2015 Football, Game 13: The Citadel vs. Charleston Southern

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel at Charleston Southern, to be played in North Charleston, South Carolina, at Buccaneer Field, with kickoff at 1:00 pm ET on Saturday, December. The game will not be televised.

The contest will be streamed on ESPN3.com, with Bob Picozzi providing play-by-play and Tom O’Brien supplying the analysis.

The game can be heard on radio via the various affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. In a change, WWIK-98.9 FM [audio link] will serve as the flagship station this week (due to The Citadel’s basketball game against College of Charleston starting at 11 am), and will also have a two-hour pregame show. 

Mike Legg (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze. Jay Harper will report from the sidelines; he will host the first hour of the pregame show as well.

It is also possible to listen to the action with a smartphone, using a TuneIn Radio application.

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Links of interest:

– Preview article in The Post and Courier

– That week off for the Bulldogs back in October came in handy

– Game notes from The Citadel and Charleston Southern

– SoCon weekly release

– Big South weekly release

– Mike Houston’s 12/1 press conference (with comments from Dominique Allen and Tevin Floyd)

– Phil Kornblut of SportsTalk interviews Mike Houston

– Jamey Chadwell’s 11/23 press conference

– Lots of political correctness in an article about Charleston Southern’s football facility

– Charleston Southern feature on WCSC-TV

– The Moultrie News on the matchup

– STATS preview of The Citadel-Charleston Southern

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Earlier this season, I wrote this:

There are two entities that appear to desperately want The Citadel and Charleston Southern to be an annual “rivalry” game. One is Charleston Southern. The other is the Lowcountry media.

If you don’t believe that about the Lowcountry media, you need to watch the press conferences Mike Houston and Jamey Chadwell had this week. I’ve linked both of them in the “Links of Interest” section.

At The Citadel, Mike Houston did a good job of deflecting questions, notably about the “broom” incident from the game between the two teams earlier in the season. That subject also came up during Jamey Chadwell’s press conference (which was held the day before, on Monday).

Here is the second question that Chadwell was asked, by WCSC-TV’s Andy Pruitt:

The broom is for your players. Obviously, The Citadel fans took exception to it. It still rears its head that there’s a perceived superiority that their fans believe their program has over you guys. But do you…wish you didn’t do that because you [wouldn’t want to] rile up the players and coaches, or [do] you still like what you did as far as firing up your players and you feel like your players still have the drive to play The Citadel?

I was a little disappointed in certain aspects of this question, to be honest. The comment about Bulldog fans is a blanket statement without real foundation. Just because Jamey Chadwell constantly moans about a perceived lack of respect doesn’t mean it’s true.

Chadwell’s response, which went unchallenged, included this line:

…it was for our motivation, had nothing to do with their program.

Maybe he could have made that stick if he had played broom overlord in the locker room after the game, but that’s not what he did. Instead, Chadwell had someone bring the broom out of the locker room, then paraded it at midfield while his team did a little dance during The Citadel’s alma mater.

As I said at the time, they probably didn’t realize the alma mater was being played. I’ll give them a pass for that. However, the notion that scene was just for the benefit of the CSU players is absurd.

Of course it was aimed at The Citadel — at its players, its coaches, and its fans. There was no other reason to do it at midfield.

Well, actually there was another reason. It was a way to get more media attention. In that respect, it was an unqualified success, especially for a coach looking to make a name for himself and get in the mix for higher-profile jobs.

Did any members of the press call out Chadwell for those antics? Not really. He’s a good coach, but more importantly for the fourth estate, he’s a self-assured carnival barker, and most of the press corps is appreciative.

That part of Chadwell’s personality got weirder this week, as he went into third-person mode three separate times during a 13-minute press conference. It was a little bizarre, but still went over well with the local media, as this tweet from WCIV-TV’s Scott Eisberg suggests:

Best thing is that Coach Chadwell now speaks in 3rd person-explanation for the “Broom” vs. Citadel pretty good too

See? Go into third person, offer a half-baked explanation, get credit!

I generally don’t like to rip the press. They get unfairly criticized at times, and most of them work hard and do a good job (and that includes Pruitt and Eisberg, who are both solid). However, I’m really tired of the constant drumbeat on this CSU “we don’t get respect” non-issue, with The Citadel invariably portrayed as some sort of villainous entity.

Also, I want to know something. When is there going to be any discussion about the obvious lack of respect Charleston Southern has towards The Citadel?

All the pseudo-babble has been the other way around, but remember this: the coach who insulted the other team’s players (and coaches) after the game in September was Jamey Chadwell, the head coach at Charleston Southern. The social media account that approvingly tweeted out additional comments along those same lines? That was Charleston Southern’s official twitter account (not the sports account, but the one for the entire institution).

You didn’t hear Mike Houston say anything negative about Charleston Southern. You didn’t hear any negativity about CSU from The Citadel and its administration then or now, even concerning this week’s game site (more on that later).

Sure, there are Bulldog fans who don’t think much of CSU. There are also CSU fans who don’t like The Citadel. So what?

I couldn’t care less there are Buc fans who can’t stand my alma mater. Why on earth should they care what some alums of The Citadel think about them?

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It’s the whole “rivalry” thing, of course. The media wants it, because it makes for easy storylines. CSU wants it, for validation (I guess).

It won’t happen, though, because it can’t. I’ve said this before (more than once, actually), but rivalries are organic and often develop over a long period of time.

The Citadel’s rivals in football are Furman and VMI. That has been the case for generations. Alumni of The Citadel don’t think of CSU as any kind of rival; there is no reason to do so, and it has nothing to do with anything that happens on the field of play.

The Citadel has very little in common with Charleston Southern.

One is public, the other private. One is a military school, one is affiliated with the Baptists.

One began operations in 1842, the other in 1964. One is located in downtown Charleston, the other in North Charleston.

One is significantly larger than the other in terms of student enrollment (and no, the “bigger school” isn’t the one on the peninsula).

Jamey Chadwell:

Everything that we’re trying to do is to make it a rivalry. I’ve tried my best to stoke the fire. And now, maybe it is a rivalry. I hope it is. But when I got here, there was no rivalry at all.

There still isn’t — and there won’t be if Charleston Southern wins on Saturday, or if The Citadel pulls off the upset. That’s just the way it is. That is the way it is going to be.

It is quite possible that Chadwell is a decent man. I have no idea.

However, his comments haven’t done anything to make this matchup a rivalry. All they’ve done is give many Bulldog fans a negative impression of Jamey Chadwell. That’s too bad.

He probably doesn’t care. That is his prerogative.

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This game is being played at Buccaneer Field. I want to make three points about that.

– I can go along with the idea that Charleston Southern’s team earned the right to host a playoff game. However, I would specify that only the team be included in the “earned” category.

Charleston Southern’s administration certainly did nothing to earn that right with its longstanding failure to significantly improve the Bucs’ football stadium situation. The facilities issues at CSU (including the basketball gymnasium) are of the school’s own doing.

Fans of other schools (not just The Citadel) have every right to point out the problems associated with those facilities, and to complain when they are affected by them. The notion that “if it were the other way around” doesn’t apply.

When The Citadel hosts a football or basketball game, or when College of Charleston hosts a basketball game, Charleston Southern’s fans have every opportunity to attend those games and watch the action. The reverse is not true when CSU hosts the matchups.

– NCAA FCS playoff committee chairman Mark Wilson, the AD at Tennessee Tech, had this to say:

We do look at the quality of the stadium and the capacity. But if a seeded team has a venue capable of hosting regular-season games without issues and they meet the minimum guarantee, then they are the host.

We think it’s going to be a great atmosphere for an FCS playoff game.

I’m not sure it’s a great idea to assume a facility that is “capable of hosting regular-season games without issues” is also going to be able to handle a crowd like that expected on Saturday. The Citadel is going to bring a few more fans than Monmouth did.

Wilson’s remark struck me as a bit disingenuous. At any rate, it is of no concern to the NCAA. That organization is all about the Benjamins, baby, which leads directly to my third point…

– This was an eyebrow-raising article:

…the largest crowd to witness a CSU home football game came last September when The Citadel made its first-ever trek down I-26 to 4,000-seat Buccaneer Field. The listed attendance for that game was 7,934 [note: actual attendance was closer to 5,500]. That included about 3,000 fans who were left to stand or sit in lawn chairs around the end zone or along the fences in the corners.

Early projections are that Saturday’s game, which has much bigger implications and interest, will exceed that record crowd. CSU athletic director Hank Small realizes the logistics involved but feels comfortable in saying his stadium can handle the crowd…

…“Sure, it’s going to be a lot of people. We understand the numbers involved. We will have the full complement of security and safety personnel available and we are doing everything we can to make this hosting of a national playoff game go as smoothly as possible. There will be a lot of people standing. But we are doing all we can to accommodate anyone who wants to see this historic game. No one will be turned away.”

…“They requested as many tickets as they could get and we gave them all that we had for those three sections on their side of the field,” Small said. “We then started selling standing room only (SRO) tickets to any other fans who wanted to have a ticket to get in to see the game. My advice would be to arrive early, whether you have your ticket already or if you ordered online and have to pick them up at will call.”

A CSU spokesman said Monday there are about 2,000 seats on the visitors’ side, and that an “unlimited” number of SRO tickets will be sold. Citadel fans who went on-line at 10 a.m. Monday when tickets went on sale found only SRO tickets available.

I have to wonder if the conversation between the CSU administration and the NCAA went something like this:

NCAA: So, uh, you guys only have 4,000 seats. You could probably sell 12,000+ for this game. We want as big a profit as possible. Why do you think we regionalize the playoffs in the first place? Why not move it somewhere that can accommodate all those fans?

CSU: Hey, we’ll just sell SRO tickets to anyone who wants one. That way, we’ll sell plenty of tickets, make you folks lots of money, and save on the seats we didn’t have to add.

NCAA: Awesome!

When I read the comment that an “unlimited” number of SRO tickets would be sold, the first thing I thought about was a tragedy that took place in England in 1989 — the Hillsborough disaster.

I’m going to be blunt. I think selling an unlimited number of tickets to an event such as this one is irresponsible. It is also potentially dangerous.

Even if it meant fewer Bulldog fans were to gain entry, tickets should be capped at a certain point. Incidentally, is there a fire marshal anywhere near North Charleston?

On Thursday night, a representative at Charleston Southern told Jeff Hartsell of The Post and Courier that the school had sold “almost 7,000” tickets to the game. There was no immediate indication of how many SRO tickets had been sold.

That took on new meaning when, later on Thursday night, information was leaked that Charleston Southern had not yet sold all of the tickets for the seats on the home side.

In other words, CSU officials have been selling SRO tickets since 10 am Monday (remember, those were the only tickets offered to Bulldog fans by Charleston Southern). Meanwhile, tickets for at least one seated section on the home side have gone unsold for almost two weeks.

