Go East, young man

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel 28, Samford 16.

There are two obvious storylines from this game, from the perspective of The Citadel.  The performance of Tommy Edwards is one; the success of the Bulldog defense is the other.  First, Tommy Edwards…

Miguel Starks started the game at quarterback after an outstanding effort against Furman, and soon discovered that the Samford defense was more than ready for him.  Starks was in the game for seven offensive drives (not counting Andre Roberts’ fumbled punt), and on those seven drives The Citadel picked up only two first downs.

It was a lot like the Elon game, except that the opposition wasn’t constantly scoring following the Bulldogs’ three-and-outs.  The Citadel was lucky not to be trailing by more than ten points at halftime.  By then, Starks was out of the game, having injured his ankle — not the ankle that was already hurt, but the other one.  This has not been a good year for ankles attached to Bulldog quarterbacks.

Edwards came into the game with just 37 seconds left in the half, and I thought that The Citadel would just run out the clock.  After all, he is a “true” freshman walk-on who admitted later that his goal entering the season was just to make the travel squad.

Instead, Edwards came out throwing, completing four passes for 30 yards (and having a long pass dropped).  The Bulldogs ran out of time and had to attempt a long field goal (53 yards), which missed, but it was still the team’s most impressive drive of the half.  During that initial drive led by Edwards, The Citadel picked up two first downs, just as many as it had made in the first 29:23 of the contest (to go with just 70 yards of total offense pre-Edwards).

At first there was some suspicion that Samford might have been playing a “prevent” defense, and would have something different in store for Edwards in the second half, but the Cadets continued to improve offensively.  The Citadel started winning the field position battle (key against a grind-it-out team like Samford), and began its second possession of the third quarter on its own 45 yard line.

On first down, Edwards rolled right, then turned around and threw across the field to an open Van Dyke Jones, who slalomed his way to a touchdown.  It was an excellent play call, perfectly executed.

After that, momentum favored The Citadel.  Two possessions later, Andre Roberts returned a punt 41 yards into Samford territory and the home team was in business, eventually taking the lead early in the fourth quarter on another TD pass from Edwards, this one to Alex Sellars.

The defense took care of the rest of the game, with Cortez Allen intercepting two passes, running the second one back for a TD.  He also returned the first one for a score, but one of the officials intervened, mysteriously ruling him out of bounds on the Samford 5 yard line (oh, those wacky SoCon officials).  Terrell Dallas scored on the next play anyway.

—

For any freshman quarterback to arrive on campus in August, come off the bench in a midseason game and lead a team to victory would be impressive.  It’s even more impressive for a freshman at The Citadel to do it, given what “knob” year is like, and particularly when the QB is a walk-on.  Even more unusual, at least for The Citadel, is the fact that Edwards is a native of California.

Over the years, not a lot of football players from the Golden State have plied their trade at the military college, which I suppose isn’t that big of a surprise.  No one can say for certain how many Californians have played for The Citadel, but I would guess that less than twenty football players from California have lettered for the Bulldogs over the years.  As it is, the media guide only lists five, including Valley Village’s McDonald Love (captain of the 1935 team) and North Hollywood’s Brian Baima (an all-SoCon split end in 1971).

When Edwards threw his second TD pass on Saturday, he almost certainly set the career record for TD passes thrown by a Californian at The Citadel, breaking the mark previously held by wide receiver Scott Flanagan of Camarillo, who threw a touchdown pass against Florida last season (off a trick play).  If it is any consolation to Flanagan, he still holds the road record in the category…

—

It was a red-letter day for the defense (or perhaps I should say a navy and light blue day, given the mismatched uniform combination The Citadel wore at Johnson Hagood).  Samford is a run-first, run-second, and then pass if necessary kind of team, and the Birmingham Bulldogs were held to 35 net rushing yards (which included four sacks).  Last season bruising running back Chris Evans rushed for 174 yards against The Citadel; this season, he was held to 52.

The defense kept The Citadel in the game after some early miscues, including a bad punt and Roberts’ uncharacteristic fumble.  Holding Samford to a field goal after the Roberts bobble was critical to the eventual victory.  The Citadel recorded ten tackles for loss, including a combined six from starting defensive tackles Terrence Reese and Kyle Anderson.  Add in the two Cortez Allen interceptions, and you couldn’t ask for much more from the D.

It was easily the most complete game of the season by The Citadel’s defense, although to be honest I thought Samford had a rather unimaginative game plan.  Even a couple of trick plays seemed halfhearted.  Samford lacked dynamism (no run plays of more than 13 yards; no pass plays for more than 20) and didn’t seem to have any answers when it struggled to run the ball, especially when field position in the second half turned against it.

Samford would wind up with 46 pass attempts.  Of those 46, there was just one recorded post route (which went for Samford’s final TD), one deep in route, and one deep out (the pass Allen intercepted and returned for a touchdown).  All three of those passes came in the fourth quarter after Samford had fallen behind by two scores.

Samford actually finished the game with more first downs than The Citadel (15 to 12).  However, other than the final drive, Samford never moved the ball more than the 30 yards it gained on its opening possession.

—

All in all, it was a good day for The Citadel.  As to which quarterback starts against Wofford, who knows.  Jeff Hartsell informs us that the fourth-string quarterback is Irmo’s Brian Hill; maybe he’ll get a shot.  It doesn’t matter as long as the Bulldogs can beat Wofford, which hasn’t happened in a while.  It will also be Homecoming.  The countdown to Saturday begins.

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Bulldogs show some bite, and just in time

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel 38, Furman 28.  Out of the ashes…

The Bulldogs had managed to put together two of the worst performances by the football team in quite some time, so expectations were low heading into the battle with Furman.  With Bart Blanchard hobbled by a toe injury, all the quarterback snaps were taken by redshirt freshman Miguel Starks.  He proved more than ready for the challenge, much to the chagrin of a Paladin defense that never really figured out a way to stop him (other than forcing fumbles — more on that later).

Also up to the challenge this week were offensive coordinator Dave Cecchini and head coach Kevin Higgins, who deserve some praise after drawing criticism for the playcalling in some previous games (particularly the Western Carolina contest).  With Starks in the game, the run/pass ratio changed markedly.  Going into the Furman game, here were the relevant numbers for the season:

  • Rush attempts — 184 (677 yards)
  • Pass attempts — 181 (1020 yards)

There was balance, to be sure, but not a lot of success, as the Bulldogs were averaging just 3.68 yards per carry and only 5.64 yards per pass attempt.  Then came the Furman game:

  • Rush attempts — 49 (296 yards)
  • Pass attempts — 19 (183 yards)

The Bulldogs averaged 6.04 yards per rush against the Paladins and 9.63 yards per pass attempt.  You can win a lot of games averaging six yards per carry and nine yards for every pass thrown.

Starks was the headliner, but Van Dyke Jones appears to be the solution at running back, based on this game as well as the Appalachian State contest.  He looked very good teaming up with Starks on the various read-option plays.  He picks up tough yards, and he’s got the potential to break long runs (as the Mountaineers’ defense can attest).

The offensive line had its best game of the year, by far.  There was some discussion about fundamentals and correcting mistakes and such, but ultimately it seemed to me that the linemen much preferred the aggressive, run-oriented approach the Bulldogs had on Saturday to the usual pass-to-set-up-run attack.  It’s a cliché, but I think the guys liked the “hit ’em in the mouth” strategy.  I know a lot of older alumni appreciated it.

It wasn’t just a run-run-pass scenario, either.  Nine of Starks’ nineteen pass attempts came on first down (he threw on first down a little over 25% of the time, enough to keep the Paladins honest).  On third and long, The Citadel actually ran the ball five out of seven times.  The Bulldogs were totally committed to the run on third and short/medium, rushing on all five of those occasions.  Conversely, on four second-and-short plays The Citadel threw twice.  It was a nice mix.

Starks threw six passes in each of the first three quarters (one pass in the third quarter was wiped out by a penalty).  In the fourth, with the Bulldogs protecting a double-digit lead, he would throw only three times (a flag erasing one attempt).  The drive that put the game away featured no passes, with Starks scoring the clinching TD on a 23-yard run.

