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Schedule analysis: Which teams will The Citadel’s opponents face before playing the Bulldogs? What about afterwards? Sandwich games? Look-aheads?

Posted on August 8, 2025 by Sandlapper Spike

Sometimes, the schedule works in your favor, and sometimes it doesn’t. For this post, I’m going to review the games teams play the week before facing The Citadel…and what they have lined up the following week…and well, a few other games along the way.

Are there “look ahead” games? What about “sandwich” games? Does anyone have a bye week before playing the Bulldogs?

Let’s check it out.

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August 30 — North Dakota State at The Citadel, noon ET

It is the season opener for both teams, so there are obviously no games the week before for either squad. In last year’s finale, The Citadel rolled up 288 yards rushing against ACC champ Clemson, while North Dakota State won its final contest of the season by three points.

The week after facing The Citadel, NDSU is on the road again, heading to Nashville to take on Tennessee State. The Tigers made the playoffs last year, but have since lost head coach Eddie George (who took the Bowling Green job in the spring) and a sizable chunk of the postseason roster. At least one statistics maven has asserted that TSU ranks last in returning production among all FCS teams.

NDSU debuts at home on September 13 against Southeast Missouri State, then has a bye before beginning MVFC play on September 27 with a Homecoming matchup versus South Dakota (which defeated the Bison last year).

September 6 — The Citadel at Samford, 3:30 pm ET

Samford hosts West Georgia on Thursday, August 28, so SU will get two extra days of preparation before facing The Citadel in the league opener for both teams (and has the added benefit of staying at home). Don’t expect Samford to look past West Georgia, however, as the Wolves upset the Birmingham Bulldogs last season. That was actually WGU’s first game as an FCS team.

After playing The Citadel, Samford will travel to Waco for a matchup against Baylor and its highly regarded quarterback, Sawyer Robertson. That will be a very difficult road opener, and is the first of two straight games away from home for SU, which faces Western Carolina in Cullowhee on September 20.

Samford’s final road game of the year, by the way, is also against a Power 4 opponent from the state of Texas, as SU plays at Texas A&M on November 22.

September 13 — The Citadel at Gardner-Webb, 7:00 pm ET

Gardner-Webb has one of the tougher stretches to begin the year in all of FCS.

G-W opens at Western Carolina, which is ranked 18th in the Stats Perform Top 25 Preseason Poll. The Runnin’ Bulldogs then travel to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech, which was picked 4th in the ACC preseason poll.

That is the game Gardner-Webb will play before its matchup with The Citadel, and will be a stern test, though it is worth noting that the Yellow Jackets have a recent history of struggling against FCS opponents nicknamed Bulldogs.

The week after hosting The Citadel, Gardner-Webb has a second FBS game, making the trip up north to tangle with defending MAC champion Ohio.

After a bye week, G-W finally begins conference play on October 4 with a home game versus Charleston Southern. I’m mentioning this mostly because that game has recently been dubbed the “BBQ Bowl“:

The Runnin’ Bulldogs and the Buccaneers will compete annually for bragging rights and the North-South BBQ Trophy, which features a hefty hog adorned with a placard to engrave each year’s winning team and score.

Most importantly, the losing team will be tasked with supplying a barbecue feast to the winning side — North Carolina-style (Western BBQ, of course) or South Carolina-style, as chosen by the victors.

Presumably, the winning team will choose South Carolina-style BBQ, regardless of which squad wins the game.

September 20 — Mercer at The Citadel, 2:00 pm ET (Parents’ Weekend)

Mercer, the preseason SoCon favorite, has a fairly weird start to the season. The Bears will face UC Davis of the Big Sky in Week 0 (on August 23), playing in the FCS Kickoff game at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. Both teams are ranked in the Stats Perform preseason poll (UC Davis is 8th, Mercer 11th). That game will be televised on ESPN at 7:00 pm ET, which won’t be bad at all in terms of exposure.

The following week, Mercer hosts Presbyterian. The Bears then have a bye week before beginning league play with a home game versus Wofford. The following week, Mercer travels to Charleston to face the Bulldogs.

After the game against The Citadel, Mercer stays on the road to play East Tennessee State before returning to Macon to meet Samford. Then, on October 11, Mercer plays Princeton in New Jersey, trying to become the second SoCon team to win at Powers Field. MU has a second bye after that game (getting an extra bye as a result of playing on Week 0).

September 27 — The Citadel at Chattanooga, 6:00 pm ET

Chattanooga has a tough schedule, kind of low-key in a way, but demanding nonetheless. The Mocs open the season at Memphis, and then play another road game at Tennessee Tech. The Golden Eagles won 7 games last year, including their last five, and are ranked #21 in the Stats Perform preseason poll.

After its home opener against Stetson, which should be a bit of a breather (but you never know), Chattanooga has another road game against a team ranked in the preseason poll, Tarleton State (#10). If you are unfamiliar with Tarleton State, don’t be too upset, as the Texans have only been in FCS since 2020. Despite just arriving in Division I, however, TSU’s power brokers already have designs on a spot in FBS.

Chattanooga hosts The Citadel the week following its game at Tarleton State. The Mocs then play at VMI, facing military schools in consecutive weeks, before a bye week that will probably be much-needed.

October 4 — Bye Week for The Citadel

The Citadel is the only SoCon team not playing on October 4.

Without the Bulldogs in the mix, what are your viewing options? It is hard to imagine watching football if The Citadel isn’t involved, so I would recommend making vacation plans of some kind, perhaps an overseas trip.

If you really insist on watching some pigskin, though, here is a list of some of the FBS games which will be played on October 4:

Miami (FL) at Florida State
Clemson at North Carolina
Vanderbilt at Alabama
Texas at Florida
Wisconsin at Michigan
Minnesota at Ohio State
Kansas State at Baylor
Texas Tech at Houston
Air Force at Navy
Boise State at Notre Dame

Among the teams also on a bye for the week: South Carolina, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Oregon, Southern California, Iowa, Arizona State, and Utah.