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For the statistical review, I included all of The Citadel’s games and ten of the eleven games Charleston Southern has played. I threw out the Bucs’ game at Alabama.

Charleston Southern has wins over North Greenville (41-14), East Tennessee State (47-7), The Citadel (33-20), Monmouth (37-7), Presbyterian (10-7), Gardner-Webb (34-0), Coastal Carolina (33-25), Kennesaw State (28-14), and Liberty (31-24). The Buccaneers also lost to Troy (34-16), in addition to the ‘Bama defeat.

The Citadel has victories over Davidson (69-0), Western Carolina (28-10), Wofford (39-12), Mercer (21-19), VMI (35-14), Samford (44-25), Furman (38-17), South Carolina (23-22), and Coastal Carolina (41-38). The Bulldogs’ three losses came at Georgia Southern (48-13), versus Charleston Southern (33-20), and at Chattanooga (31-23).

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As mentioned above, these statistics don’t include CSU’s game versus Alabama.

Charleston Southern’s offense has thrown the ball 222 times, with 13 other would-be pass play attempts resulting in sacks. Not counting those sacks, the Bucs have rushed 447 times; thus, CSU has passed the ball (or attempted to pass) on 34.5% of its offensive plays from scrimmage.

Passing yardage accounts for 39.7% of Charleston Southern’s total offense (with sack yardage removed from the total). CSU averages 6.68 yards per pass attempt (again, with sacks/yardage taken into account). That yards per attempt number is comparable to Furman among SoCon teams.

Charleston Southern averages 31.0 points and 395.9 yards per game, with an average of 5.8 yards per play. CSU would have finished 3rd in the SoCon in scoring offense, sixth in total offense, and fifth in yards per play.

Defensively, The Citadel has allowed 22.4 points and 369.3 yards per game, allowing 5.7 yards per play.

CSU is averaging 5.0 yards per rush, gaining 232.2 yards per game on the ground. The Bulldogs have allowed 156.9 yards per contest (4.5 yards per play).

The Buccaneers have completed passes at a 56.3% clip, with 14 TDs against only 5 interceptions. CSU’s pass efficiency rating would be near the top 30 of FCS if the Alabama game were not counted.

The Citadel was 24th nationally in defensive pass efficiency before last week, having allowed 7 pass TDs while intercepting 17 errant tosses prior to last Saturday. However, after the CCU game, The Citadel has dropped to 42nd nationally.

The Bulldogs allowed 3 TD passes against the Chanticleers, though they also intercepted two tosses (including a pick-6). The Citadel’s opponents have a completion percentage for the season of 59.6%.

Charleston Southern has converted 42.9% of its third-down attempts, which would rank 34th nationally save the Crimson Tide game (CSU was only 1 for 10 on third down in that contest). The Citadel has allowed opponents to pick up 37.2% of third down tries (48th in FCS).

CSU has gone for it on fourth down seventeen times, picking up a first down on ten of those attempts. On defense, The Citadel has given up fourteen conversions in twenty-two opponent tries (Coastal Carolina had no 4th-down conversion attempts last week).

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Charleston Southern’s defense is allowing 16.2 points per game (which would easily lead the SoCon). CSU has given up 252.9 yards per game, with an average of 4.3 yards allowed per play. Both of those statistics would also lead the SoCon by a wide margin. Despite the Alabama game, the Buccaneers are still 2nd in FCS in total defense.

The Citadel is averaging 32.8 points and 434.3 yards per game, gaining 6.2 yards per play.

CSU is allowing 3.0 yards per rush (101.2 yards per game). Both of those statistics would rank in the top 10 of FCS.

The Buccaneers have allowed only 5 TDs through the air while intercepting 7 passes. CSU’s defensive pass efficiency rating would probably rank in the top 20 of FCS (possibly top 15) without the game against the Crimson Tide.

The Citadel’s rushing offense averages 359.7 yards per game (second-best nationally), gaining 5.9 yards per carry. The Bulldogs don’t throw the football that often, of course; they now rank 41st in FCS in offensive pass efficiency (5 TD passes, 4 picks).

The Bulldogs have an offensive third-down conversion rate of 50.9%, which is fourth-best in FCS (behind James Madison, Lehigh, and Chattanooga). Charleston Southern has allowed third down conversions at a 28.1% rate and ranks in the top 10 nationally in that category.

I think 3rd-down conversion rate will be a big key to the game on Saturday. CSU’s offense is good on third down, as is the Bulldogs’ D. Charleston Southern’s defense is outstanding on third down; The Citadel’s offense is stellar at moving the chains.

The Citadel is 6 for 17 on fourth-down tries, which is decidedly below average (and a bit surprising), while CSU opponents are just 7 for 22 converting fourth-down attempts (top 25 nationally).

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Charleston Southern’s offense has a 65.1% Red Zone TD rate. The Bulldogs have a defensive Red Zone TD rate of 52.6%. Of the Buccaneers’ 28 Red Zone TDs, 20 have been via the rush.

CCU opponents have a Red Zone TD rate of 57.1%. The Citadel’s offense has a Red Zone TD rate of 61.5%. Of the 32 touchdowns the Bulldogs have scored on Red Zone possessions, 30 have been rushing TDs.

The Citadel is +9 in turnover margin (gained 29, lost 20). Charleston Southern’s turnover margin is +3 (gained 13, lost 10). CSU ranks in the FCS top 10 in fewest turnovers given up.

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Charleston Southern is 7 for 13 on field goal attempts (33-38 on PATs). The Citadel is 14 for 18 on FG tries (44-45 PATs).

The Citadel has a net punting average of 36.1; CSU’s is 32.9.

The Bulldogs have 31 touchbacks on 74 kickoffs, while the Buccaneers have 8 touchbacks on 56 kickoffs. The Citadel has an edge of 5.2 net yards in kickoff coverage.

Charleston Southern has averaged 19.3 yards per kick return. The Citadel’s average per KO return is 23.0.

CSU has averaged 15.5 yards per punt return, which is ninth-best in FCS and tops in the Big South. The Citadel (5.0 yards per return) ranks last in the SoCon in that statistic.

Charleston Southern has averaged 34:17 in time of possession per game. The Bulldogs have also controlled the clock, but not to that same extent (31:56).

The Buccaneers are averaging 68.2 offensive plays from scrimmage per game, with a very slow 1.99 plays-per-minute rate. The Citadel is averaging 69.5 plays per game, with a plays-per-minute rate of 2.18.

Charleston Southern is averaging 6.5 penalties per game (53.0 penalty yards per contest). Opponents of the Bucs are called for slightly fewer penalties (5.2 per contest, 46.3 penalty yards/game).

The Citadel has been called for 5.8 penalties per game (50.2 penalty yards per contest). Opponents of the Bulldogs have been flagged just 4.7 times per contest (36.8 penalty yards per game).

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Note: individual statistics are for all games.

Austin Brown (6’1″, 207 lbs.) has seen the lion’s share of snaps for the Bucs at quarterback. He is completing 56.5% of his passes, with 11 TD tosses against 5 interceptions.

Charleston Southern had two running backs rush for 100+ yards against The Citadel in the last matchup. Darius Hammond (5’10”, 192 lbs.) leads the team in rushing, averaging 5.9 yards per carry. He is also a threat at returning punts (having taken one back for a TD versus the Bulldogs last season).

Mike Holloway (5’8″, 195 lbs.) rushed for 172 yards and 3 TDs against The Citadel in September. A third running back, Ben Robinson (5’7″, 183 lbs.), is averaging 6.7 yards per carry.

Charleston Southern’s projected starters on the offensive line averages 6’2″, 283 lbs.

Left tackle Erik Austell (6’3″, 285 lbs.) was a first team All-Big South pick. Fellow tackle Benny Timmons (6’2″, 300 lbs.) and center Jackson Williamson (6’0″, 285 lbs.) were second-team all-league selections.

However, Austell is not listed on the current two-deep after suffering an injury late in the season against Kennesaw State. Timmons has moved from right to left tackle.

Tight end Nathan Prater is 6’8″, and is from Ninety Six, South Carolina.

It is a requirement for me to lament that he does not wear #96 (for his hometown) or #68 (for his height). Instead, he wears #81. So, so disappointing.

Prater and starting wide receivers Kevin Glears (6’0″, 185 lbs.) and Nathan Perera (6’3″, 210 lbs.) are all sixth-year players. Perera was an all-Big South pick in 2011 before suffering knee and shoulder injuries. He has been targeted a lot late in the season, and is averaging 15.1 yards per reception.

Another starting wideout, Colton Korn, is the player to watch on 3rd down. He moves the chains (and had eight receptions earlier this season against The Citadel). His brother, Willy Korn, is the wide receivers coach at CSU (and whose star-crossed career at Clemson has been well-chronicled).

Another receiver to watch is Kenny Dinkins (5’10”, 185 lbs.), a speedster who had 114 receiving yards against Liberty.

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Charleston Southern generally plays a 3-4 defense, but will throw out multiple looks against the Bulldogs’ triple option attack.

Weakside linebacker Aaron Brown, a first-team all-conference pick, leads the Buccaneers in tackles. Brown scored a touchdown against North Greenville in the opener, a 53-yard play that was technically a fumble return after NGU bungled a punt.

Middle linebacker Zane Cruz (6’2″, 215 lbs.) is second on the team in tackles. Fifth-year senior Zack Johnson (6’0″, 200 lbs.) is the “spur” linebacker. He is third on the team in tackles for loss.

The “bandit” linebacker, Solomon Brown (6’1″, 220 lbs.) was the Big South Freshman of the Year. He is second on the team in sacks (5) and tackles for loss (10).

Defensive end Anthony Ellis (6’1″, 245 lbs.) led the team in sacks (6.5) and tackles for loss (14). He was also a first-team all-league selection.

The four starters in the secondary have combined to make 89 career starts. Thirty of those are by cornerback and All-Big South pick Malcolm Jackson (5’11”, 180 lbs.).

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Truett Burns (6’0″, 172 lbs.) is in his third year as Charleston Southern’s starting punter. The junior usually employs a “rugby” style of punting.

This year, he is averaging 35.8 yards per punt, with 15 of his 44 punts landing inside the 20 (against one touchback).

Tyler Tekac (6’0″, 180 lbs.) is now CSU’s placekicker. The freshman is 7-11 on field goal attempts, with a long of 40 yards. He is 21-24 on PATs.

Joseph Smith (6’3″, 200 lbs.) is the all-Big South long snapper. Not every league has an all-conference place for a long snapper; good for him.

As mentioned earlier, Darius Hammond is Charleston Southern’s punt returner, and he is an all-league performer in that role. Hammond is also CSU’s primary kick returner.

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Odds and ends:

– Charleston Southern has 36 players on its roster from South Carolina, 19 from Georgia, 16 from Florida, two from North Carolina, and one each from Virginia, Texas, and California.