The other noticeable thing about the passing game was that Starks threw exclusively short and intermediate passes in the first half, but started to go deep in the third quarter.  On consecutive pass attempts in that quarter, he threw a slant pass for 20 yards, followed by a 28-yard TD toss on a post route (both to Scott Harward), a 38-yard post would-be TD to Andre Roberts wiped out by a holding penalty, a 35-yard pass to Roberts (sensational catch by Andre), and an incomplete post pass to Alex Sellars (which would have resulted in a 45-yard TD if the connection had been made).

Starks’ touch on his passes was generally good, and his receivers helped him on the few occasions where he was off target.  There were two legitimately outstanding catches, one by Kevin Hardy (arguably the best reception Hardy has made for the Bulldogs to date) and Roberts’ scintillating effort in the third quarter, which got the Bulldogs out of a field position hole (moving the ball from the 12 to the 47).  Only one pass all day was dropped.

—

Of course, it’s easier to call plays when your team leads the entire game, as was the case on Saturday for The Citadel.  After a very impressive opening drive for a TD, the Bulldogs took advantage of an unintentional onside kick (the wind becoming a temporary 12th man) to grab a 14-0 lead before Furman could run a play on offense.

This would ultimately lead to a rather unusual situation, as despite scoring 28 points in the game Furman’s offense never had the ball with less than a 10-point deficit facing it.  In other words, at no point in the game were the Paladins within one drive of tying the game or taking the lead.  Furman would get within 3 points at 24-21 early in the third quarter, but The Citadel scored a TD on its next drive, stretching the lead back to 10, and the Paladins could draw no closer.

Furman’s failures were mostly on defense, but Paladins QB Jordan Sorrells will surely want to forget the two interceptions he threw, both in the end zone, and both with Furman trailing 31-21.

The first of the two was particularly bad, as on first-and-ten at the Bulldog 26 he threw the ball late over the deep middle of the field and into the wind, while rolling out in the opposite direction, and with three defenders in the vicinity.  Calling that pass “ill-advised” doesn’t really do it justice.  I thought he played fairly well other than that, though.  It’s hard to lead a comeback when you trail the entire game by double digits.

—

It wasn’t all great for The Citadel, though.  The defense continued to struggle with preventing long drives.  Furman converted six out of eleven third down attempts, and was 3-for-3 on 4th down tries.  The Paladins did not punt until the third quarter.  Truthfully, the defense has not had a solid game all season, and I am including the Princeton game in that analysis, despite the Bulldogs allowing just seven points, because the Tigers moved the ball fairly well for a significant portion of that game (and also because Princeton is just not a very good team this year).

Looking back, an argument could be made that the defense’s most satisfactory performance came in the season opener against North Carolina.

Against the Paladins, the Bulldogs only had one sack, although Furman is not a team prone to giving up sacks.  What the defense did do well was create some critical turnovers; in previous games those two end-zone picks weren’t happening.

It was a good thing the defense did get those turnovers and make those stops, as Starks lost two fumbles in the second half (after fumbling twice earlier without punishment).  On that issue, I was struck by some comments made by Higgins in The Post and Courier:

On the fumbles, Higgins said, “We knew the first time he stepped on campus that was going to be a challenge. We watched him as a freshman on the scout team and said, that will be a challenge. But until you actually get under fire, it takes a while to understand that.

This sounds a little like the Tiki Barber situation with the New York Giants, when he was alternating between big runs and big fumbles (sometimes on the same play).  Maybe the Bulldog staff should get Tom Coughlin on the phone…

The Citadel is going to have to live with some fumbling, it appears.  Other teams are going to make a concerted effort to try to strip Starks of the ball, which may lead to more fumbling, but which may also lead to bigger plays by Starks as players go for the ball rather than the tackle.  Starks isn’t going to go down just by being hit; he has to be wrapped up, and if other teams don’t realize this now they will realize it soon enough.

I think that with Starks at QB, Bulldog fans are going to have more than the usual number of “no no yes yes!” and “yes yes oh no” moments, at least in the near future.

—

As disappointing as the Bulldogs’ lost weekends at Elon and Cullowhee were — and those were VERY disappointing results —  it’s good to see the team (and coaches) get up off the canvas and come out fighting.  To do so against Furman makes it even better.  Now it’s time to focus on Samford, which shouldn’t be too difficult, given last year’s mauling.  It’s about time to re-buckle those chinstraps.

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Football, Game 7: The Citadel vs. Furman

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

If you looked at the overall statistics for last year’s Bulldogs-Paladins game, you might think it had been a competitive game.  It wasn’t.  Furman led at one point by 28 points and scored on every one of its possessions in the first three quarters.

Furman alternated between delayed handoffs and intermediate pass routes, picking up first downs with ease (the Paladins had 22 first downs, only four of which came after a third-down conversion).  It was a lot like the Elon game two weeks ago, only The Citadel actually scored on its first two possessions against Furman (both field goals).

Allowing Furman those kinds of long scoring drives can’t happen on Saturday if the Bulldogs expect to win, but The Citadel’s defense has struggled to get off the field all season, allowing a third-down conversion rate of 51% and failing to create negative plays (only six sacks, and not enough turnovers).  The Bulldogs have only 24 tackles for loss so far this year; opponents have 43.

—

The Citadel desperately needs to get Andre Roberts more involved, and in a position to make big plays.  After all, he is the Bulldogs’ best player.  He did catch 9 passes against Western Carolina (for 78 yards and a TD), but in three conference games Roberts has only 16 catches for 138 total yards and that one TD.

Roberts lit it up against Presbyterian (12 catches, 184 yards, four touchdowns), but I can guarantee you Furman isn’t going to defend him like the Blue Hose did.  Just the opposite, probably.  The Paladins are well aware of how dangerous he can be; in three career games against Furman, Roberts has 28 receptions for 342 yards.

To have a chance of winning on Saturday, The Citadel needs more of the same from Roberts.  Whether the offense is capable of giving him that opportunity is open to question.

Furman’s defense, like The Citadel’s, has struggled on third downs; like the Bulldogs, the Paladins are allowing a 51% conversion rate.  Both defenses are allowing an average of right around 400 total yards per game.  Furman only has five sacks all season (but on offense, the Paladins have allowed just four).

It would seem that The Citadel might be able to move the ball on the Paladins, given those numbers.  However, with uncertainty at quarterback, a lack of a consistent ground game, and the absence of a secondary receiving threat, the Bulldogs may not be able to take advantage of that opportunity.  It’s hard to imagine the team that could only put up 10 points against Western Carolina doing much damage offensively against Furman (which defeated the Catamounts in Cullowhee 33-14).

The revolving door at running back has undoubtably resulted in some of the problems the Bulldogs have had running the ball, but the o-line hasn’t held up its end of the bargain either.  The failure of the offensive line to control the line of scrimmage in most of the games played thus far is arguably the most disappointing part of the team’s play to date.

—

One of the things that will be interesting to follow over the next three weeks is the attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium.  The last two weeks have not exactly been helpful in terms of generating interest in the team.

Going back to last season, attendance for the Parents’ Day game against Elon was 12,582.  That was very disappointing for a Parents’ Day weekend crowd, even with the weather not being ideal.

Looking at various factors that could affect attendance on Saturday, there is a 30% chance of rain in Charleston by gametime.  Also, Clemson plays on TV at 3:30 pm ET (at Miami), and South Carolina hosts Vanderbilt (also on TV) at night.  Other than that, though, the college football slate on TV is not particularly compelling (and neither of those games is a must-see).

The last time the Bulldogs hosted Furman, it was also Parents’ Day, and 16,272 people showed up to watch one of the wilder games (if not the wildest) in the history of the series.  However, that was a winning Bulldog team playing on a day featuring good weather.

So, which direction will Saturday’s game take, attendance-wise?  I could make a pretty good guess.  What’s more, it’s the first of three consecutive football weekends at Johnson Hagood, and if the Bulldogs don’t make a good account of themselves against the Paladins, that is likely to be reflected in how many people show up to watch the Samford and Wofford games (with the latter being Homecoming).

I’ve written before about attendance, but the biggest factor when it comes to getting people to enter the stadium (as opposed to either not making the trip or just tailgating, which is another subject entirely) is winning.  The Citadel isn’t winning games right now, and attendance is likely to suffer as a result.

—

Bart Blanchard may or may not play against Furman, and Miguel Starks is not 100% healthy either.  Starks is likely to see much, if not all, of the playing time at quarterback, but if both Blanchard and Starks are unable to play, The Citadel’s quarterback will be 5’11”, 185 lb. Tommy Edwards, a freshman walkon from Los Angeles.