So yes, October 4 is a fairly popular bye week.

October 11 — Valdosta State at The Citadel, 2:00 pm ET (Hall of Fame Weekend/Military Appreciation Day)

I’m still not sure why The Citadel decided to schedule a non-conference game against last year’s Division II national runner-up; it just seems to me that if another home game was desired (laudable) and only non-D1 options were on the table (okay, whatever), settling on a mid-season game against a program as historically successful as the Blazers wasn’t really the way to go.

That was under the previous athletics administration, to be sure.

At any rate, Valdosta State (which has a new coach and a revamped roster) will face The Citadel after playing two straight home games. Following a bye week, VSU hosts UNC Pembroke on September 27, and then Lenoir-Rhyne the week before playing the Bulldogs. The Blazers shouldn’t be looking past either of those squads, particularly Lenoir-Rhyne, which won 10 games last season and made it to the second round of the D-2 playoffs.

That said, neither of those games is a conference matchup, as VSU hardly has any conference matchups. Due to a mass exodus of schools after last season, the Gulf South Conference only has four football-playing members for the 2025 campaign. As a result, Valdosta State won’t play a league contest until November 1 against West Alabama — its first of just three conference games.

Following its game against The Citadel, VSU will have another bye week before hosting North Greenville for Homecoming, its seventh (and final) non-conference matchup of the season.

October 18 — Western Carolina at The Citadel, 2:00 pm ET

I mentioned earlier that Western Carolina opens its season by hosting Gardner-Webb. The next week, WCU plays at Wake Forest in one of the more interesting FCS-over-FBS possibilities on the September slate.

The Catamounts also have non-conference games in September against Elon (at home) and Campbell (on the road).

Prior to its matchup at The Citadel, Western Carolina hosts Furman. In fact, WCU will play all three South Carolina-based SoCon schools in consecutive weeks, as the Catamounts are at Wofford the week before facing the Paladins.

Following the game versus the Bulldogs, WCU has a bye week, and then finishes the regular-season campaign with contests against Chattanooga, Mercer, East Tennessee State, and VMI (the first and last of those being road games).

October 25 — The Citadel at Furman, 2:00 pm ET

This matchup will be Furman’s Homecoming game, though FU will still have two home contests remaining after the contest. The Paladins are at Wofford the week before facing The Citadel, and host Mercer the week afterwards.

Furman then travels to Chattanooga before playing its final game at Paladin Stadium, this time against VMI. The Paladins finish the regular season at Clemson.

Furman’s bye week this year is rather early (September 20), so it will play nine straight weeks to close the campaign — eight consecutive league contests before the finale in Death Valley.

The Paladins have three non-conference games besides the Clemson matchup, and they are also Furman’s first three contests of the season. FU has home games versus William & Mary and Presbyterian and a road trip to play Campbell.

November 1 — VMI at The Citadel, 2:00 pm ET (Military Classic of the South)

The Keydets open the season with all four of their non-conference games, three of which are on the road (Navy, Bucknell, and Richmond). VMI’s one non-league home contest is a matchup with Ferrum (a D2 school). It then enjoys a bye week on September 27 before beginning SoCon action.

VMI’s game against The Citadel is the second of two straight road contests for the Keydets. The week before playing the Bulldogs, VMI travels to Mercer.

The following week is Military Appreciation Day in Lexington, Virginia, and the Keydets are hosting Wofford. They will then play at Furman, another instance of a team playing three consecutive matchups against the SoCon’s Palmetto State trio.

VMI will then conclude regular-season play with a home game versus Western Carolina.

November 8 — The Citadel at Mississippi, 1:00 pm ET

As mentioned above, Mississippi has a bye week on October 4, just like The Citadel.

Mississippi’s other three non-conference games are against Georgia State (the season opener), Tulane, and Washington State. All of those are also in Oxford. Mississippi thus has eight home games this season, including three of its last four regular-season contests.

Oh, but that closing stretch. The Citadel is a “sandwich” game for the Rebels, with Mississippi hosting South Carolina the week before and Florida the week afterwards. Following the game against the Gators, the Rebels have another bye week before facing Mississippi State in Starkville in the Egg Bowl.

Prior to that home game versus the Gamecocks, Mississippi has two road games — at Georgia and at Oklahoma.

November 15 — Wofford at The Citadel, 2:00 pm ET (Homecoming)

Wofford opens the season in Orangeburg against South Carolina State, and then hosts Richmond. After beginning SoCon play the following week at Mercer, the Terriers make the journey to Blacksburg to face Virginia Tech (the Mike Young Invitational).

All of Wofford’s games after its September 27 bye week are league affairs except one, an October 11 matchup against Michael Vick’s Norfolk State squad (kind of a Virginia Tech theme here). That game is Homecoming for the Terriers.

Before facing The Citadel, Wofford travels to VMI, so the Terriers get the military schools back-to-back. After playing the Bulldogs, Wofford finishes the regular season with a home game versus Chattanooga.

November 22 — The Citadel at East Tennessee State, 1:00 pm ET

The Buccaneers start the season with four non-conference games, hosting Murray State in the opener before making the trek to Knoxville to do battle with Tennessee. ETSU then plays at West Georgia before a home game versus Elon.

East Tennessee State has a late bye week, not taking a break until November 1; the week before, it has a Homecoming game versus Wofford.

ETSU then finishes the regular season with two road games against Samford and Western Carolina before hosting The Citadel.

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There you have it. None of The Citadel’s opponents has a bye week before playing The Citadel, though Samford does have those aforementioned two extra days of prep because its opener is on a Thursday.

On the other side of the equation, the Bulldogs’ one “rest” advantage is against a non-conference opponent, so none of its SoCon competitors are affected.

Two of The Citadel’s opponents have a bye week after playing the Bulldogs — Valdosta State and Western Carolina.

The Citadel has two home games against teams that play a road game before facing the Bulldogs at Johnson Hagood Stadium — VMI and Wofford.