Note: those numbers are what I compiled back in September. The current numerical roster only lists 61 players (presumably the “playoff roster”, as per NCAA rules).

– This will be the third consecutive meeting between the two schools in which Charleston Southern has had extra days to prepare. The previous two matchups came after CSU played Thursday night contests the week before.

– Per one source that deals in such matters, Charleston Southern is a 3-point favorite over The Citadel. The over/under is 52.5. For those who follow such things, the line actually opened on Monday afternoon as a pick’em, so the money is coming in on the Bucs’ side. Admittedly, I don’t think it would take a great deal of cash to swing an FCS line.

Other lines for FCS playoff games: William & Mary-Richmond is a pick’em; JMU is favored by 20.5 over Colgate; Jacksonville State is a 7-point favorite over Chattanooga; Illinois State is a 15.5-point favorite over Western Illinois; North Dakota State is a 9-point favorite over Montana; McNeese State is a 4.5-point favorite over Sam Houston State; and Northern Iowa is a 4-point road favorite at Portland State.

Portland State is 9-2, has beaten two FBS teams (including Washington State), is playing at home after getting a bye…and it’s a 4-point underdog to a four-loss team that is travelling halfway across the country.

[Lee Corso voice] Somebody knows somethin’ [/Lee Corso voice]

– Among FCS teams, The Citadel is 6th in this week’s Massey Ratings. Other FCS ratings of note: Chattanooga, 8th; Charleston Southern, 11th.

The top 5 in the Massey Ratings are (in order) Illinois State, North Dakota State, Jacksonville State, Northern Iowa, and Dartmouth. Harvard is 7th, so The Citadel is sandwiched between two Ivy League schools.

– The weather forecast for Saturday in North Charleston, according to the National Weather Service: sunny, with a high around 63 degrees.

– Do you think North Charleston mayor Keith Summey gets upset that the folks at Charleston Southern are always trying to suggest the school is located in Charleston? There are constant attempts to tie in a rivalry with The Citadel and/or College of Charleston by making references like “intra-city”, “inner city”, “cross town”, etc.

I’ve wondered about this at times. After all, he’s a Baptist College (now CSU) graduate.

– I just wanted to note that Tevin Floyd and Dominique Allen were both on point at the presser this week, particularly Allen. Excellent job, guys.

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For personal reasons not related to the gridiron (or the locale), I’m not sure I’ll be at the game on Saturday. It would be the first time I haven’t seen a playoff game involving The Citadel in person.

If I’m not there, I’ll be watching it on ESPN3. I’ll almost certainly have a better view of the action if I’m not at the game, which is ridiculous, but also true.

One thing I remember from the contest The Citadel played in North Charleston last season was how poor the sightlines were on the visitors side, even for the seated areas. That’s because the bleachers are on flat ground, and fans are separated from the action by a fence, a track, and the players and coaches lining the sideline.

Of course, most of the visiting fans won’t even be lucky enough to have seats.

I have had several people I know, Bulldog fans who have each attended dozens (if not hundreds) of home and away games over the years, tell me they aren’t going to the game specifically because they want to actually watch the game.

The setting for the matchup was described earlier this week by a Bulldog supporter as a potential “mosh pit”. That particular individual was actually being positive in his assessment, but I’m too old and decrepit to enjoy what may wind up being a scene vaguely resembling the infield at the Kentucky Derby (albeit with more discreet alcohol consumption). So if I can’t make it, I’m not going to be all that upset.

I just hope nothing really bad happens.

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As for the game itself, I don’t have any idea what to expect.

I was really surprised (and pleased) at how dominant The Citadel was on the ground against Coastal Carolina. I thought the Bulldogs would move the ball, but I certainly wasn’t expecting 500+ rushing yards.

Coastal Carolina isn’t that bad a defensive team. CSU has a better defense than the Chanticleers, but it is hard to imagine The Citadel struggling in this game like it did offensively back in September. I think the Bulldogs’ O has come of age since then.

I mentioned the 3rd-down conversion statistic earlier. Maintaining long drives is going to be a big factor for both teams. So are turnovers and penalties (the Bulldogs were hurt by untimely flags in the first meeting).

The Bulldogs better be extra-careful on kickoff and punt coverage on Saturday, especially punts. (Potential solution: don’t punt; embrace the Kevin Kelley school of coaching.)

Will the Bulldogs be tired after a long season and another road game? Will the Buccaneers be off their rhythm after a week off?

I don’t know, and nobody else does either.

That’s why we watch the games.

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2015 Football, Game 4: The Citadel vs. Charleston Southern

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel vs. Charleston Southern, to be played at historic Johnson Hagood Stadium, with kickoff at 6:00 pm ET on Saturday, September 26. The game will not be televised.

The contest will be streamed on ESPN3.com, with Kevin Fitzgerald providing play-by-play and Sadath Jean-Pierre supplying the analysis.

The game can be heard on radio via the various affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station. WQNT will have a two-hour pregame show prior to each home football game. 

Mike Legg (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze. Jay Harper will report from the sidelines; he will host the first hour of the pregame show as well.

It is also possible to listen to the action with a smartphone, using a TuneIn Radio application.

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Links of interest:

– Preview of Charleston Southern-The Citadel from The Post and Courier

– Game notes from The Citadel and Charleston Southern

– SoCon weekly release

– Big South weekly release

– Mike Houston on the SoCon teleconference

– Jamey Chadwell on the Big South teleconference

– Mike Houston’s 9/22 press conference (with comments from James Riley and Eric Goins)

– The Mike Houston Show (radio)

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The preview in The Post and Courier largely focused on the future of the series between The Citadel and Charleston Southern.

It is a topic that is vaguely reminiscent of last year’s kerfuffle over basketball scheduling between the two schools (along with the College of Charleston). It’s not quite the same thing, though there are obvious parallels.

Like the hoops situation, local media has seized on this issue, with carryover on Twitter. And like the hoops situation, the issue has been largely misrepresented.

There are two entities that appear to desperately want The Citadel and Charleston Southern to be an annual “rivalry” game. One is Charleston Southern. The other is the Lowcountry media.

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Watching Mike Houston’s weekly press conference, I shook my head at some of the questions he was asked. I have to say I am disappointed in certain members of the press corps, who should know better. Houston did a fine job handling quite a bit of nonsense.

First, WCIV-TV’s Scott Eisberg tried to draw a reaction from Houston over the t-shirt Jamey Chadwell wore at the postgame presser after last year’s game, but the coach wouldn’t bite (“I’m not going to get into all that”).

Gene Sapakoff, sports columnist for The Post and Courier, then asked a reasonable question about recruiting, but followed that up with a “please write my column for me” query/comment about alumni interest in the matchup.

Houston correctly observed that alumni care about every game. (On his radio show the next day, Houston reinforced this point by telling a story about an alum who informed the coach in the offseason that the Bulldogs really needed to beat Western Carolina this year.)

Later, Eisberg tried another angle, one that got quickly batted away by Houston:

– Eisberg: “Not a more to lose game, but a lot of people would expect The Citadel to win this game being the bigger school and everything like that…”

– Houston: “I may be wrong, but I think their enrollment is bigger than ours [it is]. I’m pretty sure [about that], so as far as ‘bigger school’, I don’t exactly [know what you mean], because I think they are actually the larger institution.”

– Eisberg: “…[indecipherable noises] budget and stadium, and I mean…tradition of the program and stuff like that.”

– Houston: “Well, they are an FCS program that offers the same number of scholarships that we do. They do a good job coaching and recruiting…”

—

A couple of minutes after that, Houston concluded his portion of the press conference. James Riley then strode to the podium and (after an initial series of questions from Jeff Hartsell) got this incredible query from Sapakoff:

Jay – James, like coach was saying, um, he kinda implied that they are sort of like an equal, I mean, do you see them as kind of an equal competitor, or something beneath you as far as a smaller school?

Let’s review. In one rambling question, Sapakoff:

  • Asked a player if he flatly disagreed with a statement the player’s coach had just made about an opponent
  • Tried to get a bulletin board comment (when there had been no suggestion that the player had a particular animus against the opponent, or any opponent for that matter)
  • Made an erroneous statement while asking the question
  • Made an erroneous statement while asking the question, after another reporter had already been corrected for making an erroneous statement on the same topic less than five minutes before

Riley, to his credit, didn’t even blink, giving as respectful and polite an answer (“Uh, no, I never take an opponent lightly, no matter who we are playing…”) as could be expected under the circumstances.

Sapakoff then asked Riley to compare Charleston Southern to other SoCon schools, “particularly Furman and Wofford”. Why, I have no idea. Riley, a bit puzzled (and no wonder), noted that they ran different schemes.

The columnist then tried to bait the senior linebacker for a third time with another question about losing to Charleston Southern, and again Sapakoff did not get the answer he seemed to want.

Really, the SoCon should give a special Player of the Week Award to James Riley for handling that absurd (if not contemptible) line of questioning with considerable grace.

The media has a job to do, which is understood by all parties involved. Goading players and coaches in the hopes one of them may make an inflammatory comment is not supposed to be part of that job. It was, collectively, an embarrassing performance by the fourth estate.

—

Given all that, it seems the perspective of The Citadel when it comes to playing Charleston Southern isn’t likely to get equal time.

So, I’ll explain some of the issues in this post. I’ve discussed a few of these things before, but I’ll go over them again just for the sake of completeness.

—

Charleston Southern wants to play The Citadel on an annual basis, possibly for ease of scheduling, partly for recruiting, but mostly to escape being the Lowcountry’s “red-headed stepchild” (a comment Jamey Chadwell made prior to last year’s contest).

All of that is understandable. It is also understandable if Charleston Southern will only play The Citadel in a home-and-home series going forward.

If it is not in the best interests of CSU to play The Citadel only at Johnson Hagood Stadium, then Charleston Southern shouldn’t do so. That’s a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

However, The Citadel has to do what is best for The Citadel. Playing a home-and-home series against Charleston Southern is not what is best for The Citadel.

It is nice that CSU is finally making improvements to its football facility. It should have happened many years ago.

However, The Citadel’s future scheduling is too restrictive to have an annual home-and-home series with Charleston Southern, even if CSU finally has an acceptable stadium.

—

That is the real problem. Naturally, it hasn’t received enough attention, or has been discounted as a factor — when, in fact, it is a key issue.

FCS schools will play an 11-game regular season schedule every year until 2019 (when FCS teams can schedule 12 games, as was the option in 2013 and 2014). After 2019, there won’t be another 12-game schedule opportunity for FCS programs until 2024.

Beginning next season, the number of SoCon games on the slate will increase from seven to eight, as East Tennessee State begins league play. That leaves three non-conference games per season for The Citadel. One of those three contests will almost certainly always be a “money game” against FBS opposition (unless those games come to an end, but that’s another issue and at least several years down the road anyway).

In 2016, the Bulldogs play at North Carolina. In 2017, The Citadel will play at South Carolina (the second game in three years against the Gamecocks).