Edwards went to Ulysses S. Grant High School (hey, at least he didn’t go to William T. Sherman High School).  Notable alums of Grant High include Tom Selleck, Mickey Dolenz, Mitch Gaylord, Gilbert “Agent Zero” Arenas, three members of the pop/rock group Toto, TV theme kingpin Mike Post, and the late Rod Beck.  Apparently there haven’t been any notable football players to have come from Grant High, though, so Edwards has a chance to break new ground in that respect.

No offense to Edwards, but I really hope he’s not a featured player on Saturday.

—

The Citadel can beat Furman on Saturday, although the last two weeks haven’t inspired confidence in that possibility coming to pass.  The Paladins are a good team, but not without flaws.  The Citadel’s game against Appalachian State showed what the team is capable of doing on a given day, and after two lost weekends in North Carolina, playing at home will surely be beneficial to the Bulldogs.

It’s going to be a big test for the coaching staff.  Kevin Higgins and company have something to prove, too.

The team has to be ready to play from the opening kickoff.  I feel kind of dumb just writing that, but then again, I felt kind of dumb watching the Elon game.  If the Bulldogs’ energy isn’t there from the very start, it’s going to be a very long day for The Citadel.

The playcalling has to get better.  If Blanchard and Starks both play, the coaches can’t telegraph whether the play is a run or pass just by virtue of who is taking the snap from center.  Starks, in particular, has to throw the ball down the field, and he’s got to look for Roberts.

The coaches must find a way for the defense to stop the Paladins on third down (after making sure there is a third down in the first place).  Turnovers, tackles for loss, etc. are musts, not just for the yardage/field position, but to pump up the entire team, along with the crowd.

Of course, an unexpected win by the Bulldogs would really pump up the crowd…

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Following up a debacle with a disaster

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel lost to Western Carolina last Saturday, a horrific, potentially season-tanking loss if there ever was one.  I was trying to think of the last time the Bulldogs played a game like that, and then realized it had happened just last season…only The Citadel actually managed to win that contest.

Last year for Homecoming the Bulldogs entertained a UT-Chattanooga squad with a 1-9 record and a lame-duck coach.  The Mocs seemed a good bet to mail it in, but The Citadel was unable to hold onto a 14-0 lead and with less than two minutes remaining trailed UTC 21-17.  That’s when Andre Roberts returned a punt 43 yards for a touchdown to win the game.

In Saturday’s contest, Western Carolina lined up to punt with less than two minutes to play.  Roberts was ready for another potential game-winning return, but alas, the canny Catamount punter avoided punting to Roberts by kicking the ball off one of his own players, an upback trying to block for him.

Sure, that meant The Citadel got possession of the ball at the WCU 34-yard-line, but the way things were going the Bulldogs might have had a better chance of scoring a TD on special teams than on offense.  As it happened, The Citadel managed to drive to the Catamount 15 but no further.

Losing to teams you are supposed to beat is a problem, not least because for The Citadel, there aren’t too many of those types of teams on the schedule, especially in conference play.  The Bulldogs have to be ready to play 60 minutes of solid football against any opponent, because The Citadel doesn’t have the talent level to just cruise past an overmatched team.

As a former coach of The Citadel once said, “”We can lose to anybody.”  Of course, he said that after one of his (and the school’s) greatest victories, in any sport, and it was a reference to playing “loose” and without fear.  Sometimes I wonder if in games like on Saturday, or UT-Chattanooga last season, or Charleston Southern in 2006, the team plays not to lose instead of playing to win.

—

So in the last two weeks, The Citadel has played two of its worst games in the Kevin Higgins era.  Higgins was unable to attend Monday’s press luncheon, as he was attending the funeral for Bulldog DB Rod Harland’s father.  He was replaced for the day by defensive coordinator Isaac Collins and offensive coordinator Dave Cecchini.

I read Jeff Hartsell’s notes from the luncheon and listened to parts of it made available on The Citadel Sports Network.  Both Collins and Cecchini tried to explain why the Bulldogs were struggling, and each made some good points.  I have to take issue with one comment made by Collins, though:

I think Elon was unfortunate, we fell behind early. But as I tell people, for a long time, that game was 23-0. So it wasn’t out of hand until later on in the fourth quarter.

Well, the game wasn’t really 23-0 “for a long time”.  Elon kicked a field goal (after a drive that lasted more than eight minutes) to take a 23-0 lead in the second quarter.

After The Citadel went three-and-out (again), the Phoenix drove down the field again, taking almost six minutes off the clock, and eventually kicked another field goal near the end of the half.  Elon led 26-0 at intermission.  The Phoenix then scored on its opening drive of the third quarter.  In terms of game time, Elon led 23-0 for about eight minutes.

Collins probably just got the score wrong when he was talking, which is understandable, but the real issue is that it doesn’t matter if it was 23-0 or 29-0 when the Bulldogs finally forced a punt.  It’s way, way too late at that point; the game is (and was) essentially over.  I realize he was trying to look at positives for his defense, but to me there were no positives in the Elon game.  None.

There weren’t any positives against Western Carolina, either.

—

Up next is Furman, on a Parents’ Day Saturday at Johnson Hagood Stadium.  I’ll write about that game in another post.

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Football, Game 6: The Citadel vs. Western Carolina

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

Like a lot of other college football fans, I’ve been following the current situation with Bobby Bowden and Florida State with some interest, wondering how it will end.  At this point, it does not look like it will end well, because it’s obvious that A) Bowden clearly does not want to retire, and B) FSU higher-ups desperately want him to do so. 

Bowden is Florida State football, at least as we know it today.  How do you cast off a legend?  It’s not easy.  It’s something Western Carolina had to do 20 years ago, though, under circumstances much more tragic.

Bob Waters was a star quarterback at Presbyterian in the late 1950s who wound up playing for five years for the San Francisco 49ers.  He started several games at quarterback in 1961 in Red Hickey’s then-novel “shotgun” offense. 

After three years as a college assistant coach (at PC and Stanford), Waters would become the head coach at Western Carolina in 1969.  In 20 seasons in Cullowhee, he would not only become the Catamounts’ winningest coach, he would win more games than all his predecessors did combined.  Waters is the only coach in the history of the program to finish his career at the school with a winning record.

Western Carolina would make the Division II playoffs in 1974, a prelude to joining the Southern Conference (and Division I) in 1976.  Waters was a key part of the move up the NCAA ladder, as he by this time was also director of athletics at WCU.  In 1983 Waters and the Catamounts would win 11 games and go all the way to the I-AA championship game (played at Johnson Hagood Stadium!), losing in the final to Southern Illinois. 

Then in 1985, Waters was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).  He would lead the Catamounts to a 4-6-1 record that year; the following season WCU would go 6-5.  

In April of 1987 he would be profiled in Sports Illustrated.  The piece noted that Waters was one of three players from the 1965 49ers squad to suffer from ALS, a coincidence (or perhaps not a coincidence) that drew considerable scrutiny. 

In 1987, the Catamounts would slip to 4-7, and then in 1988 WCU would lose its last five games and finish 2-9, the worst season of Waters’ career.  It would also be the last season of his career.

During spring practice in 1989, Waters was “reassigned” by Western Carolina administrators, a decision made more difficult because Waters had wanted one more year.  He didn’t get it.  Waters died in late May of that year.

That had to have been a very trying time for the WCU administration, which was faced with trying to decide how best to ease the best coach it ever had out of the position he had held for so long.  Waters had made WCU football a success, but it appeared that success was drifting away as Waters’ body continued to fail him.  He wouldn’t quit, so he was removed.

Then the folks at WCU made a mistake, bringing in an “outsider”, Dale Strahm, to coach the team.  Strahm was in Cullowhee for one year, and then decided to get out of town following a 3-7-1 season.  Four coaches have followed, none establishing any pattern of success. 

Steve Hodgin, who had been an assistant at the school for seven years prior to becoming head coach, did have a respectable run, with three straight winning seasons in the mid-1990s, but after a 1-7 SoCon record in 1996, he was done.  Bill Bleil was actually 7-4 in his fifth season in Cullowhee, but was then fired after a series of off-the-field problems. Kent Briggs spent six seasons at WCU; he would finish his career at the school with 15 consecutive conference losses.