The Bulldogs face two squads that play at home before also hosting The Citadel — Samford and Mississippi.

Basically, there are no real scheduling breaks in either direction. It is just a very tough slate.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, Furman, Gardner-Webb, Mercer, Mississippi, North Dakota State, Samford, SoCon, Valdosta State, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | Leave a comment »

Football attendance review: Johnson Hagood Stadium, the SoCon, and FCS in general

Posted on July 15, 2025 by Sandlapper Spike

This post is primarily about home attendance at The Citadel, which is a subject I’ve written about many , many times over the years. My first post on the subject was in 2009. What can I say, I’m old.

I used to write about attendance every single year, but then 2020 happened and, well…

The first part of this post is a bit of a cut-and-paste job from previous writeups on this topic, along with new and updated information. I’ve updated the original spreadsheet, and also included some new spreadsheets for the SoCon, along with a brief review of FCS as a whole.

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Here is a spreadsheet that includes attendance information for The Citadel at Johnson Hagood Stadium:

Annual attendance at Johnson Hagood Stadium, 1964-2024

The spreadsheet tracks attendance for The Citadel’s home football games and has now been updated to include games through the 2024 season. It lists year-by-year totals and average game attendance, and the win/loss record for the Bulldogs in each season. There is also a category ranking the years by average attendance.

I have also included home win/loss records for each season.

The 2020 season includes the four games played in the fall of 2020 (one of which was at home) and the eight contests played in the spring of 2021 (four of which took place at JHS). The games referenced on the spreadsheet for the 2021 campaign are only those that were played in the fall (technically some of them took place in late summer, but you know what I mean).

Other columns refer to the program’s winning percentage over a two-year, three-year, five-year, and ten-year period, with the “current” season being the final year in each category. For example, the three-year winning percentage for 1970 (54.84%) is made up of the 1968, 1969, and 1970 seasons.

I include those categories mainly to see what impact, if any, constant winning (or losing) has had on long-term attendance trends.

I have also compared average attendance for the first two games of a season to the last two contests of the same campaign, going back to the 2009 season. There are inherent sample-size issues when making such a comparison (weather, stadium construction [or deconstruction], opponent fan base, etc.), but it doesn’t hurt to see how things have shaken out. The fall 2020/spring 2021 sort-of-season is not included below, for obvious reasons.

2009 [4-7 overall record]; First two home games, average attendance of 13,636; final two home games, average attendance of 11,736 (including Homecoming)
2010 [3-8 overall record]; First two home games, average attendance of 10,904; final two home games, average attendance of 11,805 (including Homecoming)
2011 [4-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 12,756; final two home games, average attendance of 12,387 (including Homecoming)
2012 [7-4 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 13,281; final two home games, average attendance of 13,715 (including Homecoming)
2013 [5-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 13,370; final two home games, average attendance of 12,948 (including Homecoming)
2014 [5-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,700; final two home games, average attendance of 9,563 (including Homecoming)
2015 [9-4 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 8,356; final two home games, average attendance of 12,465 (including Homecoming)
2016 [10-2 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 13,299; final two regular-season home games, average attendance of 13,996 (including Homecoming); playoff game attendance of 10,336
2017 [5-6 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 8,718; final two home games, average attendance of 9,496 (including Homecoming)
2018 [5-6 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,559; final two home games, average attendance of 9,511 (including Homecoming and a rescheduled game)
2019 [6-6 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 8,517; final two home games, average attendance of 9,141 (including Homecoming)
2021 [4-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,503; final two home games, average attendance of 10,189 (including Homecoming)
2022 [4-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 10,339 (including Parents’ Day); final two home games, average attendance of 10,022 (including Homecoming and a game against a non-NCAA/NAIA opponent)
2023 [0-11 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 10,882 (including Parents’ Day); final two home games, average attendance of 11,016 (including Homecoming)
2024: [5-7 overall record]: First two home games, average attendance of 9,723; final two home games, average attendance of 10,745 (including Homecoming)

Since 1964, the Bulldogs’ record at Johnson Hagood Stadium is 200-139 (59.0%). The average home attendance over that time period is 13,492. However, there has not been a season in which home attendance averaged more than 13,492 since 2012.

The current stadium capacity is less than 12,000, due to the demolition of the East stands in the spring of 2017. Thus, The Citadel will not see an increase in attendance to the levels of the early part of this century anytime in the near future (and if Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review, heavily influenced by NIMBY-ism, continues to hold up the process, the school might not get to replace the East stands until the sun turns red).

The higher attendance figures for the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s are even further out of sight.

Last year’s average home attendance of 10,225 ranked 52nd out of the 61 seasons included in this survey. The five lowest season averages in attendance have all occurred since 2014.

As always, I need to point out that the cutoff for accuracy in attendance numbers means years like 1959 (eight wins), 1960 (Tangerine Bowl victory), and 1961 (SoCon title) cannot be included for comparison in this review, not to mention any of the other years from 1948, when the most recent iteration of Johnson Hagood Stadium opened, through the 1963 season. I do not have a high degree of confidence in any “public” season attendance figures prior to 1964. ( A few skeptics might suggest I shouldn’t have a large amount of confidence in some of the numbers post-1964, either.)

It is generally accepted that the largest home attendance for The Citadel at any pre-1964 contest was for the Homecoming game against Clemson in 1948, when an estimated 16,000 fans were present for the dedication of the “new” Johnson Hagood Stadium. It is likely that more than twenty years passed before the stadium had a game attendance higher than that (when 19,276 fans attended the home opener in 1969, a 14-10 victory for Red Parker’s Bulldogs over Arkansas State).