This leaves two games on The Citadel’s schedule each year. One of them has to be a “designated home game” — in other words, a game in which the opposing school does not get a return game at its place. That’s to ensure there are at least five home games at Johnson Hagood Stadium every season.

The other game is what I call a “flex game”. It could be a non-conference home-and-home with another FCS school, or a matchup with another FBS program. While the latter possibility may not be as likely, there are scenarios in which The Citadel would take a second FBS game (especially if it were against Army or Navy).

Charleston Southern could play The Citadel every year in the “designated home game” at Johnson Hagood Stadium. However, it would not be in the best interests of The Citadel to hamstring its future scheduling by eliminating the “flex game” to play an annual home-and-home series versus CSU.

The Citadel needs the flexibility of that spot on its schedule to pursue opportunities that could be of significant benefit to the school and its football program, whether a “bonus” money game, a matchup with a service academy, or perhaps a home-and-home with a team outside the region.

It is generally more expensive to play a home-and-home against an FCS school in another part of the country, but there are significant ancillary benefits to doing so. They include exposing the school to a wider audience, and reconnecting with certain parts of The Citadel’s widely-spread alumni base.

That is something I distinctly remember about attending The Citadel’s game at Princeton. It was an excellent public/alumni relations event for the military college. I also remember the surprisingly large contingent of Bulldog supporters who showed up for that contest.

—

I’ll go further, actually, and say something a lot of people aren’t going to like. The Citadel derives little benefit from playing Charleston Southern, even when the game is played at Johnson Hagood Stadium.

(There are supporters of The Citadel who would say that “little benefit” in the previous sentence could be changed to “no benefit”, and a few who would argue that the series is a net negative for The Citadel. I won’t go quite that far, but it is a point of view that is not without merit.)

If the Bulldogs win the game, it’s because they are “supposed to win”. After all, The Citadel is the “bigger school”, according to our friends in the press corps.

If they lose, it is billed as the triumph of a plucky “smaller school” over a big, hulking, undoubtedly super-evil monster of a football factory. The empire has been defeated! All the ewoks can dance!

In addition, this is not a series The Citadel’s alumni base cares about, by and large.

Yes, I know that Charleston Southern’s football program is not what it was 15 years ago, or even five years ago. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that.

When it comes to generating interest among supporters of The Citadel, though, that doesn’t really matter much, and there isn’t a whole lot CSU can do about it.

When my father graduated from The Citadel, Charleston Southern didn’t exist. When I graduated from The Citadel, it wasn’t called Charleston Southern (and did not have a football team). I think that for many of The Citadel’s alums, there is little familiarity with Charleston Southern’s football program, and next to no enthusiasm about the schools playing each other.

The Citadel has two primary rivals in football, Furman and VMI. Furman and The Citadel have been playing each other for over 100 years, and competing in the same league continuously for more than eight decades. The gridiron series with VMI is almost as long and is between two schools with a good deal in common.

Charleston Southern and The Citadel have little in common. One is a private school affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and has existed for just over 50 years; the other is a public military college that will soon celebrate its quartoseptcentennial.

Then there is the fact that The Citadel has never received a major attendance bump when Charleston Southern comes to town, which might come as a surprise to some people.

In seven games between the two schools at Johnson Hagood Stadium, the average attendance has been 13,202. The average game attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium in those years when the schools played? 14,153.

The games versus CSU actually lowered the average attendance numbers for The Citadel for five of the seven seasons in which they were played, including the most recent meeting in 2013.

That is perhaps less of a shock when Charleston Southern’s home attendance numbers are taken into consideration. CSU’s average home attendance through two games this season (caveat: both games were Thursday night affairs) is 3,576.

Last year CSU drew just over 4,000 for its Homecoming game against Presbyterian, the largest attendance it had for any game in 2014 aside from the one against The Citadel, when the announced attendance was 7,954 (but the actual attendance, in my opinion, was closer to 5,500).

That isn’t to say Charleston Southern has no fans. They do, and a few of them really don’t like it when you explain why playing a home-and-home doesn’t work for The Citadel. One of them told me via Twitter that the real reason The Citadel didn’t want to play had to do with an “elitist attitude & inflated self perception. You’re not what u used to be.”

His comment was ‘favorited’ by several CSU players, including starting wide receiver Colton Korn. I don’t know if the players are agreeing with the notion that current Bulldog players have an elitist attitude and aren’t as good as those from teams of the past, if they are just saying that about Bulldog supporters, or both. With Twitter, nuance can be difficult.

—

Okay, let’s talk about the game on Saturday…

Here is a comparison of The Citadel and Charleston Southern in select statistical categories for the 2014 season.

Incidentally, this will probably be the last post in which I use 2014 as a reference in this section; for the rest of the season, I’ll likely use up-to-date 2015 statistics, because at least by then we’ll have enough games to make those numbers at least somewhat relevant.

As usual, The Citadel’s stats in the table below are for SoCon games only (seven contests). Those opponents: Wofford, Chattanooga, Western Carolina, Mercer, Furman, Samford, and VMI.

For Charleston Southern, I included ten of the Buccaneers’ twelve games. I decided not to include statistics from CSU’s victory over Point, or its loss to Georgia. Those two games weren’t really indicative of how Charleston Southern played over the course of the 2014 campaign.

Thus, the statistics below for CSU are for ten games against the following opponents: Newberry, Campbell, The Citadel, Charlotte, Vanderbilt, Presbyterian, Coastal Carolina, Monmouth, Gardner-Webb, and Liberty.

(Note: I couldn’t come up with defensive red zone TD% numbers for Charleston Southern in 2014. If I eventually find them, I’ll include them in the table.)

 

Charleston Southern The Citadel
Offense yards/pass attempt 7.6 6.8
Offense yards/rush attempt 4.87 5.35
Offense yards per play 5.83 5.56
Offense points per game 27.10 24.86
Penalties per game 7.0 5.3
Offense 3rd down conv % 42.2 46.3
Offense 4th down conv % 43.8 60.0
Offense Red Zone TD% 50.0 66.7
Defense yards/pass attempt 7.4 9.1
Defense yards/rush attempt 4.10 5.69
Defense yards allowed/play 5.50 7.02
Defense points allowed/game 20.0 25.86
Defense 3rd down conv % 31.1 41.5
Defense 4th down conv % 50.0 52.9
Defense Red Zone TD%  — 60.0
Time of possession 34:24 32:40

 

I think that defensive 3rd-down conversion rate really stands out. CSU finished 19th in the category in FCS last year (counting all games).

Just as a point of comparison, Clemson led FBS last season in defensive third down conversion rate, at 27.4%. A rate of 31.1% would have been good enough to finish eighth nationally in that division.

—

Note: statistics below referencing Charleston Southern’s 2014 season are for all twelve games of that campaign.

Last season, Charleston Southern threw the ball 33.8% of the time in its spread option attack. Passing yardage accounted for 43.2% of the Buccaneers’ total offense.

Through three games this year, CSU’s passing yardage accounts for 33.1% of its total offense; the Bucs are throwing the ball on 31.1% of their offensive plays from scrimmage.

Charleston Southern has a lot of experience on offense, and that includes the quarterback position.

Austin Brown transferred from UAB two seasons ago; he started last year’s game against The Citadel and the first two games of this season. Last week, sophomore Kyle Copeland replaced an injured Brown and led the Buccaneers to a 47-7 victory over East Tennessee State.

There is a good chance both will play on Saturday. Brown is completing 46.4% of his passes, averaging 3.25 yards per attempt (the Bucs’ game against Troy hurt him in the yards/attempt category). He has one TD toss and no interceptions.

Copeland is completing a higher percentage of his throws (55.9%), averaging 8.56 yards per attempt, with 3 TDs and no picks. He has also rushed for 115 yards in three games.

However, the primary threat on the ground for Charleston Southern so far this season is running back Darius Hammond. He had 161 yards rushing against Troy (on 23 carries). Hammond is also the Bucs’ punt returner, and he took one back 74 yards for a TD last year versus The Citadel.

The other starting running back, Ben Robinson, had 127 rushing yards and 2 TDs in CSU’s opener against North Greenville. Robinson did not play last week versus ETSU, but is listed as a starter on the current two-deep.

Charleston Southern’s starting offensive line averages 6’2″, 287 lbs. It is a veteran group for the most part.

Left tackle Erik Austell was a preseason All-Big South selection. The right tackle, Benny Timmons, leads all active CSU players in career starts, with 29.

Tight end Nathan Prater is 6’8″, and caught three touchdown passes last season. Prater is from Ninety Six, South Carolina.

He could wear #96 for his hometown, or #68 for his height. Instead, he wears #81. Clearly a missed opportunity.

Prater and starting wide receivers Kevin Glears and Nathan Perera all have something in common besides being pass-catchers for the Buccaneers — they’re all sixth-year players. Perera was an all-Big South pick in 2011 before suffering knee and shoulder injuries.

Another starting wideout, Colton Korn, specializes in moving the chains, with 21 of his 27 receptions last season resulting in a first down. His brother, Willy Korn, is the wide receivers coach at Charleston Southern (and was at one time a well-known high school recruit who had a star-crossed career at Clemson).

Larry Jones III was the Big South Freshman of the Year in 2012 but missed all of last season with a knee injury. Jones has six receptions this season, second on the team to Perera (who has eight catches).

—

Charleston Southern usually plays a 3-4 defense. Against The Citadel, however, the Buccaneers will probably feature at least two, and probably three fronts. That was the case in both the 2013 and 2014 meetings.

Most of CSU’s experience on defense is concentrated in the secondary and in the linebacking corps.

Weakside linebacker Aaron Brown was an all-Big South choice last season after making 81 tackles. Not surprisingly, he leads the team in tackles this year, with 13 (including three for loss). Brown scored a touchdown against North Greenville in the opener, a 53-yard play that was technically a fumble return after NGU bungled a punt.

Fifth-year senior Zach Johnson is the “spur” linebacker, and no longer will be confused with former teammate (and fellow linebacker) Zac Johnston.

The Bucs have experienced cornerbacks, though preseason all-Big South pick Troy McGowens did not play in the team’s first two games. He did return against ETSU and recorded two sacks. True freshman Shadarius Hopkins has started all three games in McGowens’ stead and is listed as the starter this week as well.

The other cornerback is Malcolm Jackson, a team captain who had four interceptions last season. He is tied for second on the squad in tackles through three games this year.

Another Jackson in the CSU defensive backfield is Corbin Jackson. The free safety has 14 career starts.

Strong safety D.J. Curl has played in 24 games for Charleston Southern. His backup, Larenzo Mathis, returned an interception 87 yards for a TD against ETSU. Last year, Mathis had a blocked punt/TD return against Vanderbilt.

Caleb Batchelor was a regular in the Bucs’ d-line rotation last season. This year, he’s the starting nosetackle. Anthony Ellis, a native of Florida, has started all three games this season at defensive end after playing sparingly as a freshman.

