It’s Samford, not Stanford

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

Samford (not Stanford) is the opposition for The Citadel on Saturday.  What do we know about Samford?

Well, we know that Samford is located in a Birmingham suburb.  We know the sports teams at Samford are called the Bulldogs, just like The Citadel’s.  We know that the football team plays its games at Seibert Stadium, and that it is coached by Pat Sullivan, who once won the Heisman Trophy.  We know that a long time ago, Bobby Bowden coached there, winning 31 games that count toward his career wins total, which makes a lot of Penn State fans angry.

We also know that Samford was once called Howard, but when it became a university, it changed its name in part to avoid confusion with Howard University in Washington, DC, and now everyone just gets it confused with Stanford instead.

The Citadel and Samford have met once before in football, in 1989, and apparently neither sports media relations department is sure what the score was.  The Citadel’s game notes list scores of 35-16 and 35-17 in different parts of the first page of the release, while Samford’s notes mention the score twice as well — 35-16 in one instance, and 36-16 in the other.

The score was 35-16.  Trust me, I was there…

It was the first game played in Johnson Hagood Stadium after Hurricane Hugo damaged the stadium, and decimated much of the surrounding area, in September of 1989.  A crowd of 15,214 (!) watched a reasonably entertaining game that saw The Citadel take control in the second half, outscoring Samford 14-0 in the third and fourth quarters.  The Citadel, in full wishbone mode, only attempted two passes, completing one of them for 16 yards.  The military Bulldogs rushed 69 times for 402 yards, with both Jack Douglas and Tom Frooman (three touchdowns on the day) rushing for over 100 yards.  Raymond Mazyck added 92 yards, and Kingstree legend Alfred Williams chipped in with 55 of his own.  Samford had a much more balanced attack, with 148 yards passing and 141 yards rushing, but lost the time of possession battle by almost 10 minutes and also committed both of the game’s turnovers.  Samford would go on to finish the season with a 4-7 record.

It would be the last victory of a surreal season for The Citadel.  The campaign included two games played at Williams-Brice Stadium following the hurricane.  The first one of those, against South Carolina State, was shaping up to be much-hyped contest, but wound up as almost an afterthought.  However, I believe it’s still the only football game The Citadel has ever played to have been featured in The Nation.  The other game at Williams-Brice, against Western Carolina, resulted in the final tie in the school’s football history.  The Citadel started the season 4-0, including a win at Navy in which the winning score was set up by a Middie punt that went for -5 yards (the winds from the remnants of the hurricane had something to do with that).  However, the almost inevitable slide after Hugo blew through left the Bulldogs with a final record of 5-5-1.

Back to this year’s game.  When the season began, I suspect most supporters of The Citadel were penciling in Samford as a probable win.  It’s now anything but, as the Bulldogs (Charleston version) have struggled to run the ball on offense and have struggled stopping the run or pass on defense, particularly on the road.  In three road games The Citadel has allowed an average of 42 points and 477 yards of total offense.

Samford has been surprisingly competitive in the conference so far, winning at Western Carolina easily while giving Elon (at Elon) all it wanted and acquitting itself well in an 11-point loss to Appalachian State.  Samford running back Chris Evans has rushed for over 100 yards in all three conference games, including 166 yards against Western Carolina.  He’s averaging a shade over 120 yards rushing per game.  Evans transferred to Samford from UAB.

Samford has an odd turnover statistic.  In its three wins Samford has turned the ball over eight times.  In its three losses Samford has turned the ball over only twice.

Defensively, Samford has been pretty good against the run, but has allowed significant passing yardage, including 307 yards to Armanti Edwards of Appalachian State (3 TDs) and 291 to Scott Riddle of Elon (2 TDs, one of which went for 91 yards).  Edwards had a 76% completion percentage as well.  Division II West Georgia also had success throwing the ball against Samford.

If The Citadel is to win this game, it must contain Evans.  The best way to do this is control the ball, which won’t be easy (Samford leads the SoCon in time of possession).  Bart Blanchard needs to play with confidence and authority (which he didn’t do against Furman), Andre Roberts needs to break off at least two big plays, and one of the running backs must step forward.  The defense has to get some takeaways, too.  In seven games so far, The Citadel has only forced nine turnovers (two interceptions, seven fumbles).

It’s going to be tough.  I’m not sure what’s going to happen tomorrow afternoon.

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ESPN’s humongous 2008-09 college hoops schedule(s)

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

Wow.  I just looked at the release, which was published a couple of days back.  You can see it for yourself right here:  Link

That’s just for men’s college basketball.  The women will also have a significant presence on ESPN and its family of networks, as evidenced by this separate release.

Back to men’s hoops.  Awful Announcing estimated that the ESPN networks would combine to air around 1100 games this season, which is incredible.  To the surprise of nobody, however, none of those 1100 games will involve The Citadel.  When you are the worst basketball program in the history of Division I, though, you have to accept such indignities.  (From what I can tell, El Cid will be on TV three times this season, against the CofC and South Carolina on SportSouth, and against Michigan State on the Big Ten Network.)

While The Citadel may have been shut out, other small schools and low-profile programs fare better.  Just to mention a couple of them, Davidson gets four games (and probably should have more).  South Carolina State gets three games on ESPNU, which is certainly going to be the MEAC’s favorite network.  In fact, a lot of those 1100 games are going to be on the U, which is great if you have that network.  If you don’t, though…

Starting with conference play around mid-January or so, Thursday night in particular is going to be a great night for college hoops fans, with seven-game slates on a regular basis.  A typical Thursday will have ACC/Big 10/SEC/Big East doubleheaders on both ESPN and ESPN2, along with two games on ESPNU and an additional 11 pm ET game on ESPN featuring a WCC or WAC game (i.e., Thursday night is Gonzaga night!).

The ABC/ESPN group will usually feature about 12 games each Saturday (although there will be 17 games televised on the various ESPN networks on February 21).  ESPN and its varied platforms will also televise most, if not all, of the games for 10 preseason tournaments, and then there’s the much-discussed wall-to-wall hoops all day on November 18.

What is really amazing is that there is still plenty of basketball to be televised by the likes of the Big Ten Network, Fox Sports Net, Comcast SportsNet, etc.  All in all, it’s incredible how much hoops coverage is out there.  ESPN just happens to lead the way.

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