Here are the top average attendance marks over two-year, three-year, five-year, and ten-year periods:

Two years: 1975-76 (18,250). Rest of the top five: 1991-92, 1979-80, 1990-91, 1989-90
Three years: 1990-92 (17,457). Rest of the top five: 1989-91, 1978-80, 1991-93, 1975-77
Five years: 1988-92 (17,126). Rest of the top five: 1989-93, 1975-79, 1976-80, 1990-94
Ten years: 1975-84 (16,250). Rest of the top five: 1983-92, 1974-83, 1976-85, 1984-93

Average attendance by decade:

1964-69: 11,998
1970-79: 15,053
1980-89: 15,398
1990-99: 14,955
2000-09: 13,850
2010-19: 11,179
2020-24: 8,910

The 2020-24 period includes the 2020-21 home games. If those are discounted (as they probably should be for this exercise), the average attendance so far this decade is 10,254.

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I’ll throw in this spreadsheet as well, which charts Homecoming games at The Citadel since the first such contest in 1924. It includes attendance for all but three of those games (and every game since 1960), so it is somewhat applicable for this post.

Since 1960, The Citadel has had at least 10,000 fans in attendance for Homecoming for every game except one (8,500 for a matchup against Furman in 1965). The record for Homecoming attendance is 21,811, set in 1992 when the Bulldogs played VMI.

Homecoming at The Citadel, 1924-2024

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Now let’s take a look at the SoCon.

Here is a spreadsheet that lists the attendance numbers for all SoCon games (conference matchups only) in 2024:

2024 SoCon attendance (league games only)

(The formatting might not be ideal, but it gets the job done; at least, I hope it does.)

Last season, Chattanooga was the top overall road draw in league play. In four road games, the Mocs played before crowds averaging 10,293. Those numbers were buoyed by the location of those four contests, with the host schools being The Citadel, Furman, ETSU, and Western Carolina. Those four ranked 1-2-4-5 in home attendance for conference games.

Conversely, Mercer ranked last as a road draw, with an average of 4,171.5 fans, thanks almost entirely to playing away from home against Chattanooga, VMI, Samford, and Wofford, the four schools that made up the bottom half of the league in conference home attendance (with the Terriers bringing up the rear with an average of 3,589 fans per league matchup).

In 2022, Chattanooga played the same four teams on the road, and was the league’s road draw leader. That same year, Mercer was last as a road draw, playing the same four opponents as it did last season. In other words, the numbers probably say more about the teams they played than the Mocs and Bears.

There are a couple of things to note for 2024. Two games are not part of the home league attendance totals, due to the impact of Hurricane Helene. Furman’s home game against Samford was postponed and ultimately canceled, while Western Carolina’s home matchup versus Wofford was played before no fans (due to ongoing rescue and recovery efforts in that region).

The highest-attended league game in 2024 was Western Carolina’s home finale against VMI, with 13,022 spectators.

The lowest-attended league game (not counting the Wofford-WCU matchup referenced earlier) was, by far, Wofford’s home game versus Mercer on September 28, with an announced attendance of 1,219. Both teams were ranked at the time, and the box score listed the weather as “sunny”.

[Edit: a comment for this post alerted me to the fact that Mercer-Wofford was yet another game affected by Hurricane Helene. The surrounding area was mostly without power, traffic lights were down, and there were long lines for gasoline as well. We’ll give the Wofford community a mulligan for that one.]

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The attendance for some of these games, particular those at Wofford, inspired me to compile another chart, this one listing attendance for The Citadel’s road matchups against current SoCon schools. I decided to start with the 1997 season, which was Wofford’s first as a league member (and was also the first year Chattanooga played in Finley Stadium).

Road attendance in The Citadel’s games against current SoCon schools, 1997-2024

The above spreadsheet doesn’t feature all of the Bulldogs’ league road games over that time period, of course, as it doesn’t include former SoCon members Appalachian State, Elon, Georgia Southern, and Marshall. It also lists games at VMI when that school was not in the conference.

Some of these totals have been fairly consistent over time (the games at VMI, for example), but there has been variance over the years, and there has also been a decline in attendance in some places. The last two games the Bulldogs have played against Wofford have been noteworthy in that regard.

I’m not sure what to make of that, particularly when The Citadel has been the best “traveling” fan base in the SoCon over the last decade and a half (a subject I wrote about a few years ago). How much of that has to do with The Citadel? What about the home support?

Perhaps it just comes down to philosophical changes in how to count attendance by certain school administrations. The long-term effect of COVID-19 probably needs to be considered, as well, at least when it comes to how people now allocate leisure time. I have to wonder if there is a difference between FBS and FCS in that respect — but to be honest, I don’t really have any idea.

In 2016, the SoCon average attendance (all home games, league and out-of-conference) was 8,386. Last season, it was 8,169. That isn’t a big difference, so alarm bells shouldn’t be going off around the league. It is something worth monitoring, though.

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Finally, a brief look at FCS attendance. I wrote a lot on this subject two years ago. I’m not going over all that ground again, but I would like to make a few observations about the 2024 campaign from an attendance perspective.

Here is a spreadsheet that includes FCS home attendance for 2024:

FCS home attendance 2024

There are various columns on that spreadsheet besides the breakdown of 2024 attendance. I also included a column for 2023 average attendance, the average attendance for the 2012-2022 period (excluding fall 2020/spring 2021, and only listing the schools that were continuously in the subdivision during that time frame), and columns comparing the differential between attendance for 2012-2022 and the last two seasons.

Jackson State and Montana were 1-2 in attendance in 2024. Those two schools have occupied the top two places for most of the last decade.

The list includes two schools no longer in FCS as of 2025 (Delaware and Missouri State) and several schools that are recent entrants in the subdivision.

There were 25 FCS schools that averaged over 10,000 in home attendance last season. Of those, according to the participation release from the College Sports Commission, all opted in to the House settlement except for Holy Cross, Harvard, The Citadel, Idaho, and UC Davis.

On the other hand, 15 FCS schools averaged fewer than 2,500 fans per home game, with subdivision debutant Mercyhurst bringing up the rear (1,183 per game in four home contests).