—

Truett Burns is in his third year as Charleston Southern’s starting punter. He usually employs a “rugby” style of punting, and last season dropped 16 of his 54 punts inside the 20-yard line.

This year, he is averaging 35.2 yards per punt, with 5 of his 13 punts landing inside the 20.

Summerville resident Bryan Jordan is CSU’s placekicker. He is 0-2 on field goal attempts so far this season after serving primarily as a kickoff specialist last year, and also missed an extra point last week. His backup, David Kennedy, was 11-18 last season attempting field goals (including two successful kicks against The Citadel).

Jamey Chadwell expressed some concern about that aspect of the Bucs’ kicking game during the Big South media teleconference.

Long snapper Joseph Smith is from Easley. As I noted last year, Smith began his collegiate career at Delta State, where his coach was Jamey Chadwell. When the coach took the Charleston Southern job, Smith moved back to South Carolina to continue his football career with Chadwell.

As mentioned earlier, Darius Hammond is Charleston Southern’s punt returner. Hammond also returns kickoffs, as does Shadarius Hopkins.

—

I haven’t written anything about the Georgia Southern game to this point. Usually when I don’t have a “game review” post (which is what generally happens when I don’t attend the contest in question), I discuss the previous game early in the following preview.

I didn’t do that this week because I wanted to jump right into the issues surrounding the Charleston Southern game/series. Also, I don’t really have a lot to say about the matchup with Georgia Southern.

It was a fairly simple contest to analyze. The Citadel made several mistakes early in the game it could not afford to make, and paid for them in full, which tends to happen when facing an FBS squad. Once that ball gets rolling downhill, it’s not going to stop.

I was disappointed in the performance, but I’m also not too worried about it. My only concern is that the players don’t lose any of the confidence they gained in the first two games of the season. I trust the coaching staff to make sure that doesn’t happen.

—

Odds and ends:

– On Friday, The Citadel will enshrine the newest class in its athletic Hall of Fame. Baseball players Mike Pendleton and Randy Corn will be inducted, as will swimmer Milton Williams and honorary member Dr. John “Turkey” Moore.

They will be joined by Dr. Stephanie McNeill, a track and field star who will be the first woman enshrined in the Hall. Congratulations to all the honorees.

– Charleston Southern has 36 players on its roster from South Carolina, 19 from Georgia, 16 from Florida, two from North Carolina, and one each from Virginia, Texas, and California.

– This will be the second consecutive season that Charleston Southern has played a Thursday night home game in the week before it plays The Citadel.

– The front page of CSU’s game notes mentions that The Citadel and Charleston will not play next season. Just to make sure anyone reading didn’t miss that factoid, it was noted twice on the front page.

– Per one source that deals in such matters, The Citadel is a 6 1/2 point favorite over Charleston Southern this week. The over/under is 51.

That line really surprised me, to be honest. I would have guessed something like CSU -3, not that I’m a gambling expert or anything.

– Another game at Johnson Hagood Stadium, another somewhat ominous weather forecast. As of this writing, the National Weather Services is projecting a 50% chance of rain in Charleston on Saturday during the day, and 30% at night.

– Speaking of gray, the Bulldogs will be wearing all-gray uniforms for this game. I’m not excited about that, but it was inevitable.

Fans are supposed to wear light blue.

—

I think the game on Saturday will be competitive and close.

One thing that might be worth watching is time of possession. Both of these teams want to control the ball. Last year, Charleston Southern won that battle.

This year, The Citadel’s defense has to get off the field on third down. Conversely, the Bulldogs’ offense must sustain drives, particularly early in the game (last year on third down, The Citadel was only 4-14).

The Citadel must also avoid the turnover bug that cropped up against Georgia Southern (and to a certain extent in the Western Carolina game as well). That’s even more important in a game in which each team will probably have no more than 12 possessions (the Bulldogs had 10 in last season’s contest).

I don’t have to even discuss the special teams issues The Citadel had in last year’s matchup. That part of the game has to dramatically improve.

—

I hope the Bulldogs are ready to play on Saturday, rain or shine. Looks like rain, alas.

I’ll be there anyway.

 

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Game review, 2014: Charleston Southern

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Sandlapper Spike

Links of interest:

Game story, The Post and Courier

“Notes” column, The Post and Courier

School release

Box score

—

Brief comments:

– While I wasn’t surprised the Bulldogs lost, I was disappointed in how they played. They weren’t disciplined or sharp enough on Saturday night.

Special teams play reared its ugly head again, allowing a punt return TD (and was very lucky on the field goal, as it was tipped). Defensively, The Citadel allowed too many long third down conversions, including three of nine yards or more.

On offense, the Bulldogs were just 4 of 14 on third downs, not good enough for a triple option team, and evidence of a lack of success on first and second downs. Of the fourteen 3rd-down plays, eight of them were 3rd-and-7 or longer.

There were too many penalties, including multiple drive-killers (though I thought the Bulldogs were hosed at least twice by the officials on that front). The Citadel also had two lost fumbles, both costly.

– Speaking of turnovers, through three games the Bulldog D has yet to force one. No interceptions, no recovered fumbles (and only one forced fumble).

In addition, The Citadel only has three quarterback sacks so far this season. The Bulldogs have been credited with five pass breakups in 91 opponent pass attempts (5.5%). The lack of sacks and pass breakups goes a long way to explaining why Bulldog opponents are completing 71.4% of their passes.

By contrast, The Citadel has only completed 24.2% of its passes (8-33). The Bulldogs aren’t going to complete an exceptionally high percentage of passes in the triple option, but they must be better than 24%. Much better.

– I thought Mike Houston made a mistake early in the game. On the opening drive, with 4th-and-1 on the CSU 46, he decided to punt.

That’s not the percentage play, especially for the triple option offense. He let the visiting crowd down early with that call.

I’ll delve into a few more numbers when I preview the Gardner-Webb game later in the week.

—

Now I’m going to talk about (well, write about) the game location and future scheduling, since this has been a topic of discussion. I suspect not everyone is going to be happy with what I’m going to say.

I will preface what follows by stating the obvious: I’m not an insider. There may be more to this subject than I know. I would be shocked if that weren’t the case.

So, massive caveats and all that…

First, here is my preview of the CSU game from last week, which has some background: Link

—

Apparently as part of the two-year contract, The Citadel will not pay Charleston Southern any money for playing at Johnson Hagood Stadium next year. That is not a good enough reason to have made the deal, from my vantage point.

Charleston Southern presumably wants to play The Citadel on an annual basis, and home-and-home. The announced crowd for the game on Saturday was 7,954.

I think the actual attendance was probably closer to 5,500, which is nothing to apologize about, but not really that close to the 12,000-13,000 for the previous games held at Johnson Hagood Stadium. For the attendance to have been close to 8,000 fans, that would have meant at least 3,300 people would have been lined up (or in their cars/trucks) around the fence enclosing the track.

Also, that’s assuming there were 4,700 seats available at Buccaneer Field in the first place. I suspect it was more like 4,262, based on previous information released by the school.

There weren’t 3,300 people milling about around that fence.

Charleston Southern coach Jamey Chadwell emerged from the locker room Saturday night wearing a smile and a T-shirt with a message.

“Charleston, it’s Southern’s City,” read the shirt…

…”In this city and for what we are trying to make with this rivalry, it’s big on that end,” said Chadwell.

This message was also sent in a Thursday column by The Post and Courier‘s Gene Sapakoff that might as well have been ghost-written by the CSU administration. He concluded his column by implicitly wishing for a Buccaneer victory on Saturday night, but I want to highlight this statement instead:

This is a good game for the Lowcountry and there is no reason it shouldn’t continue on an annual basis well beyond a scheduled meeting next year at The Citadel. It makes financial sense for a pair of cash-strapped programs 16 miles apart.

I think it’s debatable whether or not the matchup is a “good game for the Lowcountry”. That suggests the Lowcountry awaits the matchup with tremendous anticipation. There is nothing the Lowcountry really awaits with tremendous anticipation, with the possible exception of local school board meetings.

(It also seems at odds with Sapakoff’s insistence in recent years that what the Lowcountry is really desperate for is another Clemson-South Carolina baseball game at Riley Park, but that’s another story.)

However, let’s assume it is a good game for the Lowcountry. If that were the case, and if it “makes financial sense for a pair of cash-strapped programs”, then why would anyone want to ever play it at the much smaller stadium?

I estimate between 2,000-2,500 fans of The Citadel were at the game on Saturday. It was an exceptionally good turnout considering the circumstances (including threatening weather). If the game had been held at Johnson Hagood Stadium, there probably would have been about 9,000-10,000 Bulldog supporters.

—

I gather folks at CSU would prefer a regular, or at least semi-regular, home-and-home series (and if I’m wrong about that, I apologize in advance for making an incorrect assumption).

They would want it for recruiting, and also to erase the stigma of being “the red-headed stepchild” on a local level (Jamey Chadwell made that comment during the Big South teleconference).

I understand that. I also understand that if The Citadel tells CSU it only will play future games at Johnson Hagood Stadium, CSU may not be interested, especially if a much larger guarantee is not part of the equation. If it’s not in the best interests of Charleston Southern to play The Citadel only at JHS, then Charleston Southern shouldn’t play The Citadel there.

My position is simple. I care about what is best for The Citadel.

There are at least two major problems with playing at CSU, in my opinion:

1) Charleston Southern’s facility is simply not of Division I caliber

It does not benefit The Citadel’s football program to play a non-conference road game at Buccaneer Field. It is not beneficial to The Citadel in recruiting. It is not beneficial to The Citadel’s fan base.

The Citadel may have made a short-term financial gain by playing at CSU on Saturday, but school administrators should be thinking about the long-term impact on the football program.

I also want to repeat something I said on Twitter, which is that quite honestly Jamey Chadwell and his players deserve better than what they have right now in North Charleston.

2) The Citadel’s future scheduling is too restrictive to have an annual home-and-home series with Charleston Southern

This is something that doesn’t always get mentioned, so I probably need to explain it in some detail.

Next year, FCS schools will revert back to an 11-game regular season schedule. That will be the case until 2019 (when FCS teams can schedule 12 games, as was the option in 2013 and 2014). After 2019, there won’t be another 12-game schedule opportunity for FCS programs until 2024.

In 2015, The Citadel will play seven SoCon games and four non-conference games: home against Charleston Southern (the second game of the current contract), home against Davidson, and road games versus Georgia Southern and South Carolina.

Beginning in 2016, the number of SoCon games on the slate will increase from seven to eight, as East Tennessee State begins league play. That leaves three non-conference games per season. One of those three will almost certainly always be a “money game” against FBS opposition (unless those games come to an end, which I tend to doubt, but that’s another issue).

In 2016, the Bulldogs are tentatively scheduled to play at North Carolina. In 2017, The Citadel will play at South Carolina.