The current coach of the Catamounts is Dennis Wagner.  WCU was 3-9 in his first season; this year, the Catamounts are 0-5 entering Saturday afternoon’s contest.

Western Carolina is 79-135 since the reassignment of Bob Waters.  Replacing a legend is not easy.

—

It’s also not easy to win while dealing with budget restraints, a historic problem at Western Carolina.  WCU’s budget for athletics is the league’s smallest (just under $8.5 million in FY2008).  Western Carolina has fewer athletic donors than any school in the league save UT-Chattanooga (The Citadel has more than seven times as many boosters as does WCU). 

The school is situated in a population area that is one of the league’s smallest (Elon, by comparison, has a population base surrounding it three times as large), which perhaps partly explains the less-than-stellar home attendance (less than 7,000 per game last season).  Western Carolina also does not have a large local corporate presence from which to solicit donations, and the general population is not particularly affluent (average household income:  just over $34,000).    

It’s a tough sell.

Tangent:  Appalachian State and Western Carolina are rivals, or at least are supposed to be rivals.  The two schools have met on the gridiron 73 times, which means they’ve met almost every year WCU has had a football program.  App State leads the series, 54-18-1.  It has to be tough when your biggest game of the year is against a team that has beaten you 75% of the time.  The Mountaineers have won 22 of the last 24 meetings.

—

Western Carolina’s cumulative statistics in the current campaign are not pretty, which is not surprising for an 0-5 team.  Opponents are outscoring the Catamounts 30 to 8; have more than twice as many first downs; have intercepted WCU passers seven times (with the Catamounts yet to pick off a pass on defense); and are averaging almost twice as many yards of total offense.

In five games, Western has a total of 3 first-half points.  WCU has scored 4 touchdowns in those five games.

—

In short, this is a game The Citadel should win.  Of course, that was the feeling before the 43-7 embarassment at Elon.  Now, will doubt creep in?  Kevin Higgins has to convince his team it isn’t as bad as last week’s game and prepare them to fight a desperate team which needs a victory just as badly (if not more so) as do the Bulldogs.  Other potential x-factors:  Whitmire Stadium’s playing surface is artificial turf, and the game is WCU’s Homecoming. 

The Citadel has defeated Western Carolina five times in a row, and historically has had more success against the Catamounts than any other Southern Conference school (19-13-1).  I am hopeful that both of those trends will continue on Saturday.  However, if they don’t, The Citadel may be in for a very long season.

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It was just one game…or was it?

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

Elon 43, The Citadel 7.  I blame the navy pants…

I waited a few days to post my thoughts on this game because I honestly was not sure what to make of it.  That’s because it wasn’t just a loss, it was a debacle.  The score may have been 43 to 7, but in reality it felt like 63 to -7.

The Citadel started the game deep in its own territory after a special teams miscue, then committed its first offensive penalty before its first offensive snap.  After a three-and-out (losing four yards in three plays), the Bulldogs gave up a 28-yard punt return.  Then the defense committed a penalty on its first play.

Elon picked up a first down on its first official play from scrimmage.  One play, one first down.  It took The Citadel 37 minutes to pick up its initial first down.

Elon scored on every one of its first-half possessions, and also scored to open the second half.  The Citadel scored its lone TD in the fourth quarter, which was immediately followed by a 15-play, 81-yard drive by the Phoenix that lasted for over seven minutes and resulted in the game’s final touchdown.

Some not-so-fun stats for the game included first downs (Elon 29, The Citadel 5), net rushing yardage (Elon 267, The Citadel 18), and net passing yardage (Elon 276, The Citadel 102).  The Citadel was 0-12 converting third downs, which led to the Bulldogs losing the time of possession battle by almost 17 minutes.

With the loss The Citadel is now 2-3 on the season, 0-2 in the Southern Conference.  Was what happened at Elon a fluke, mostly a fluke, or is it that the Bulldogs simply are not a good team and aren’t going to become one?

There are cumulative season statistics that do not give one confidence in the team’s chances of beginning a long winning streak.  For example:

  • Opponents are rushing for more than 200 yards per game against The Citadel, on average.  In contrast, the Bulldogs are averaging slighly over 117 yards per game. 
  • The Bulldogs’ average yards-per-play is almost a full yard less than that of its opponents.
  • Bulldog opponents are converting over half of their third down conversion attempts (52%), while The Citadel is converting less than one-third of its third downs (32%).
  • The Citadel’s defense, in five games, has four sacks.  Opponents have thrown 171 passes.  The Citadel’s offense has thrown 22 fewer passes but has been sacked eight more times.
  • The Citadel’s defense has turned opponents over ten times (six interceptions, four fumble recoveries), but arguably only two of those turnovers came when the outcome of the game was still in question.
  • The Citadel has only 17 tackles for loss in five games.  Opponents have 31.

—

Having noted all that, I will say that I don’t believe the Bulldogs are quite as inept as they showed against Elon.  That game reminded me a little bit of The Citadel’s basketball team at the SoCon tourney.  It seems like almost every year the Bulldogs play their first game in the league tournament, get off to a tough start, and it just snowballs, so that 10 minutes into the game the score is 31-6. 

Of course, many of those poor hoops performances were by teams that weren’t very good at all.  The football team this season was supposed to be better than that.  The Bulldogs do have two wins, but one of them came against a team that is still winless (Presbyterian), and the other against a team who in its next home game lost 38-0 to Columbia (Princeton, which this season is thankful for the existence of the Patriot League). 

There was some talk after the game by the players and Kevin Higgins that the Bulldogs had lacked an “edge” to their game when they took the field at Elon.  Really?  If true, there is no excuse for that.  There are eleven games in the season, not 162 (and there is no excuse for being listless when you play 162, either).  If you’re not ready to play, take off your helmet and give it to somebody who is.

—

The Citadel still has a chance to salvage its season, though.  There are still six games left to play.  A playoff bid is unlikely, unless the Bulldogs win all six games, but a winning league and overall season is still possible.  It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen unless The Citadel improves in several areas.

On offense, The Citadel must do a better job of running the ball, if only to improve its third down conversion rates.  The Bulldogs need long drives, not just to score, but to keep the defense off the field. 

Also, teams are going to continue to smother Andre Roberts until The Citadel punishes them.  Other players are going to have to make big plays, and not just once or twice.  The Bulldogs need a consistent playmaker to complement Roberts.  Of course, everyone knew that before the season started.  Five games in, and we’re still waiting for that second threat.

On defense, the front seven has to put pressure on the quarterback and create turnovers.  It must also do a much better job against the run.  I get the distinct sense that, especially on the line, The Citadel has been less than the sum of its parts. 

There were high hopes for the d-line before the campaign began, but it has been far from dominant.  Because of that, the Bulldogs have been victimized by long drives where they couldn’t get off the field.  Again, the third-down conversion rate on defense has been terrible.

On the bright side, the red zone defense has actually been pretty good.  The problem has been that opponents have been in that zone far too often.

—

One game doesn’t make a season.  The promise of the Appalachian State performance (despite the loss) can’t be completely washed away by the horrific play at Elon.  Maybe PC and Princeton aren’t very good, but those wins still count.  The Bulldogs can start to erase the Elon memories with a win at Western Carolina on Saturday.

However, there are a lot of questions about the team as it enters the second half of the season.  Those questions have to be answered.  I worry that the time to answer some of them has already passed.

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Football, Game 5: The Citadel vs. Elon

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

In the 1880s a train depot was built at what would eventually become the town of Elon College (yes, the town was called “Elon College”).  By 1888 there was a post office, and once you’ve got a post office, well obviously the next thing you need is a college, so some local assemblymen from the United Church of Christ founded Elon College (the actual school, not the town) in 1889.  The first year there were 76 students enrolled.

By 1931, Elon had dramatically increased its enrollment, and had 87 students.

Okay, that’s a little unfair.  Elon’s enrollment was affected by the Great Depression, and there was also a fire in 1923 that devastated the school, but by the mid-1930s, Elon was in trouble, having briefly lost its accreditation and barely keeping its financial ship afloat.  Elon was barely hanging on, but then caught a break when Army Air Corps pilots trained on campus during World War II, which helped the school survive (shades of the relationship between the U.S. Navy and Notre Dame, with one difference being that Elon didn’t have a famous football team).  After the war, veterans and the G.I. Bill pushed enrollment past 700.