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Okay, I think that is enough about attendance for now. Soon, there will be 2025 attendance figures to discuss…

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Attendance, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State, FCS, Furman, Harvard, Holy Cross, Idaho, Jackson State, Mercer, Montana, Samford, SoCon, The Citadel, UC Davis, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | 2 Comments »

The Citadel plays a football game in Orangeburg for the first time since 1959

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel at South Carolina State, to be played at Oliver C. Dawson Stadium in Orangeburg, South Carolina, with kickoff at 6:00 pm ET on September 23, 2023.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Play-by-play will be handled by Tyler Cupp, while Demetrius Davis supplies the analysis.

The contest can be heard on radio via The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station. Other stations carrying the game include WQXL in Columbia (100.7 FM/1470 AM) and WDXY in Sumter (105.9 FM/1240 AM).

Brian Giffin will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze.

“Live Stats” for the game [link when available]

I usually don’t list the the opposing team’s radio personnel, but I’ll make an exception here, because the duo in the booth for SCSU are both institutions.

Play-by-play voice Ernest Robinson has been a continuous part of SCSU’s radio team since 1978. The host of ‘The Buddy Pough Show’ also was a presence on ESPN Radio Columbia for many years with the ‘Sports Hotline’ program.

Bill Hamilton is the radio analyst. He graduated from South Carolina State in 1973 and has been with the school ever since, including a four-decade run as the school’s SID. The press box at Oliver C. Dawson Stadium is named in his honor.

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Links of interest:

– SoCon weekly release

– South Carolina State game notes [when available]

– The Citadel game notes

– Maurice Drayton’s Monday press conference

– The bonds between Buddy Pough and Maurice Drayton run deep

– Box score for The Citadel-Chattanooga

– Buddy Pough’s press conference [when available]

– MEAC video conference for its coaches, including Buddy Pough

– The Buddy Pough Show

– Box score for South Carolina State-Jackson State (SCSU lost 37-7 in a game played in Atlanta)

– Box score for South Carolina State-Charlotte (SCSU lost, 24-3)

– Box score for South Carolina State-Georgia Tech (SCSU lost, 48-13)

– Season statistics for South Carolina State (three games)

– Pough uses bye week to “refine playbook”

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Roster review:

– Of the 110 players on The Citadel’s online roster as of September 14, 58 are from South Carolina. Other states represented: Florida (14 players), Georgia (11), North Carolina (11), Virginia (5), Alabama (2), Ohio (2), New York (2), Texas (2), and one each from Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

– South Carolina State has 106 players on its online roster. Of those, 85 are from South Carolina. Other states represented: Florida (6 players), Georgia (6), North Carolina (5), and one each from Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania.

– Of the 85 (!) Palmetto State products on SCSU’s roster, two are graduates of Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School, perhaps fewer than would be expected. Of course, Buddy Pough himself played at O-W under the late Dick Sheridan, so he is well aware of the famed maroon and orange and its inherent greatness.

– Only seven of the Orangeburg Bulldogs are transfers from other post-secondary institutions. Three of them came from fellow FCS schools (Alcorn State, Bryant, and Delaware State); none are from P5/G5 universities.

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Odds and ends:

– The weather forecast for Saturday in Orangeburg, per the National Weather Service, includes a 20% chance of showers. The projected high is 81°, with a low that night of 60°.

That sounds rather nice to me.

– If I get a line on the game before noon on Saturday, I’ll post it here. Given how lines and odds have been posted for FCS schools this season, however, that is unlikely.

– Massey Ratings: South Carolina State is ranked 101st in FCS, unchanged from last week. The Citadel is 96th (a 2-place drop).

Massey projects South Carolina State to win the game by a predicted score of 24-21. The Citadel is given a 44% chance of winning.

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Meanwhile, SP+ ranks South Carolina State 116th (105th on offense, 101st on defense) and The Citadel 123rd (124th on offense, 103rd on D).

A selected list of SP+ FCS rankings entering Week 4:

South Dakota State (1st)
North Dakota State (2nd)
Montana State (3rd)
William and Mary (7th)
Furman (18th)
Chattanooga (22nd)
Campbell (23rd)
Jackson State (29th)
Mercer (30th)
Austin Peay (33rd)
Samford (41st)
Kennesaw State (44th)
Western Carolina (48th)
Davidson (52nd)
Eastern Kentucky (53rd)
Charleston Southern (80th)
East Tennessee State (81st)
Wofford (92nd)
VMI (97th)
Bucknell (101st)
Morehead State (121st)
Presbyterian (126th)
Marist (128th and last)

—

In other FCS preseason polls/rankings, The Citadel ranks 117th in the Congrove Computer Rankings (a drop of 10 spots), 121st in the Laz Index (a decline of 23 places), and 111th in the DCI (down 11 spots).

—

– Games involving SoCon teams this week [projected score per SP+ in brackets]:

Saturday at 1:00 pm ET: Mercer at Furman [Furman 29.3, Mercer 22.0]
Saturday at 1:30 pm ET: Wofford at VMI [VMI 19.8, Wofford 18.9]
Saturday at 2:30 pm ET: Charleston Southern at Western Carolina [WCU 28.6, ChSo 15.9]
Saturday at 3:00 pm ET: Chattanooga at Samford [UTC 28.8, Samford 22.9]
Saturday at 6:00 pm ET: The Citadel at South Carolina State [SCSU 26.7, The Citadel 20.4]

East Tennessee State is off this week.

– Among South Carolina State’s notable alumni: songwriter/arranger/producer Horace Ott, longtime congressman Jim Clyburn, and biophysicist Kandice Tanner.

– The Citadel has an all-time record of 3-7 for games played on September 23. The Bulldogs are 1-5 away from home.

—

The most notable game played by The Citadel on September 23 came in 1989. In the remnants of Hurricane Hugo, the Bulldogs defeated Navy in Annapolis, 14-10.

The following week, The Citadel played South Carolina State in a game that was subsequently dubbed the “Hurricane Bowl” or the “Hugo Bowl” (your choice). The contest was moved from Charleston to Columbia, and played at Williams-Brice Stadium.

I wrote about that matchup a few years ago, the first meeting on the gridiron between South Carolina State and The Citadel. Allow me to copy and paste this next section.