This leaves two games on The Citadel’s schedule each year. One of them has to be a “designated home game” — in other words, a game in which the opposing school does not get a return game at its place. That’s to ensure there are at least five home games at Johnson Hagood Stadium every season.

The other game is what I will call a “flex game”. It could be a non-conference home-and-home with another FCS school, or a matchup with another FBS program. While the latter possibility may not be as likely, there are scenarios in which The Citadel would gladly take a second FBS game (especially if it were against Army or Navy).

Charleston Southern could play The Citadel every year in the “designated home game” at Johnson Hagood Stadium. However, it would not be in the best interests of The Citadel to hamstring its future scheduling by eliminating the “flex game” to play an annual home-and-home series versus CSU.

The Citadel needs the flexibility of that game to pursue opportunities that could be of significant benefit to the school and its football program, whether a “bonus” money game, a matchup with a service academy, or perhaps a home-and-home with a team outside the region.

While it is more expensive to play a home-and-home against an FCS school in another part of the country, there are important ancillary benefits to occasionally doing so. They include exposing the school to a wider audience, and reconnecting with certain parts of The Citadel’s far-flung alumni base.

I remember attending The Citadel’s game at Princeton. It was an excellent public/alumni relations event for the military college (even with the Princeton band’s, uh, involvement). I also remember the large contingent of Bulldog supporters who showed up for that contest, probably more than attended the game at Buccaneer Field on Saturday night.

Because of those considerations, among other things, I don’t see a home-and-home with CSU going forward as practical or beneficial for The Citadel.

Again, if Charleston Southern won’t play The Citadel without a home-and-home, I get that. I wouldn’t blame CSU at all for taking that stance.

—

I realize scheduling can be problematic. That is why ADs get paid good money — to solve those problems, and to do so in a way that is good for students, coaches, fans, and long-term program/school interests.

—

I didn’t take quite as many photos on Saturday as I usually do. I had trouble getting a good angle for the “action” shots, and of course I’m not a very good photographer as it is. Nevertheless, here are some pictures, mostly of dubious quality.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

2014 Football, Game 3: The Citadel vs. Charleston Southern

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel at Charleston Southern, a/k/a the Larry Leckonby Bowl, to be played at Buccaneer Field, with kickoff at 6:00 pm ET on Saturday, September 20. 

The game can be heard on radio via the various affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. Mike Legg (the new “Voice of the Bulldogs”) will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze. It is also possible to listen to the action with a smartphone, using a TuneIn Radio application.

WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station for The Citadel Sports Network. The game broadcast will be produced by Jay Harper, who will also provide updates on other college football action.

In addition, the game will be streamed by the Big South Digital Network (link).

—

This preview will be broken up into two distinct parts: a review of the Florida State game, and the fallout from that contest; and a preview of the Charleston Southern game, including a discussion about the fact The Citadel is the road team on Saturday.

There won’t be as much statistical minutiae in this post as usual. There will be more commentary, though.

First, however, the links.

—

Links of interest:

The Citadel game notes

Charleston Southern game notes

Charleston Southern roster

SoCon weekly release

Big South weekly release

Mike Houston 9/16 press conference

Mike Houston on the weekly SoCon teleconference

Jamey Chadwell on the weekly Big South teleconference

—

Some observations about the Florida State game, followed by a few thoughts about the story that developed afterwards:

– Despite a rainy afternoon (and the threat of more thunderstorms to come), Doak Campbell Stadium was packed. Florida State had announced on Friday that the game was a sellout, and FSU fans (along with a hardy band of Bulldog supporters) showed up in a major way for the Seminoles’ home opener.

During an ESPN GameDay segment in which there was discussion about the day’s relatively high number of small school/big school matchups, Kirk Herbstreit moaned about FBS schools playing FCS teams, running off a list of reasons why those games should not be played. Included in his diatribe was a comment that “fans aren’t going to these games”.

Well, they went to one in Tallahassee, Kirk — just like they went to one at Clemson last season when The Citadel played the Tigers.

– Mike Houston wasn’t all that excited about facing Florida State (as I wrote about in my game preview). However, he clearly gave some thought on how to approach the matchup with the Seminoles.

The result was, in my opinion, an exceptionally well-managed game by The Citadel’s head coach.

It was always going to be a struggle for the Bulldogs to hold back FSU’s offense. However, The Citadel did a fine job of keeping Jameis Winston and company off the field, controlling the clock throughout the contest.

Florida State finished the game with only nine offensive possessions, and one of them began with only twelve seconds remaining in the game, so in effect FSU only had the ball eight times the entire night. The Citadel had the edge in time of possession by over seven minutes, which led to the Seminoles running 67 plays on offense (contrast that with, say, the South Carolina State-Clemson game, where the Tigers ran 93 plays en route to a 73-7 victory).

On Saturday night, Aaron Miller routinely let the play clock move under five seconds before receiving the snap from center. That was excellent game management.

– The Bulldogs were unafraid to run the ball on third-and-medium and third-and-long situations (a feature of Brent Thompson’s offensive philosophy for any game, not just this one), and it paid off on more than one occasion. That said, The Citadel actually passed the ball a little more often than I expected — and with some success. There may not be many teams that register two TD passes against FSU’s defense this season.

Aaron Miller threw the ball well after a couple of errant tosses at the beginning of the game. The pass to Alex Glover was of particularly high quality.

—

Okay, about the Victor Hill situation…

I agree with the “indefinite suspension”. Hill will not play this week against Charleston Southern, and I think that is appropriate.

Mike Houston may choose to reinstate Hill after this weekend, or he may wait another week or two. I’m on board with whatever decision Houston makes on that front.

I’ll be rooting for Hill when he comes back. He’s a good player, and is also a civil engineering major. He’s smarter than his comments made him out to be.

There are Bulldog supporters who disagree with the decision, believing that Hill should not miss any games at all. After all, he didn’t do anything. No FSU players were injured by illegal blocks (as noted by, among others, Jimbo Fisher). Hill just talked (or rather, typed).

My response to that viewpoint (which I understand) is that while Hill didn’t hurt any FSU players, he did hurt his teammates, his coaches, and his school.

The Citadel’s football program (and by extension, the college as a whole) got roasted in the days immediately following Hill’s ill-advised post. Even though it wasn’t true, the less-educated elements of the mob reached a verdict: “dirty team”.

That is the kind of thing that can have a lasting effect, possibly for an entire season. If you’re Mike Houston, and you’re trying to establish a program, you cannot afford to have your offense labeled in such a fashion two games into your tenure.

Triple option teams are constantly having to defend their reputations against “cut block/chop block” naysayers. Hill’s comments won’t help. I’m sure the Bulldogs will be called for several imaginary chop blocks during the SoCon season, just because officials will be looking for penalties, even when they aren’t there.

That’s why Hill’s suspension was justified. It was based on what is best for The Citadel.

The hysterical rantings of the much-mocked “FSU Twitter” horde were not a factor. That is a good thing.

Opinions from various members of the FSU fan base ranged from laughable (demanding an NCAA investigation and the “death penalty”) to scary (a poster on SBNation’s FSU site openly wished that Hill’s family would get killed in a car accident; that comment was quickly deleted by the moderators, along with other odious statements).

There is a reason #FSUTwitter is a frequently-used hashtag (and not a complimentary one). A few wannabe trolls even tweeted at me.

Those encounters tended to confirm that a lot of fans don’t know the difference between a cut block and a chop block. One determined Seminole supporter even produced a photo, claiming it showed an illegal block (it didn’t, of course). I have to wonder how much football some of these people actually watch.

It was amusing to watch the column on my Tweetdeck application devoted to “Citadel” mentions, as seemingly desperate FSU fans would constantly tweet the same thing over and over to various college football writers and personalities, demanding attention (or a reaction) and some sort of frontier justice. One goofball even called Tim Brando’s SiriusXM program to whine, only to be more or less eviscerated by Brando and Tony Barnhart.

Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed. Jimbo Fisher’s comments probably helped in that regard, to his credit.

This week, the shoe has been on the other foot for Florida State fans, thanks to the continuing misadventures of Jameis Winston, who seems to be an unusual combination of immense talent, charisma, and complete obliviousness.

A video of Winston appearing to punch a Bulldog during the game didn’t get much traction (despite the efforts of a bunch of Clemson fans on Twitter, basically mimicking the actions of FSU twitterers from the week before). However, Winston’s bizarre (not to mention offensive and vulgar) shouting near Florida State’s Student Union certainly did. He’ll miss the first half of the Seminoles’ game against Clemson.

That may not matter, though it should be pointed out that after Winston left the game against The Citadel, the Bulldogs scored four times as many points as FSU…

—

Now, about the Charleston Southern contest:

The story surrounding the game this week is as much about where it is being played as it is the action on the field.

Will The Citadel’s fans go to the game?

…there is some question as to exactly how enthusiastic Bulldog fans are about making the trip to CSU Stadium, located in North Charleston off U.S. Highway 78 near Interstate 26. The Citadel ticket office sold just 170 of the 530 tickets it received from CSU for consignment, returning 360 to Charleston Southern. The Bulldogs also received 250 complimentary tickets for the 6 p.m. game.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I’m not sure of why that is,'” [The Citadel’s director of athletics, Jim] Senter said of the returned tickets. “I’m not sure if people were not aware we had tickets to be purchased, or if people think it’s sold out, or if people think Charleston Southern’s stadium is too small to accommodate Citadel fans.”

To answer one of Jim Senter’s questions, I think it is highly likely that most Bulldog fans did not know the school had tickets available for the game. I know a few people who bought tickets from Charleston Southern as soon as they could, not knowing that The Citadel also was selling tickets for the contest.

As for Senter wondering if people think CSU’s stadium is too small to accommodate The Citadel’s fans: yes, people do think the stadium is too small. They think it is too small because it is too small.

CSU Stadium has a capacity of 4,000 seats, and Charleston Southern announced last week that it would add about 700 seats to the visitors’ side of the stadium, expanding that side to 1,628 seats and the total capacity to 4,700. CSU Stadium can also accommodate standing-room only crowds, which explains last year’s record of 6,135 fans for a game against Coastal Carolina.

CSU athletic director Hank Small said Tuesday that there is not a “sell-out” limit on the number of tickets available for Saturday’s game.

“We had very large crowds last year for our Charlotte and Coastal games and did not ‘sell out’ due to the fact that we will continue to sell general admission tickets,” Small said in an e-mail. “We have very large standing room areas that will accommodate general admission. People need to plan to arrive early to be assured of a general admission seat or to purchase a reserved seat.”

After reading Hank Small’s comments, I’m guessing a significant number of hardcore Bulldog supporters made other plans for this weekend.

The previous games between the two schools were played at Johnson Hagood Stadium, with 12,000-14,000 fans in attendance for each of those contests. Now the game is being held at a 4,000-seat facility with a less-than-optimal parking/access setup and a brutally reviewed restroom situation. No one is going to be enthused about “large standing room areas”, either.