It was still a sleepy little college, geared towards local students commuting from their homes, until the early 1970s.  Its most notable graduate may well have been Doug Moe.  Since 1973, however, Elon has made an amazing transformation into a respected regional university under the leadership of two presidents.  Fred Young, who led the school for 25 years, made the decision on behalf of the institution to buy a lot of nearby land, which in hindsight was an excellent decision.  It increased the campus size threefold, and thus enabled the school to expand dramatically.

Young also appears to have been a pro when it came to fundraising, a tradition carried on by his successor, Leo Lambert, who developed a plan for Elon’s future even more ambitious than Young’s.  A list of all the buildings and programs added at the school in just the last 10 years (and it’s a long list) can be found in this article about Lambert:  Link

Elon has done a good (if not great job) of setting big goals and meeting those goals by raising a ton of money and having a coherent master plan.  The speed in which all of this has been done is truly remarkable.  How was it done so quickly?  In the linked article, Lambert says:

“Private schools can act quickly and can pursue their own destiny without having to deal with a state bureaucracy.  We can build architecturally cheaper, lovelier and more on time than any state university.”

Well, then.

Of course, there are limits, and Elon may be reaching them.  Lambert suggests the goals contained in the next strategic plan will cost at least $500 million, which is a lot of money, especially when you consider that 46% of Elon’s 24,000 living alums have graduated within the past 10 years.  The school has tapped a lot of old money already, but the new money won’t be coming in for quite a while, at least from alumni.

On the other hand, Elon can continue to raise money from other sources, as it is situated in the largest population area (50-mile radius) in the Southern Conference, a region that also has the highest average household income in the league.  It will be interesting to see how the school continues to progress.

—

Elon had two sustained periods of excellence in small-college (NAIA) football.  The first of these occurred in the 1930s, under the direction of head coach D.C. “Peahead” Walker.  In 10 seasons Walker would win four North State League championships in football, and several other titles in baseball and basketball, as he coached all three sports at the school (during the summers he played minor league baseball).

Walker was an Alabama native who was a popular speaker on the rubber chicken circuit (occasionally teaming up with his buddy Frank Howard).  He would leave Elon to coach at Wake Forest, leading that school to two bowl games (including the first Gator Bowl in 1946; the Demon Deacons defeated South Carolina 26-14).  Walker is still the alltime winningest coach at Wake Forest.  He also coached the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes.

Elon’s greatest run of success came during the 1970s and early 1980s under head coaches Shirley “Red” Wilson and Jerry Tolley.  Wilson had been a veteran North Carolina high school coach before taking the Elon job.  He would coach there for ten seasons, winning five league titles and making the NAIA playoffs in three of those years.  Wilson then left to become head coach at Duke and was replaced by Tolley, who had been his top assistant at Elon.

Tolley would only lead Elon for five seasons; he had already decided that he did not want to coach past the age of 40.  In his final two years, Elon would win consecutive NAIA national championships.  Tolley’s career record as a head coach:  49-11-2.

After winning the second title (3-0 against Pittsburg State; Elon had seven turnovers, but the Gorillas missed five field goals) Tolley walked away from coaching, but not from Elon, where he briefly became a fundraiser before taking a job at LabCorp (whose CEO was on the Elon board of trustees).

Tolley has also written several books on football drills and served two terms as mayor of Elon College (the town).  He is now the director of annual giving at the school.  One gets the sense that Tolley is one of the influential figures in Elon’s rise as an institution over the past quarter-century.

—

In 2001 Elon College (the school) became Elon University; Elon College (the town) became Elon; and the football program got a new stadium.  The year before, Elon had changed the nickname of its athletic teams from the “Fightin’ Christians” to the “Phoenix”.  (Kind of a boring nickname, if you ask me.)  Elon had completed its transition from the NAIA to NCAA Division I in 1999.

The coach who led the Phoenix into its new era of football was Al Seagraves, who had been a longtime assistant to Charlie Taaffe at The Citadel.  Seagraves would coach Elon for eight seasons, with his last year being Elon’s first as a Southern Conference school.

After that season (in which Elon was 2-10) Seagraves was replaced by Paul Hamilton, who would coach the Phoenix for two years.  After consecutive 3-8 seasons, Hamilton would be succeeded by current Elon coach Pete Lembo, who is now in his fourth year at the school.

Lembo had been the coach at Lehigh before taking the Elon job.  The previous coach at Lehigh?  Kevin Higgins.  Lembo replaced Higgins when the current head coach of The Citadel took a job as an assistant with the Detroit Lions.  Lembo had been an assistant under Higgins at Lehigh.

Elon has improved its record in each of Lembo’s three seasons, going 5-6, 7-4, and 8-4, narrowly missing the playoffs last season after losing its last two games of the year.  A 24-16 loss at Appalachian State probably didn’t hurt the Phoenix’s cause, but the season-ended 26-3 drubbing handed out by Liberty certainly did.  If Elon had won that game, it likely would have advanced to postseason play.  It wouldn’t have deserved to do so, however.

I normally want SoCon teams to succeed in out of conference play, and don’t like ceding potential playoff berths to other leagues (one of these years the selection committee will give every team in the CAA a bid), but I wasn’t too upset to see Elon fold in Lynchburg.  That’s because the Phoenix had won a game earlier in the season that it should have lost…to The Citadel.

Last year’s 27-23 Elon “victory” in Charleston was an end-to-end officiating debacle.  It featured (among other things) a timing mistake that led to an Elon field goal, a reversed call on a turnover that should not have been reversed (that led to another Phoenix field goal), and an unbelievably poor spot on a fourth down play that gave the ball (and the game) to Elon.

I hope the officials for Saturday’s game are better.  They could not be worse.

Note:  The referee for last year’s contest worked the game between Appalachian State and The Citadel last week without incident (not counting microphone follies), and has also called an Elon game already this year.  I’m assuming he won’t get the assignment for The Citadel-Elon, but this is the Southern Conference we’re talking about, so you never know.

—

Elon is 4-1 entering Saturday’s game, with wins over Davidson, Presbyterian, Georgia Southern, and Furman, and a loss to Wake Forest.

The Phoenix beat the Presbyterian 41-7 at PC, in a game in which the Blue Hose finished with just two yards net rushing.  Conversely, PC rushed for 204 yards at The Citadel two weeks ago.  Elon has held all four of its FCS opponents to 88 yards net rushing or less.

Elon needed a last-second field goal to get past Furman in Greenville, a game in which the Phoenix struggled to run the ball (49 total yards) but made up for it with passing yardage (374).  That was the 15th time in Scott Riddle’s career that he had thrown for 300+ yards in a game, a league record.

The junior had earlier established a Socon mark with 218 consecutive passes without an interception before throwing a pick against Georgia Southern.  Interestingly, Riddle is also serving as Elon’s punter this season.

Riddle has thrown for 618 yards and 5 touchdowns against The Citadel in two previous meetings.  321 of those yards and 4 of the TDs were to Terrell Hudgins (who also scored a TD against the Bulldogs the year before Riddle arrived at Elon).

Hudgins set the all-Division I record for career receptions against Furman.  He now has 330 catches after pulling in 16 of Riddle’s throws last Saturday.  He is two or three games away from breaking Jerry Rice’s FCS record for receiving yardage in a career.

Riddle and Hudgins make for a tough combo.  Last season the Phoenix also ran the ball well against The Citadel (187 yards), the kind of balance that Pete Lembo wants in his offense.  Brandon Newsome, now the third-string tailback for Elon, had 134 of those yards; he is one of three Phoenix running backs with at least one career 100-yard rushing game.

Elon’s defense has 19 sacks so far in just five games and held Georgia Southern and Furman to 14 and 12 points, respectively.  While Elon’s offense is averaging almost 460 yards total offense per game, Phoenix opponents are only averaging 216 yards per contest.  The Elon D has forced eight turnovers so far this season, with six of those being interceptions.

Elon’s defense is holding opponents to a 24% rate on third down conversions, one reason why the Phoenix have a five-minute per game time of possession advantage.

Elon placekicker Adam Shreiner is 6-8 on field goals, including the game-winner against Furman with 4 seconds to play last week.  He has missed one extra point.  The Phoenix do not have particularly impressive kick or punt return statistics so far this season.