—

There would have been a certain kind of hype attached to the game, which explains why a reporter for The Nation was one of the 21,853 people in attendance. However, any sociopolitical context had already been effectively blown away by the winds that had done so much damage to the state the week before.

The Citadel had won its previous game at Navy, 14-10, but that victory had come at a cost. The starting quarterback for the Bulldogs, Brendon Potts, was lost for the season with a knee injury. His replacement was a redshirt freshman named Jack Douglas.

Douglas made his first career start for The Citadel against South Carolina State. He scored two touchdowns while passing for another (a 68-yard toss to Phillip Florence, one of two passes Douglas completed that afternoon).

Shannon Walker had a big game for the Bulldogs, returning a kickoff 64 yards to set up a field goal, and later intercepting a pass that, after a penalty, gave The Citadel possession at South Carolina State’s 6-yard line (Douglas scored his first TD two plays later).

Adrian Johnson scored the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter on a 26-yard run. The Citadel had trailed South Carolina State at halftime, but held the Orangeburg Bulldogs scoreless in the second half.

The military college won the game, 31-20, and finished with 260 rushing yards — 137 of which were credited to one Tom Frooman (on 15 carries). The native of Cincinnati rushed for 118 yards in the second half, with a key 41-yard run that came on the play immediately preceding Johnson’s TD.

Frooman added 64 yards on an 80-yard drive that cemented the victory (Douglas capping that possession with a 3-yard touchdown in the game’s final minute of play).

—

In a way, it is hard to believe that was 34 years ago. In another way, it isn’t hard to believe at all.

The Citadel and SC State have faced each other three more times since then, in consecutive years from 1999 through 2001. The Bulldogs from Charleston came out on top on all three occasions, though the 1999 contest could have gone either way, with The Citadel very fortunate to prevail.

Buddy Pough on this Saturday’s game:

“I hope (this game) could develop into some sort of rivalry,” Pough said. “There are all kinds of kinships and relationships with their coaching staff, and this always has a chance to be one of those special, friendly rivalries.”

Pough said there is a large contingent of Citadel supporters around the Orangeburg area, and he knows they will be cheering for their team Saturday.

“We have all kinds of Citadel folks in town that are calling me about parking spots and tailgating spots,” Pough joked. “We have some big supporters in this town, and I told them it was OK to come … but they were going to have to pay. Hopefully, while they’re here, they will leave a few bucks.”

I completely agree with the coach. These two schools should play each other in football more often. They don’t necessarily have to meet every season (scheduling issues for both would more than likely preclude that from happening anyway), but a semi-regular series seems like a natural.

I think it would be more than appropriate for a player at The Citadel to make the trip to Orangeburg at least once during his career, and vice versa, so perhaps two games every four years (home and home) would be good.

After all, regular trips to Orangeburg for a football game are actually an old tradition at The Citadel…

—

While this is the first time The Citadel has played South Carolina State in Orangeburg, the school has a long (albeit dormant) history of playing in The Garden City.

The Citadel has played 38 times in Orangeburg in its history. All of those games were played in conjunction with the Orangeburg County Fair, usually in late October or early November.

Most, if not all, of the games were attended by the corps of cadets, which as a group took the train to Orangeburg. That was back when there were railroad tracks on campus.

In 1916, The Citadel made its debut on the gridiron in Orangeburg by defeating Clemson, 3-0. The last game the Bulldogs played there (before this Saturday) was a 40-8 victory over Wofford in 1959.

From 1916 through 1959, The Citadel played in Orangeburg every season except for 1938 and 1939 (more on that later), the war years of 1943-45 (when the school did not field a team), and in 1953.

Many of those games were against South Carolina — 20 of them, in fact, with generally excellent attendance that occasionally exceeded 10,000 fans (a very good number before World War II). The Citadel also played at the county fair against Wofford (8 times), Clemson (5), Furman (3), and once each versus Presbyterian and Erskine.

While The Citadel opened its account in Orangeburg with a win over Clemson, and closed it with a victory over Wofford, most of the games at the fair didn’t end that way. The Citadel’s record in Orangeburg is 7-27-4.

Only one of those games against the Gamecocks resulted in a victory (1926, which along with 1916 is one of two years in which The Citadel defeated both South Carolina and Clemson during the season). There were two ties among those twenty matchups.

Then there was the 1937 game, in which the final score (21-6 in favor of the Gamecocks) was but a footnote.

South Carolina halfback Jack Lyons was returning a punt and in the open field when he “was tackled by a spectator who was watching the game from the sideline. It was a man dressed in a brown business suit. He slashed in on the ball carrier with a perfect tackle.”

The individual in question, William R. Milligan, became known as ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’, which might have been a play on an Agatha Christie novel of that title which had been published a few years earlier. (I’m just guessing on that; incidentally, it’s not a terrible book but not one of her best, either).

Anyway, his effort on behalf of the Bulldogs led to an on-field fracas featuring spectators from both sides (including the corps of cadets), the football players, and assorted other individuals that only ended when:

“the Bulldog and Gamecock bands began playing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’

Everybody stopped fighting and stood at attention, with the uniformed cadets of The Citadel leading the way.

The band music returned peace to the stadium and the game resumed with the Bulldogs scoring a touchdown before it was over.”

While peace was eventually restored, it is possible that the folks in Orangeburg decided that the two teams could take a break from meeting at the county fair for a few years.

In 1938, South Carolina played Villanova in Orangeburg instead of The Citadel. In 1939, the Gamecocks again returned to the county fair, this time playing West Virginia.

The Citadel played Wofford in 1940 in Orangeburg. Then, in 1941, the Gamecocks and Bulldogs returned to face each other again at the fair.

Oh, I have to quote the coda to the story of the 1937 game, written a few years ago in The Times and Democrat:

William R. Milligan, “the man in brown,” was hauled away by the Orangeburg Police Department.