The administration at Charleston Southern probably anticipates (if not hopes) that many Bulldog fans will pass on making the trip. If the usual number of “regulars” (8,000-9,000) were to actually show up, it is hard to imagine the general infrastructure (and game management staff) being anything other than completely overwhelmed.

Incidentally, I’m not entirely sure the 4,000-seat capacity (to be increased to 4,700 for the game against The Citadel) is the “real” number. In a recent press release, Charleston Southern officials referred to “plans to add permanent additional seating over the next five years increasing stadium capacity from 3,562 to 5,320.” So is it 4,000 or 3,562?

That leads to another question, a fairly obvious one: why is this game being played at Buccaneer Field now? Why not at least wait and attempt to host the game after the next phase of stadium expansion is completed?

There is little argument as to what benefit The Citadel gets out of playing this game away from Johnson Hagood Stadium. It gets no benefit.

This game should have been played at a stadium capable of holding the usual number of fans who would have attended it. The fact that it is not is considered by many loyal Bulldog fans to be a metaphorical slap in the face, one administered by Larry Leckonby, the former AD at The Citadel.

The fact Leckonby left his position a few months later (giving the impression he already had one foot out the door when he scheduled the game) also doesn’t sit well with some observers.

—

All that being said:

I would urge Bulldog fans to attend this game. The reason to go to this game is to support the players and coaches who will be representing The Citadel. They deserve our support, and our presence.

Will fans have to make some adjustments? Yes. Check out the parking situation carefully before starting your drive. Make a quick trip to a place with a restroom before arriving.

(From the linked review of the facilities, which was from last year’s heavily attended game against Coastal Carolina: “On the visitor side, there are no plumbed bathrooms. Rather, the university brings in approximately fifteen port-a-johns and one larger bathroom ‘truck’…found both the [truck] toilet and faucet to be inoperable.”)

Prepare to be as patient as possible when it comes to anything and everything, especially with the threat of bad weather (bring your poncho). Keep in mind that CSU’s campus is alcohol- and tobacco-free.

Put on your light blue clothing and gear, and go to the Larry Leckonby Bowl. Go, and bring as many friends and family members as you can, and cheer like crazy for the Bulldogs.

—

Charleston Southern’s starting quarterback at the end of last season was Daniel Croghan, who started the final six games of the season for the Buccaneers after Malcolm Dixon was injured. Croghan was 5-1 as a starter, including wins over Charlotte and Coastal Carolina.

This year, Croghan is the backup quarterback, with UAB transfer Austin Brown taking over as Charleston Southern’s top signal-caller. Brown started fifteen games over two seasons with the Blazers, including a win over Tulane his freshman year in which he threw for 409 yards.

Brown played the first three quarters for the Buccaneers in their season-opening romp over Point (final score: 61-9). He went the distance in CSU’s 16-10 victory against Newberry, and played all but three series in Charleston Southern’s 34-10 win versus Campbell.

In the game against the Camels, Croghan played the third series of the first half, and the sixth series of the second half.

For the season, Brown is completing 60% of his passes, averaging 10.9 yards per attempt, and has thrown six touchdown passes against one interception. Brown can also run the ball (a necessity for a QB in Jamey Chadwell’s spread option offense). He is averaging 5.5 yards per carry, and had a 50-yard run against Campbell.

Christian Reyes returns as the primary running back for the Buccaneers. Reyes had 92 yards in last season’s game at Johnson Hagood Stadium, probably more than any other native of Rogue River, Oregon has ever had against the Bulldogs.

Tangent: Rogue River is such a great name for a town/river. “Roundup at Rogue River” could be the title of a Louis L’Amour novel.

Ben Robinson is the “change of pace” back for CSU. While Reyes is a fairly big running back (218 lbs.), Robinson is 5’7″, 175 lbs.

They run behind an offensive line with a good deal of experience, led by right guard Clayton Truitt. CSU also returns last year’s starters at center and both tackle spots.

Charleston Southern has experience at slot receiver with Alex Cruz and Nathan Perera, the latter having been injured for most of the last two years. Also returning: 6’8″ tight end Nathan Prater, who already has two touchdown receptions this season.

As I did last year, I would like to complain about Prater’s jersey number (81). Prater is from Ninety Six, South Carolina. How can he not wear #96?

Talk about a missed opportunity. Bill Voiselle would be very disappointed.

The other wideouts are less experienced, but do have big-play potential (Jared Scotland has three receptions for 20+ yards, including a 52-yard TD against Newberry).

—

CSU normally plays a 3-4 base defense, but is liable to change things up against The Citadel’s triple option attack, as do many other defenses. Last year CSU used multiple fronts throughout the game against the Bulldogs.

The Buccaneers have experience and depth along the defensive line. Notable performers include end Dylan Black and noseguard James Smith (who is listed as a co-starter on the depth chart with Isaac Lowrance, the latter having started the first three games of the season).

The linebacking corps attempts to confuse its opponents by featuring linebackers Zac Johnston (the middle ‘backer, #25) and Zach Johnson (the “spur”, #22). I bet the sports information staff at CSU can’t wait until those guys exhaust their eligibility.

Zach Johnson is backed up by freshman Bobby Ruff, whose father Brian is arguably the greatest football player in The Citadel’s long gridiron history.

Weakside linebacker Aaron Brown had a very good game against the Bulldogs last season. He currently leads the Buccaneers in tackles through three games, with twenty.

The “bandit”, Gabe Middlebrook, went to West Ashley High School, where he was All-Region in tennis. There are not a lot of Division I starting linebackers who can claim to have been All-Region in high school tennis.

The secondary features veteran free safety Demaris Freeman, a redshirt senior. Freeman leads a group that in general is not as experienced as the other units for the Buccaneers. Starting strong safety Davion Anderson is a freshman.

—

Charleston Southern returns its punter from last season, Truett Burns, who did a good job last season placing kicks inside the 20. So far this season, four of his thirteen punts have been downed inside the 20, though his average yards per punt (31.9) needs to improve.

Placekicking appears to still be a work in progress for the Buccaneers, with David Kennedy now designated on the depth chart as the starting placekicker, and Bryan Jordan handling kickoffs for CSU. Both are freshmen who went to Summerville High School (though Jordan turns 22 years old in December).

Long snapper Joseph Smith is a native of Easley, but he actually started his collegiate career at Delta State, where his coach was Jamey Chadwell. When the coach took the Charleston Southern job, Smith returned to his home state to continue his football career with Chadwell.

—

It’s hard to get a handle on how these two teams compare with one another. A statistical summary of the season thus far is probably pointless, because Charleston Southern has yet to play a scholarship Division I program, while The Citadel has played Coastal Carolina and Florida State.

It must be said, however, that Newberry is a solid Division II team (winning nine games last season). Mike Houston suggested that Newberry could hold its own in the SoCon. At the very least, the Buccaneers have had one good test.

All of CSU’s games so far have been at home, and all at night under recently installed lights. Meanwhile, The Citadel has played one home and one road game and didn’t play at all last week (Charleston Southern played on Thursday night).

Those opening four home games, by the way, are a first for a Big South team. No other school in that conference has ever hosted its first four games of the season.

A few other odds and ends:

– Derrick Freeland Jr., a freshman from Charlotte, is expected to start at right tackle for the Bulldogs in place of Victor Hill. It will be the first time Freeland has seen action for The Citadel.

– The Citadel is tied with Wofford for the FCS national lead in rushing yards per game (304.0). However, the Terriers are averaging 6.08 yards per rush, while the Bulldogs are averaging 5.02 yards per carry.

One interesting note that ties into the rushing totals: The Citadel had 65 rush attempts against Coastal Carolina, the second-most in a game by an FCS team so far this season. The Bulldogs ran the ball 56 times versus Florida State.

– Charleston Southern currently leads all of FCS in total defense and is fifth nationally in scoring defense.

– In terms of time of possession, The Citadel is tied for 24th nationally; Charleston Southern is 30th. Last season, CSU led the nation in that category.

– The Citadel is one of five FCS programs that has yet to commit a turnover this season (please don’t let that be a jinx). Charleston Southern has only committed one turnover in three games.

– Somehow, the Bulldogs have fumbled ten times this season without losing any of those fumbles. It’s a freak statistic that won’t hold up over time. The Citadel has to do a better job of hanging on to the ball.

—

There are a couple of things at play for Saturday’s game.

Charleston Southern has set everything up for a showpiece victory — the home game, the rallies, the parties, the publicity generated by a potentially large crowd (at least by Buccaneer Field standards), the inevitable bandwagon column by Gene Sapakoff, etc. School officials have been targeting this game as a major event ever since the announcement was made that CSU would be hosting it.

The Buccaneers want to dominate this game, and probably expect to do so (though the players and coaches aren’t dumb enough to publicly say so). They’ve seen the Sagarin Ratings. This is a team that by the end of last season was playing better than it was at the start of 2013, when it beat The Citadel.

Mike Houston knows that. He also knows that The Citadel could use a win.

This would be a very good week to get one.

Despite everything, I think The Citadel can pull it off. It’s time for these Bulldogs to show some bite.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

2013 Football, Game 1: The Citadel vs. Charleston Southern

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Sandlapper Spike

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The Citadel vs. Charleston Southern, to be played at historic Johnson Hagood Stadium, with kickoff at 6:00 pm ET on Saturday, August 31. The game will not be televised, although it will be streamed on Bulldog Insider (subscription service) and can be heard on radio via the thirteen affiliates of The Citadel Sports Network. Danny Reed (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) will call the action alongside analyst Josh Baker, with Lee Glaze roaming the sidelines and Walt Nadzak providing pre-game, halftime, and post-game commentary.

WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station for the network; the station will have a two-hour pregame show prior to each home football game. 

—

From last week: my preview of the upcoming season

It has numbers and stuff in it; don’t say you haven’t been warned…

—

Other links of note:

– The Post and Courier‘s Jeff Hartsell has a story on the upcoming game, a season preview, and a look at this year’s SoCon

– SoCon weekly release and Kevin Higgins’ SoCon media teleconference

– SoCon preseason media poll (The Citadel was picked to finish 6th) and coaches’ poll (6th again), and the league’s preseason all-conference teams

– My post on the CFPA watch lists, along with preseason FCS rankings from The Sporting News, Lindy’s, and Athlon Sports

– FCS Coaches preseason Top 25 poll, and The Sports Network’s preseason Top 25 rankings (also from TSN: its preseason FCS All-America teams and its SoCon preview)

– Phil Kornblut of SportsTalk interviews Kevin Higgins and the four team captains (Keith Carter, Derek Douglas, Ben Dupree, Brandon McCladdie)

– Also worth a listen: Kornblut’s interviews with Charleston Southern head coach Jamey Chadwell and three of CSU’s players

– AP preview of the Bulldogs (predicts The Citadel will finish 6th in the SoCon)

– Hometown articles on Ben Dupree and Sadath Jean-Pierre

– Game notes from The Citadel and Charleston Southern

—

Let’s talk about Charleston Southern…

When The Citadel and CSU met to open the 2012 campaign, the Buccaneers were coming off an 0-11 season, and it may not have been that good. Charleston Southern had changed its offense (essentially for the third consecutive season) and brought in a new defensive coordinator.