—

This game is being billed in some quarters as a matchup of Andre Roberts vs. Terrell Hudgins, but I think the key to the game will be the Bulldogs’ defensive front seven versus the Elon offensive line.  The Citadel must get pressure on Riddle, which won’t be easy (in 208 pass attempts, Elon quarterbacks have been sacked 11 times).  In last year’s game Riddle was sacked once, for a two-yard loss.

The Bulldogs also must force turnovers.  Appalachian State did not turn the ball over against The Citadel.  Just one turnover may have made the difference in that game, and the matchup with Elon will be no different.  Bulldog defenders are going to have to make plays on the ball.

If The Citadel plays as well overall as it did last Saturday against the Mountaineers, then I believe the Bulldogs will win the game (SoCon officiating caveats aside).  The question, then, is whether or not The Citadel is capable of putting together two good games in a row against quality opposition.  We’ll find out on Saturday.

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Too bad the game is football and not horseshoes

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel played well on Saturday against Appalachian State.  After getting drubbed repeatedly over the past few seasons by the Mountaineers, the Bulldogs held their own for 60 minutes, which was a nice change of pace.  Alas, the game lasted longer than 60 minutes, and overtime was not kind.

Let’s make this a ramble:

— I thought that the playcalling on offense by the Bulldog coaching staff was excellent throughout the game.  Bart Blanchard and Miguel Starks were mixed-and-matched very well, a task that had to have been made more difficult by Blanchard’s ankle problem.

The TD pass to Alex Sellars was perfectly timed and executed.  I really liked the commitment to running the ball, and it paid off (214 yards rushing).

My only criticism would be about the sequence of plays called in overtime.  I am not sure about the first and second down calls, and as for third down…

When you have the ball first in overtime, you really don’t want to be in must-attempt-FG mode if you can help it.  The Citadel had a third-and-long it needed to convert.

Given the overall situation, I think it would have been best to run the play using the starting QB who had displayed a lot of composure during the game, and who has now thrown 6 TD passes in his last two games.  His first option would have been the player who is almost certainly the best wide receiver in school history.

In other words, I think the ball needed to be in the hands of Blanchard and/or Andre Roberts on that play.  I’m not a coach, though.

— There were only seven accepted penalties by the two teams combined in the game.  However, five of them came in the fourth quarter.  It was like watching a bizarro NHL game.

— Sam Keeler can’t think about the kick he missed in OT.  He needs to think about the 50-yarder and the 45-yarder he made in the first half.  His kicking was a plus for the Bulldogs on the day overall, without question.

— Defensively the Bulldogs did a fair job of bending but not breaking in the first half.  It got tougher to keep Appalachian State out of the end zone as the game went on.  The overall strategy seemed sound; the Bulldogs were hampered by a blown coverage that led to the tying TD in the fourth quarter, and by some shoddy tackling.  Poor tackling was the proximate cause of the Mountaineers’ second touchdown.  That is something which must improve.

The Bulldogs did not create a turnover on defense.  If The Citadel could have forced just one turnover, it likely would have won the game.  The Bulldogs’ D came into the game with six interceptions and three recovered fumbles, but just two of those turnovers have come while the outcome of a game was still in doubt (both against Presbyterian, with Cortez Allen accounting for each of them).

— Van Dyke Jones’ 69-yard TD run was one of the better runs I’ve seen by a Bulldog.  Maybe it wasn’t the best ever at Johnson Hagood Stadium (Stump Mitchell’s effort against VMI in 1980 comes to mind), but it was truly special.

— Attendance was announced as 14,238.  That seemed about right to me as I surveyed the stands.  However, that’s just how many people were inside Johnson Hagood Stadium.  What was truly striking was the attendance outside the stadium.  The parking lots were packed.

There are now lots of fans who tailgate but don’t go to the game itself, and I don’t mean the groups where a couple of people remain to watch over the tailgating equipment while everyone else goes to the game.  I’m talking about gatherings where almost no one goes to the game, where everyone just remains in the parking lot the entire time.

I mentioned that the tailgating scene could be perceived as “too good” when I wrote about attendance a couple of months ago.  It seems to me, though, that the tailgating-only crowd has increased exponentially as of late, thanks to the ability to incorporate the joys of satellite television (along with flat-screen TVs) into a tailgate setup.

There was an article about “TV Tailgating” in Columbia, S.C.’s The State newspaper on Sunday about this very subject.  That story focused on people watching South Carolina play on TV while stationed in one of the parking lots outside Williams-Brice Stadium.

Of course, at The Citadel the game inside the stadium is rarely on television.  Folks tailgating during the game watch other contests on TV while listening to Darren Goldwater call the Bulldogs’ games on the radio.  At least, I hope they’re listening to the Bulldogs on the radio…

Twenty years ago, if the parking lots had been as full as they were on Saturday, I believe there would have been at least 17,000 people watching the game inside JHS, perhaps more.  However, twenty years ago there weren’t portable satellite dishes, and when people talked about “plasma” they were referring to blood and not TVs.

I don’t know what The Citadel’s administration can do about that.  I don’t know if it wants or needs to do anything about it, either.

— It was Military Appreciation Day, and thus the fans who did venture inside Johnson Hagood were treated to a good show, including a flyover by a World War II-era B25 bomber, a parachutist bringing the game ball (landed on the 45 yard line — nice job!), and the Parris Island Marine Band performing at halftime.

There was a pull-up bar station in the concessions area under the stadium, so that future Marines could showcase their upper body strength in what could have been construed as an attempt to impress women, but was undoubtably meant just for recruiting purposes.

— Also underneath the stadium was a table for The Citadel’s club hockey team, which was doing a little fundraising by raffling off a motorcycle.  A cadet wearing a complete goalie outfit was part of the show.  I couldn’t decide if his uniform was terribly awesome, or awesomely terrible.  Click on the link to judge for yourself.

— Fourth game played, fourth game wearing navy pants, fourth game with a terrible-looking uniform.  Maybe The Citadel should wear orange jerseys and yellow helmets with them.

— The sound system is still a bit too loud, in my opinion.  A few other stadium music/sound observations…

1)  In the third quarter, someone thought it would be a good idea to play the “Everybody Clap Your Hands” snippet while The Citadel was punting.  I guess the fans were supposed to get excited about the home team not converting on third down.  “One hop this time; right foot let’s punt.”
2)  “Cotton Eye Joe”?  Really?  Probably made the App State fans feel right at home.  It’s also a staple at Yankee Stadium.  Why not bring in Ronan Tynan while you’re at it?
3)  I liked the NFL Films-style music, but it sounded a bit tinny over the speakers.  Maybe a better recording is needed.
4)  The referee’s microphone cutting in and out surely did wonders for sales of Advil and Tylenol.

— I spotted Jeff Hartsell of The Post and Courier hustling down to the field at the five-minute mark of the fourth quarter.  As he got about halfway down the stadium steps, Appalachian State scored the tying touchdown.  Hartsell hesitated briefly, then started to head back to the press box (as if he had forgotten something), and then turned back and went to the sideline area.  Perhaps he was saying to himself, “I really need to update Bulldog Bites!”

— App State fans in the East side stands tried to start an “ASU” chant in the third quarter, only to be drowned out by a lusty rendition of “Hey Baby” by the corps of cadets.  The Mountaineer supporters seemed confused by the choice of song (hard to blame them) and quieted down almost immediately.  I still could survive without it, but for that moment, “Hey Baby” worked.  Well played, cadets.

—

All in all, it was a good game, but it was still a loss.  Next for the Bulldogs is a trip to Elon.  Getting a win there will not be easy, but if The Citadel plans to contend in the conference, it will be necessary.

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Football, Game 4: The Citadel vs. Appalachian State

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

It’s time for the games that matter to begin.  League play, SoCon style.  First up for the Bulldogs:  Appalachian State, winner of three of the last four FCS championships and four-time defending conference champs.  Basically, the league opener is as big a challenge as The Citadel will have for the rest of the season.

This will be the 38th clash on the gridiron between the two schools.  Appy leads the all-time series 26-11; the Mountaineers are 10-8 in 18 previous trips to Johnson Hagood Stadium.    Appalachian has won 14 of the last 15 games in the series, with the one Bulldog victory coming in 2003, shortly before the Mountaineers began their run of conference and national titles.