He stood around with local policemen and listened to the play-by-play account of the remainder of the game on Columbia’s WIS radio. At the end of the game, he was released to return to Charleston…

…In later years, during fair week, Milligan, a poultry enthusiast, would be a mainstay at the county fair’s poultry barn.

Eventually, South Carolina quit playing in Orangeburg. The Citadel continued to do so, however, against other competition, maintaining the tradition through most of the 1950s.

The exception was 1953, when instead of playing in Orangeburg, the Bulldogs traveled to Roanoke, Virginia, and played Virginia Tech at Victory Stadium (where the Hokies used to play two or three games every season).

That year, the good citizens in Orangeburg settled for a matchup between Newberry and Guilford (though South Carolina and The Citadel’s freshman teams played a game there as well that weekend).

The Citadel’s final game at the Orangeburg County Fair came in 1959 and featured some hard feelings.

The contest drew 8,000 spectators, not a bad turnout, but perhaps not enough for The Citadel to continue to play games in Orangeburg. The Bulldogs won easily, breaking a Wofford winning streak in the series of four games.

Wofford and The Citadel would not meet again until 1967, in part because of a post-game disagreement between the two coaches, Eddie Teague of The Citadel and Wofford’s Conley Snidow. The Terriers’ boss accused Teague of running up the score, a charge heatedly denied by the Bulldogs’ coach.

Snidow complained about a late touchdown scored by The Citadel (though the TD came after Wofford had fumbled the ball away on its own five-yard-line), and he also belittled the Bulldogs’ victory, saying it came against one of his lesser squads.

There might have been some previous bad blood between the two men, as The Citadel had already announced it was suspending the series. My general impression is that Teague, who by this time was piloting a very good team which he had patiently developed over several years, had much better things to do than worry about whatever Wofford’s coach was whining about at any given moment.

The Citadel would only play Wofford once between 1959 and 1975.

College football at the Orangeburg County Fair wasn’t quite done once The Citadel left the scene; Wofford and Newberry played each other there in 1960 and 1961. After that, though, the gridiron action was limited to high school teams.

—

For anyone interested, I’ve compiled The Citadel’s games at the Orangeburg County Fair into a spreadsheet that can be accessed here: Link

The media guide doesn’t always list the games as having been played in Orangeburg (the matchup versus Erskine, for example). I’ve confirmed all the county fair contests via newspaper reports.

—

I’ll be in Orangeburg on Saturday. It might be a little late in the day to also make a trip to get some quality BBQ (and hash!), but we’ll see. That’s why coolers were invented.

I am hopeful for a competitive contest. I suspect both fan bases feel that way, actually.

Nothing further to add. Let’s play some football.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Buddy Pough, Clemson, Erskine, Furman, Maurice Drayton, Orangeburg County Fair, Presbyterian, South Carolina, South Carolina State, The Citadel, The Man In The Brown Suit, Wofford | 1 Comment »

College Football Week 11, 2021: Thursday notes and observations

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Sandlapper Spike

– Wofford prepares to tackle The Citadel’s option offense

– The Citadel’s game notes

– My blog post from Tuesday, primarily a preview/review of statistics for The Citadel, Wofford, and FCS in general

—

Broadcast information

Wofford at The Citadel, to be played on Sansom Field at historic Johnson Hagood Stadium in Charleston, South Carolina, with kickoff at 2:00 pm ET on November 13, 2021.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Play-by-play will be handled by Dave Weinstein, while Jason Kempf supplies the analysis.

Luke Mauro (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) calls the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze.

– “Live Stats” for the game

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Roster review:

– Of the 112 players on The Citadel’s online roster, 61 are from South Carolina. Other states represented: Georgia (18 players), Florida (11), North Carolina (9), Virginia (4), Alabama (2), Texas (2), and one each from New York, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Tight end Hayden Williamson played his high school football in Okinawa, Japan.

– Of the 111 players on Wofford’s online roster, 48 are from South Carolina. The remaining Terriers are from the following states: Georgia (19 players), Florida (12), North Carolina (12), Tennessee (5), Ohio (4), Alabama (3), Texas (2), and one each from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, and Virginia.

Wofford added several transfers to its roster after the spring campaign, including a few junior college players. Two of the transfers on the squad began their collegiate careers at Appalachian State; two more are from Presbyterian. The others are from ASA College (Miami, FL), Hutchinson CC, Iowa Central CC, Independence CC, Jacksonville State, and Navy.

—

FCS lines are now not readily available until Saturday morning, at least in terms of consensus spreads and totals. As such, I won’t be listing any lines and totals for the subdivision as a group. There are some spreads out there for the games involving SoCon teams this Saturday (though not totals), and I’ll list those here.

Florida is a 31½-point favorite over Samford
The Citadel is a 3-point favorite over Wofford
Furman is a 2½-point favorite over VMI
East Tennessee State is a 10-point favorite at Western Carolina
Chattanooga is a 6-point favorite at Mercer

—

I do have numbers again from my own projection system; as must be noted, it is highly experimental and very dubious. This is what my numbers say about Saturday’s FCS games (I include the tenths of a decimal point to show how precise these calculations are, even though there is nothing really precise about them):