Despite all that, CSU actually led the Bulldogs 14-7 late in the second quarter, thanks in part to an ill-timed penalty and a series of fumbles (two of which The Citadel lost). Eventually the Bulldogs asserted their superiority and rolled to a 49-14 victory, but CSU showed flashes of a competitive spirit throughout the rest of its season.

The Buccaneers finished 5-6, a five-game improvement only bettered at the FCS level by Villanova (the Wildcats went from two wins to eight). Charleston Southern won four of its last six contests.

After the season, head coach Jay Mills announced his retirement. Named as his replacement was a former CSU assistant, Jamey Chadwell, who older Bulldog fans may remember as a quarterback at East Tennessee State in the late 1990s. Chadwell was a two-year starter at ETSU in non-consecutive seasons (his playing career was affected by a serious ankle injury).

Chadwell had spent the last four seasons as a head coach at the Division II level. He was the head coach at North Greenville for three years, leaving that job for the same position at Delta State.

The Statesmen (mascot: The Fighting Okra) were only 3-7 in Chadwell’s lone season in charge; prior to that, he had fashioned a 22-14 record at North Greenville, buoyed by an 11-3 record in 2011. That year, his quarterback was celebrated high school star (and former Clemson player) Willy Korn, who is now on Chadwell’s staff at CSU.

Mark Tucker, a former offensive assistant under Charlie Taaffe and Don Powers at The Citadel, is also on Chadwell’s coaching staff. As of August 22, so is former South Carolina (and NFL) linebacker Rod Wilson.

—

According to Chadwell in his interview with Phil Kornblut, Charleston Southern’s offense this year will feature a spread option look “in the gun”. The Buccaneers will run the ball more than they did under Jay Mills.

Chadwell wants to have a more balanced offense and “get playmakers out in space”. His ideal is Florida circa Tim Tebow, though he acknowledged that incumbent Bucs QB Malcolm Dixon isn’t exactly the second coming of Tebow.

Dixon had his moments against The Citadel in last year’s game, throwing a TD pass and also running for a score. As Chadwell pointed out to Kornblut, Dixon is learning his fourth offense in four years as a college player.

CSU running back Teddy Allen rushed for 56 yards (on only 11 carries) against the Bulldogs last season. Allen was one of two Buccaneers to make the Big South preseason all-conference team.

Also expected to see action at running back is juco transfer Christian Reyes, an Oregon native who has gone to some schools with really cool names, like Rogue River High School and College of the Siskiyous (located in Weed, California). Despite only being on CSU’s campus since January, Reyes (who rushed for 1958 yards last season in junior college) was named one of the team captains for the Buccaneers.

Other Charleston Southern offensive players to watch include Larry Jones III (20.5 yards per reception last season) and wideout Donte Sumpter, a transfer from East Carolina. Starting tight end Nathan Prater is 6’8″; disappointingly, the native of Ninety Six wears jersey #81.

The Bucs have four starters returning on the offensive line, but Chadwell suggested on CSU’s website that some freshmen are battling for those spots.

Charleston Southern was a mediocre passing team last year, ranking 62nd out of 121 FCS teams in passing efficiency. That actually isn’t half-bad, considering CSU completed less than 50% of its pass attempts.

When the Bucs did complete a pass, it generally went for good yardage, resulting in a respectable 7.86 yards per attempt (and 12 touchdowns against 8 interceptions). The Bucs averaged 5.35 yards per play, which was middle-of-the-pack nationally (65th).

Arguably, CSU’s most ominous offensive statistic last season was its third-down conversion rate (30.34%), 11th-worst in FCS football.

—

Defensive back Elijah Lee was the other Buccaneer besides Allen to garner preseason all-league honors. Lee will be part of a defense that is switching to a 3-4 base after previously being a 4-3. I’m not sure how big an impact that will have on the way the Buccaneers defend the triple option, though.

The key player for CSU against the Bulldogs is likely to be 290-lb. noseguard James Smith. Other defenders of note include linebacker Calvin Bryant and defensive end Will Hunt.

Last season the Bucs’ D topped the Big South in yards per pass attempt, allowing only 6.38 per attempt. Charleston Southern was 32nd nationally in pass efficiency defense.

However, CSU was next-to-last in the league in rush yards per attempt (5.32) and rush yards per game (208.82), leading to a bottom-20 finish nationally in rushing defense. The Citadel rushed for 479 yards against Charleston Southern in last year’s contest.

Opponents averaged 5.7 yards per play against Charleston Southern; the Bucs ranked 81st out of 121 FCS teams in that category in 2012.

When considering CSU’s on-field performance, the yards per play numbers are particularly important due to pace of play considerations. Both CSU’s offense and defense were each on the field for about 62 plays per game last season, which for both units was the eighth-fewest in the entire division. By contrast, The Citadel averaged 63.7 plays per game on offense (15th-fewest nationally) and 66.5 on defense (26th).

—

Elijah Lee and a pair of freshmen are expected to feature as kick/punt returners for the Bucs. Kickoff returns were problematic for CSU last year, as the team finished with a KOR average of 16.67 yards, 8th-worst in FCS. Charleston Southern finished in the top 20 of FCS in kick return coverage, though the Buccaneers did allow a kick return TD against Jacksonville (on an onside kick that went awry).

Jacksonville also returned a punt for a touchdown against CSU, which finished 87th nationally in net punting. The Buccaneers only attempted five field goals last season, making three (with a long of 31 yards). Both CSU’s punter and placekicker return in 2013.

—

The Buccaneers were picked to finish fourth in the six-team Big South by a panel of the league’s coaches and media. Charleston Southern will open its home schedule next week against Shorter University. The game will kick off at 11:00 am, one of three CSU home games scheduled for that start time.

Jamey Chadwell told Phil Kornblut that the game versus The Citadel would be a “big challenge” and that “we know going in we’re the underdogs, and rightfully so.” Chadwell also said this:

We’re trying to take that step where we have respect in this state and this city [for our conference]…we’re hoping to go in and compete and establish our identity…if we control the things that we can, our effort and attitude, we think we can compete [with anybody].

Further evidence that Chadwell is going to play the ‘respect card’ in motivating his team for the game against The Citadel: he “favorited” a tweet about the line for the matchup (the Bulldogs opened at -25.5 points). You can bet Chadwell let his players know about that.

—

Things I’ll be keeping a close eye on this Saturday:

– Execution in the first half

The Bulldogs need to take charge on both sides of the ball while there is still cannon smoke wafting in the air, as opposed to a repeat of last year’s sloppy opening half. The center-QB exchange needs to be second-nature, the “mesh” should be clean, the pitches and passes accurate, the catches made, and the blocking sound.

The team mantra this season is “1-0”. I like it. I want to see the squad live up to it.

– Penalties, or a lack thereof

The Citadel led all of FCS football in the categories “fewest penalties” and “least penalty yardage” in 2011, and matched that feat in 2012 (tying for fewest penalties last year with Lehigh). In all of NCAA football, regardless of division, only Brevard committed fewer penalties per game than did The Citadel in 2012.

– Punting

The Bulldogs actually didn’t punt in last year’s opener. While it would be great to have that happen again, odds are against it. The new punter has some big shoes to fill. The punt return unit will also be under the microscope.

Also worth watching on special teams: The Citadel will have a new long snapper and a new holder (who, as it happens, was last year’s long snapper).

– Third down conversions

Last season the Bulldog offense had a third-down conversion rate of 40.44%. That rate needs to improve. While The Citadel was 50th nationally in that category, fellow SoCon triple option teams Georgia Southern and Wofford were 23rd and 26th in FCS, respectively.

It was actually more of a concern on defense, as Bulldog opponents converted third downs at a rate of 43.08%, only 85th-best in the division. That has to get better, especially when facing the likes of GSU and Wofford (and Chattanooga, which was 30th nationally in offensive third down conversion rate).

– Forced turnovers

I touched upon this topic as part of my season preview. Incidentally, stopping the run (a focus of the coaching staff this season) is a key element to both the defensive third down conversion rate and forced turnovers (because it puts opponents in obvious passing situations).

– Defensive playmakers

Last year, the key moment for the defense against CSU was a fumble forced by Chris Billingslea, who had a knack for being in the middle of game-turning plays like that one. Billingslea has graduated, and the Bulldogs need someone else to carry the big-play torch (or sledgehammer).

One of the more interesting comments from Kevin Higgins’ Monday press conference was about the defense, stating that “we have a little more depth than I anticipated, especially inside.” That was good to hear.

– Freshmen

The Citadel has quite a few freshmen (and redshirt freshmen) on the depth chart. They are going to get a chance to make a strong first impression. The wide receivers, in particular, may get multiple opportunities to shine.

– Attendance

Last year’s opener had a crowd of 14,264, a good turnout at Johnson Hagood Stadium by 21st century standards. Whether or not the team’s fine season last year will lead to improved attendance is debatable.

When I took a look at JHS attendance trends a year ago, the numbers suggested that the success of 2012 will not necessarily lead to bigger crowds for the 2013 campaign. Of course, that’s just the people who actually file into Johnson Hagood Stadium. For all I know, the tailgating scene will continue to expand.

There was an article in The Post and Courier recently that noted Clemson and South Carolina only share one home date this season, November 23. That is unusual. I am not sure how much it will impact The Citadel’s attendance.

Quite honestly, you can make an argument that there are three Saturdays this fall in which Johnson Hagood Stadium will be the site for the most interesting college football game held in the state: September 7 (the Wofford game), September 28 (Furman), and October 5 (Appalachian State).  I just hope the general public agrees.

It is also worth mentioning that the Charleston Riverdogs have a game at Riley Park on Saturday scheduled to begin at 6:00 pm ET — yes, the same time as opening kickoff at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Parking could be at a premium.

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Tangent: that article in The Post and Courier also referred to The Citadel’s game at Clemson as a “tune-up” for the Tigers prior to Clemson’s game at South Carolina — not an “anticipated” or an “expected” tune-up, mind you…just a tune-up. I wasn’t very happy with the Charleston paper making a dismissive comment like that about the local team, and said so (via Twitter).

The writer did not seem to understand my point, but then he’s not really writing about Clemson from a Charleston perspective — he’s just writing about Clemson for the Charleston paper. There is a distinction, I guess.

I am reminded of the Columbia newspaper once infamously stating in its gameday feature page that the Gamecocks would win if “they show up”. That was for a game between The Citadel and South Carolina played in 1990.

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I’m ready for some football. You’re ready for some football. The players are ready for some football.

Let’s play football.

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