That 2003 victory (24-21) is one of only two times in that 15-game stretch in which The Citadel held Appalachian State to fewer than 25 points; the other exception came in 2001, when the Mountaineers slipped past the Bulldogs 8-6.  In the thirteen other games played since 1994, Appalachian State has averaged 41.5 points per game.  The last four meetings have resulted in Appy point totals of 45, 42, 45, and 47.

—

Perhaps the most curious thing about the history of the series between the two schools is that prior to 1972, there was no history.  The Citadel and Appalachian State had never played each other in football until Appy joined the Southern Conference in 1971.  The two schools then began the series in 1972, and have met every year since.

The never-and-then-always aspect of the series is not particularly surprising when juxtaposed against the backdrop of the Southern Conference, a way station of a league since its founding in 1921.  Schools have come and gone, and sometimes come back (hello again, Davidson).  The conference has routinely featured schools that in many cases don’t have much in common.  The Citadel and Appalachian State, fellow members of the SoCon for four decades, make for a good example of this phenomenon.

Appalachian State University has origins dating back to 1899, and would eventually become a four-year college in 1929.  It was at that time a teachers’ college, designed to educate future instructors in northwest North Carolina.  By the late 1920s the school was also fielding a football team and playing similar two- and four-year institutions like High Point and Lenoir-Rhyne.

In the 1950s the school began to become more of a regional institution, with multiple degree programs.  By the 1970s the undergraduate enrollment had increased to over 9,000 (today it has 14,500 undergrad students).  As the school increased in size, the department of athletics left the Division II Carolinas Conference and moved up to Division I, joining the Southern Conference (essentially replacing George Washington, which had left the SoCon in 1970).

Appalachian State’s institutional history is not unlike that of fellow conference member Georgia Southern.  The two schools were both originally founded to educate teachers.  Appalachian State’s undergraduate enrollment began to increase before Georgia Southern’s did, and as a result Appy has about 20,000 more living alumni (95,000 to 75,000).  The two schools have the largest alumni bases in the SoCon (by a considerable margin) and also enroll the most students (ditto).

Georgia Southern’s fan base includes a sizable (and vocal) contingent of supporters who want the school to move to FBS status in football.  I wrote about this a few weeks ago; it doesn’t seem like a particularly good idea to me, and the GSU administration appears to oppose making the move.

Appalachian State, on the other hand, does not seem to have a significant (or at least loud) base of fans wanting to test the FBS waters.  This is probably wise.  While Appy does have the largest alumni base in the SoCon, it would not compare well to most FBS schools, at least in the southeast.  Only one of the ACC/SEC schools (Wake Forest) has a smaller alumni base, and eight of the twelve C-USA schools have more living alums.

The population base around the school isn’t that large, and the area’s average household income is less than that of the markets for every school in the Southern Conference except Georgia Southern.

My sense is that most Appy fans are very happy with their football program’s position in the NCAA universe right now.  Given the past two decades, who can blame them?

—

Jerry Moore has been the coach of the Mountaineers for the past 21 seasons (counting this one), but the run of success Appy has been on really began with the previous coach, Sparky Woods.  Woods would preside over the Mountaineers’ first two SoCon titles (in 1986 and 1987).  He was also the coach when Appalachian State started beating The Citadel on a regular basis; after losing his first game against the Bulldogs, Woods won four straight games in the series to close out his career in Boone.

Of course, as all fans of The Citadel know, Woods faced the Bulldogs on one other occasion as a head coach, in 1990.  Woods had taken the South Carolina job following the death of Joe Morrison.  In his second year in Columbia, the Gamecocks would lose to The Citadel 38-35.  I will never forget watching his coach’s show the next day; he looked like he had been embalmed.  Woods is now the head coach of VMI; he will get another crack at the Bulldogs next season.

Moore had once been the head coach of North Texas (where his record was mediocre) and Texas Tech (where his record was abysmal).  After two years out of coaching, he got a break when Ken Hatfield invited him to join the coaching staff at Arkansas, first on a volunteer basis and then as a salaried assistant.  Moore spent five years in Fayetteville before being offered the job in Boone after Woods left.  He decided to take another shot at being a head coach.  It would prove to be a good move for him and for Appalachian State’s football program.

Moore would win a SoCon title of his own at Appy in 1991, but then hit a brief rough patch that included his only losing season with the Mountaineers in 1993.  During that stretch Appalachian State would lose three straight games to The Citadel (which was fielding some of its best teams at the time, including the 1992 SoCon championship squad).

That is the only period in the series to date in which The Citadel has won three consecutive games.  In the 1992 season, the Bulldogs beat the Mountaineers in Boone 25-0, one of only three victories by The Citadel in Boone and the only time Appalachian State has ever been shut out by The Citadel.

  • October 3rd, Note Number 1:  That 1992 game is also the only time the two schools have met on October 3rd — that is, until this Saturday.  Hmm…
  • October 3rd, Note Number 2:  On October 3rd, 1970, Appalachian State hosted Elon in the first football game in the Carolinas to be contested on artificial turf.

Moore’s Mountaineers would finish 4th in the league in 1993.  That season and the 1996 campaign are the only two seasons during Moore’s tenure in which Appy has finished lower than third place in the conference (and in between the Mountaineers would win another league title in 1995).  Since 1997, Appalachian State has five first-place finishes (two of those were shared titles), six second place finishes, and one third-place finish (in 2004).

After that third-place finish in 2004, the Mountaineers would win three straight FCS titles.  Breaking through in the postseason had proven to be very difficult for Appy, which would finally win the national championship in its 13th appearance in the I-AA playoffs.

The Mountaineers had never managed to get past the semifinals prior to 2005, but after getting by Furman in the semis, Appalachian State defeated Northern Iowa for the first of its three national crowns.  The change in postseason fortunes was attributed in part to a change in offensive philosophy, from a power-I formation to a spread look.

—

Last season Appalachian State averaged 37.3 points per game and 463.6 yards of total offense per game.  Its defense was decent but not spectacular (allowing 21.6 PPG and 334 yards per contest).  Appalachian committed 28 turnovers on offense, with 18 of those being lost fumbles (Appy recovered 12 of its own fumbles, so it put the ball on the ground 30 times in all in 13 games).

The Mountaineer defense intercepted 19 passes and recovered 8 fumbles, so Appalachian State had a turnover margin for the season of -1.  The fact that the Mountaineers could win the SoCon despite a negative turnover margin is a testament to just how explosive on offense Appy really was (averaging almost seven yards per play).

—

Appalachian State is 1-2 so far this season, losing to East Carolina 29-24 (after trailing 29-7, with its backup quarterback) and McNeese State 40-35 (with McNeese scoring five points in the final four seconds).  In its SoCon opener, Appy beat Samford 20-7, scoring the first 20 points of the game and keeping the Birmingham Bulldogs off the scoreboard until midway through the fourth quarter.  The games against McNeese State and Samford were played in Boone, with Appalachian State traveling to Greenville, NC, for the game against ECU.

(Incidentally, despite losing to the Pirates, the Mountaineers still lead the all-time series between the two schools, 19-11, a factoid that I found a little surprising.  Most of those wins over ECU came during the 1930s and mid-to-late 1950s.)

Appalachian State played East Carolina without its starting quarterback, Armanti Edwards, who was still recovering from a much-chronicled attack by a lawnmower.  His backup, Travaris Cadet, acquitted himself fairly well against the Pirates in the loss.  Edwards was back against McNeese State and so was the Appy offense (493 total yards), but the Mountaineer defense couldn’t contain the Cowboys’ offense (522 total yards), and Appy eventually lost a last-team-with-the-ball-wins type of shootout.

The game against Samford was played in a steady downpour, which apparently favored the defenses.  The Mountaineer D rose to the occasion and limited Samford to 188 yards of total offense (Appy’s O had 366 total yards).

—

For The Citadel to pull the upset on Saturday, it needs to control Armanti Edwards.  Not stop him, but control him.  In his three previous games against the Bulldogs, he has been completely uncontrollable, rolling up 317.7 yards per game of total offense; Edwards has been responsible for 12 TDs in the three contests.  That can’t happen again if The Citadel has any hope of winning the game.

