an average in that range is definitely not. For comparison, the 2016 team averaged 6.21 yards per play on first down.
The average would be considerably worse without the Bulldogs’ 75-yard touchdown pass against Campbell; without that, the mean would be 3.83 yards per play.
Now, that play does count — big plays are part of succeeding on first down, after all — but the bottom line is that far too often, the Bulldogs are not gaining enough yardage on first down to make eventual third down plays more manageable. In fact, exactly one-third of The Citadel’s first-down plays have resulted in a gain of less than two yards.
On third downs, the average distance the Bulldogs have needed to pick up a first down is 7.53 yards (the 2016 squad’s comparable number was 5.68, an enormous difference). For 31.9% of its third down plays this season, The Citadel has needed to gain at least 10 yards, which is obviously not conducive to sustaining long drives.
Perhaps even more frustrating is that the Bulldogs have not been adept at picking up first downs even in their limited short-yardage opportunities; on 3rd-and-1 and 3rd-and-2, The Citadel has only successfully converted on four of nine attempts.
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Since 1953, The Citadel has a record of 37-32 on Parents’ Day. The college actually started hosting a celebration weekend for parents in 1934, but records are a bit scanty for the games played prior to 1953 (and they aren’t absolutely perfect post-1953, either).
One of my goals is to compile a complete record for Parents’ Day contests, much as I did for Homecoming games. I hope to do that sometime next year.
The Citadel is 3-0 when Western Carolina is the opponent on Parents’ Day.
Incidentally, the Catamounts have never been the visiting team on Homecoming at The Citadel, despite the two schools meeting on the gridiron 47 times. No other Bulldog opponent has played the military college as often without being a Homecoming guest at least once.
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There is always hope for the Bulldogs, but this Saturday that commodity might not be as readily available. On the other hand, Western Carolina arrives in Charleston with a great deal of well-deserved confidence.
Its emphatic victory over Samford established WCU as a serious contender in the SoCon. Following that up with a solid road victory over Eastern Kentucky and last week’s demolition of Charleston Southern only enhanced the team’s overall profile, which is why the Catamounts are now ranked in both major FCS polls.
Starting quarterback Cole Gonzales was named the league’s offensive player of the week after throwing five touchdown passes against Charleston Southern. Nine different Catamounts scored touchdowns in that contest.
Also, I wouldn’t expect WCU to be looking past The Citadel, even with a high-stakes game at Chattanooga next week. Kerwin Bell will make sure of that.
During his coach’s show, the WCU boss expressed frustration over losing last year’s meeting between the two schools:
They ruined our Saturday, man, one of the worst games I’ve ever been in as a head coach, to see us get beat by them at home…
…We weren’t ready…we didn’t get them off the field…they had six plays that I remember that were 3rd and long, and that ain’t their cup of tea, we should have been off the field — they got all six. A lot of it was busted assignments, it’s not being well coached. That is our fault. That one still hurts me, probably of all the losses I’ve ever had as a head coach, because you shouldn’t lose to that.
The Citadel didn’t really convert six 3rd-and-long plays in that game, but what Bell is probably remembering is the first half, when the Bulldogs successfully converted third down plays of 7, 8, and 6 yards via the pass, and were 8 for 10 overall on 3rd down conversion attempts in the half (including a 32-yard TD toss to go up 24-0). For the game, The Citadel controlled the ball for 42 minutes and 49 seconds.
That type of statistical dominance for the Bulldogs is not likely this Saturday. Western Carolina is a better football team this season, and The Citadel is still finding its way on both sides of the ball.
The goal remains continued improvement. That will be the goal on every Saturday for the rest of this year. A victory would be a most welcome result of that improvement, no matter which Saturday.
Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Kerwin Bell, Maurice Drayton, SoCon, The Citadel, Western Carolina | Leave a comment »
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