Whether the Bulldogs are capable defensively of slowing down Edwards and company is debatable.  The results from the game against Presbyterian were not encouraging in this respect.  Previously run-challenged PC piled up 200+ yards rushing against The Citadel.  Appalachian State could have a field day.

On the bright side, I think The Citadel’s offense is capable of moving the ball against a good but not great Mountaineer defense.  The keys will be to A) control the ball, keeping Edwards and his friends off the field as much as possible, and B) put points on the board when in scoring position.  It will be important to score touchdowns in the “red zone” on Saturday.  Of course, you could say that about any Saturday.

The Citadel’s offensive line must protect Bart Blanchard.  Appalachian State had three sacks against Samford (after not having any in its first two games).  This is also a game that, for the Bulldogs to prevail, will likely require a special performance by Andre Roberts.  He’s certainly up to the challenge.

The Bulldogs cannot afford major special teams snafus.  Missing PATs and other misadventures in the kicking game will be fatal against a team like Appalachian State, which can and almost certainly will take advantage of any mistake.

I think this will be a fairly high-scoring game.  For The Citadel to win, I think the offense/special teams must score at least 30 points, because unless the defense creates a multitude of Appy turnovers, I believe the Mountaineers are going to score at a clip similar to what they have done in recent meetings.  It may well be that 30 points will not be enough for the Bulldogs.  Would 40 be enough?

I’m not overly optimistic about The Citadel’s chances on Saturday afternoon.  However, I’ll be there, part of what (if the weather holds up) promises to be a good crowd, cheering on the Bulldogs and hoping for the best.  They’ve got a chance against the Mountaineers.  I’m not sure you could have said that in the last few meetings.

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Football, Game 3: The Citadel vs. Presbyterian

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

This week’s game is something of a blast from the past, at least for older alums and supporters of The Citadel.  Fans under the age of 35 may not realize the lengthy series history between the football programs of The Citadel and PC, though.

Saturday’s game will be the 61st meeting between the two schools, with The Citadel having won 48 of those previous 60 games (with one tie).  The series was played annually from 1921 to 1960, except for the three years during World War II when The Citadel did not field a team.

After the 1963 game (which was played in Savannah), there was a break in the series that lasted until 1971.  From that year through 1988 Presbyterian and The Citadel would meet 16 more times (not playing in 1972 and 1976).  Since the 1988 season, however, there has been only one more encounter, a 33-10 victory for the Bulldogs in 1991.

PC has not hosted The Citadel in football since 1950.  Since then, every game has been played at Johnson Hagood Stadium (except for that 1963 game).  The matchups during the 1950s were frequently either Homecoming or Parents’ Day games.  In contrast, the games played in the 1970s and 1980s usually served as the home openers for the Bulldogs.

Speaking of those games during the 1950s, a while back when I was doing some research for a post about The Citadel’s football uniform history, I came across a series of photos taken by Life Magazine that included action and crowd shots from the 1955 Homecoming game at Johnson Hagood between The Citadel and Presbyterian, won by the Bulldogs 14-13.  I posted links to some of the photos in that piece, but I’ll repost a few here for anyone interested:

Picture 1 (Mark Clark in the stands watching the game)
Picture 2 (the team runs out onto the field in what may have been a photo op and not a “real” run-out)
Picture 3 (same as Picture 2; I think the third coach from the left is Al Davis)
Picture 4 (same as Pictures 2 and 3)
Picture 5 (shot of John Sauer during the game; the coach appears to be a bit anxious, despite the snazzy bow tie)
Picture 6 (PC players are wearing the white jerseys)
Picture 7 (The Citadel has the ball, deep in its own territory)
Picture 8 (I love the scoreboard in this picture)

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The Citadel is 26-3 at Johnson Hagood Stadium against Presbyterian, including the first victory for the Bulldogs at JHS, which came in 1949.  Despite the lopsided nature of the series in terms of wins and losses, many of the games have been close.  Particularly in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Blue Hose (one of my favorite college nicknames) would make things tough for the Bulldogs.

Under the direction of longtime coach/AD Cally Gault, PC defeated The Citadel in 1971 and 1979 and lost several other tight contests, which included final scores such as 6-0, 13-7, 21-14, 21-16, 14-7, and 15-13.  Back then it seemed every year for The Citadel started off with a narrow home victory over Presbyterian.

It was, at least to me, a rather congenial rivalry.  I remember going to games at Johnson Hagood as a kid and hearing the occasional “Hose ’em!” chant from a boisterous-but-not-particularly-serious PC supporter (often a stray student who had made his way down from Clinton for the game).  The games were generally competitive, if not always of the highest quality.

My personal favorite matchup in the series is the 6-0 Bulldog victory in 1974.  In that game The Citadel scored the game’s only points in the 3rd quarter, after PC fumbled deep in its own territory.  The extra-point attempt following the touchdown nearly decapitated one of the officials standing beneath the goalposts.  I believe Brian Ruff had approximately 500 tackles in the contest.

The series ended as Presbyterian began its transition from an NAIA school to an NCAA Division II program.  Now, of course, PC has moved up into the ranks of the FCS (I-AA), joining the Big South in the process.  It’s a good move for the school and that league.

What it may also mean is that there could be more opportunities in the future for The Citadel and Presbyterian to meet in football.  One of the disadvantages of The Citadel playing a non-Division I school in football is that if the Bulldogs have hopes of making the FCS playoffs, a win over a non-D1 doesn’t count as far as playoff eligibility is concerned.  A team angling for an at-large berth has to win at least 7 games against Division I opponents (either FCS or FBS).

I think this puts PC on the list of schools that The Citadel can play in its “non-return home game”.  In other words, because the Bulldogs will play a “money” game against an FBS squad each season, a matching contest is needed against a school willing to forgo a home-and-home series.

Presbyterian and Charleston Southern both strike me as candidates to feature in that spot on a semi-regular basis (with Newberry’s Division II status being an impediment to scheduling that school).  Essentially the yearly schedule would be eight Southern Conference games, one game against an FBS school (always on the road), one game against the likes of PC or CSU (always at home), and VMI (with that series resuming in 2011).

—

Presbyterian’s game against The Citadel will be the fourth and final game the Blue Hose will play against a Southern Conference opponent this season.  PC’s remaining seven games will include six Big South league matchups and a contest against first-year football program Old Dominion.

In its first three games PC has only led once, against UT-Chattanooga.  Presbyterian has been outscored by more than 24 points per game and has been dominated statistically across the board, including allowing opponents over 5 yards per rush attempt, part of the reason why opponents are converting 3rd downs against PC at a 60% clip.

Presbyterian averages a relatively meager 5.7 yards per pass attempt, with a completion percentage of only 52.5%.  The Blue Hose are averaging just 2.5 yards per rush.  PC was more competitive in its last outing, when it led UTC briefly in the second quarter before the Mocs gradually pulled away.  In the other two games, Furman pummeled the Blue Hose (Paladin QB Jordan Sorrells was 24-30 passing), while Elon simply routed PC, running 90 plays to Presbyterian’s 46 and controlling the ball for over 38 minutes.

—

Basically, this is a game The Citadel should win fairly easily.  That doesn’t mean it’s a lock, though.  PC obviously isn’t going to be intimidated playing yet another game against a SoCon opponent, and may have some confidence after not getting blown out by UT-Chattanooga.

It isn’t a game the Bulldogs are likely to overlook, however.  Sure, the “real season” begins next week with the start of the conference campaign, but this is the home opener, and an opportunity to establish a tone for the games to come.  Things I want to see on Saturday night include:

  • The offensive line controlling the line of scrimmage (PC is giving up 5+ yards per rush — enough said)
  • Receivers catching the ball (the number of dropped passes against Princeton was alarming)
  • Sacks by The Citadel’s defensive front seven (no sacks against Princeton)
  • Turnovers created by the Bulldog defense (especially in the first half)
  • A big play by Andre Roberts (it’s time for one, at least if his ankle is okay)

I’m looking forward to watching a game at Johnson Hagood again.  I’ll be interested to see what the attendance is like.  With South Carolina playing earlier in the week on Thursday night, and an instate school as the opponent, along with it being the home opener, there is a chance for a nice crowd.  Of course, figuring out potential attendance is more complicated than that, as I wrote about earlier this summer.

I was glad to see Presbyterian on the schedule when it was released a few months ago.  I hope I will still be glad to have seen PC on the schedule after Saturday night.

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