Road team	Home team	Road tm score	Home tm score
Wagner	Sacred Heart	8.7	32.2
Merrimack	St. Francis PA	20.0	27.0
Central Conn. State	Duquesne	19.4	26.0
Valparaiso	Butler	31	21.6
Robert Morris	Monmouth	16.7	39.6
Davidson	Dayton	31.1	26.9
Georgetown	Lehigh	21.4	23.1
Bethune-Cookman	Grambling State	26.8	28.4
Penn	Harvard	13.1	29.6
North Dakota State	Youngstown State	32.8	13.5
Colgate	Lafayette	14.7	24.2
Holy Cross	Fordham	33.0	30.0
Brown	Columbia	30.3	41.5
Stony Brook	Villanova	13.0	28.9
Morgan State	Albany	9.8	30.3
Southern Illinois	Indiana State	34.5	21.9
Yale	Princeton	22.2	26.4
Eastern Kentucky	Sam Houston State	18.2	37.2
Long Island	Bryant	18.8	29.4
St. Thomas	Drake	18.5	14.6
Stetson	Morehead State	26.5	40.9
Marist	Presbyterian	44.7	32.2
Hampton	Campbell	25.0	32.7
Norfolk State	Delaware State	26.4	23.7
New Hampshire	Rhode Island	21.5	26.7
North Carolina Central	Howard	24.3	23.7
Charleston Southern	Gardner-Webb	34.2	30.6
North Carolina A&T	South Carolina State	24.4	22.1
Cornell	Dartmouth	11.1	31.6
Alabama State	MS Valley State	23.9	18.4
East Tennessee State	Western Carolina	38.6	27.0
VMI	Furman	27.9	27.1
SE Missouri State	Murray State	28.2	24.6
South Dakota State	South Dakota	28.3	21.4
Tarleton State	Abilene Christian	28.7	25.6
Elon	Towson	21.2	25.2
Delaware	Richmond	15.3	23.2
Wofford	The Citadel	24.7	25.9
UT Martin	Tennessee Tech	32.6	15.6
McNeese State	Houston Baptist	38.2	21.2
Alabama A&M	Texas Southern	39.7	33.2
Prairie View A&M	Alcorn State	26.5	21.9
Austin Peay	Tennessee State	31.4	23.8
Kennesaw State	North Alabama	32.5	19.0
Chattanooga	Mercer	26.3	21.3
Idaho	Montana State	15.6	37.0
Florida A&M	Arkansas-Pine Bluff	33.8	18.4
Northern Iowa	Missouri State	22.6	25.6
Illinois State	North Dakota	17.9	24.8
Montana	Northern Arizona	34.3	21.2
James Madison	William and Mary	30.1	16.2
Weber State	Southern Utah	35.2	16.0
Incarnate Word	Nicholls State	35.1	34.9
Jacksonville State	Lamar	29.8	14.9
Stephen F. Austin	Central Arkansas	29.3	33.2
Jackson State	Southern	29.8	19.9
Northwestern State	SE Louisiana	21.2	47.3
Eastern Washington	UC Davis	39.5	36.1
Idaho State	Cal Poly	30.8	25.6
Portland State	Sacramento State	21.2	30.2

—

Happy Homecoming, everyone.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: FCS, SoCon, The Citadel, Wofford | Leave a comment »

College Football Week 11, 2021: Tuesday notes and observations

Posted on November 9, 2021 by Sandlapper Spike

– Brent Thompson’s Monday press conference

– Wofford game notes

– Willie Eubanks takes aim at the NFL

—

A quick summary of Wofford’s season to date:

The Terriers have a record of 1-8 with two games remaining, this Saturday’s contest against the Bulldogs and a trip to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina on November 20.

Wofford won its season opener at Elon, prevailing 24-22 after partially blocking a 46-yard field goal attempt by the Phoenix with eight seconds remaining. The next week was the Terriers’ bye week. Since then, Wofford has lost on eight consecutive Saturdays by an average score of 35-18.

Going back to the spring campaign, the Terriers have lost eleven straight SoCon games.

—

Here is my working spreadsheet for FCS statistics:

FCS statistics for games through November 6, 2021

It wasn’t the easiest week for compiling stats. Among other things, the NCAA’s website screwed up the total number of games played for several teams, leading to a lot of errors. I think I found all of them.

This week features an NCAA attendance update, and the spreadsheet includes a tab for those numbers. The NCAA attendance totals are still missing two games, which I’ve noted at the bottom of the tab. It is not inconceivable there are a few more games missing (in terms of attendance; the other statistics should be okay).

I’ve also included a tab for the ever-popular onside kick numbers, a category dominated by Presbyterian. Incidentally, PC’s game at Valparaiso on Saturday resulted in one of the more entertaining box scores of the season; if you’re a true stats nerd, you might want to check it out: Link

In summary, the spreadsheet includes three offensive and three defensive tabs, including one each for Red Zone possessions; a separate tab for defensive interceptions; and tabs for punting, turnovers, penalties, time of possession, onside kicks, and attendance.

—

Neither The Citadel nor Wofford has had a good year on the field, and that is reflected in a lot of these numbers. I’ve listed some of the more relevant stats for each school below, along with the top five and bottom five in FCS for each category; I also occasionally note other SoCon schools that are high (or low) in those areas.

Also, for the uninitiated: I include sack numbers in passing statistics, rather than running stats. That is what the “adjusted” part of adjusted yards per rush and adjusted yards per pass is referencing.

—

Offense

– Yards per play (national average: 5.42; there are 128 teams in FCS)

Top 5 in FCS: Eastern Washington (7.30 yards per play), Southeastern Louisiana, South Dakota State, Incarnate Word, Nicholls State
Bottom 5 in FCS: Bucknell (3.38), Lehigh, Houston Baptist, Grambling State, Wagner
Wofford is 65th (5.37), The Citadel 89th (5.06). ETSU is 14th, Mercer 15th.

– Adjusted yards per rush (national average: 4.73)

Top 5: Sam Houston State (6.63), Nicholls State, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, ETSU
Bottom 5: Georgetown (3.02), Bucknell, Cal Poly, Robert Morris, Alabama State
Wofford is 30th (5.22), The Citadel 64th (4.65). Mercer is 11th, Chattanooga 17th.

– Adjusted yards per pass (national average: 6.12)

Top 5: Davidson (10.20), Kennesaw State, Eastern Washington, Southeastern Louisiana, South Dakota State
Bottom 5: Lehigh (3.51), Bucknell, Grambling State, Houston Baptist, Wagner
The Citadel is 37th (6.66), Wofford 85th (5.70). Mercer is 11th, ETSU 24th.

According to the NCAA’s “raw” stats, The Citadel is 8th nationally in yards per pass attempt (8.53). However, the Bulldogs also have the 5th-worst sack rate against in FCS (12.1%). Those sacks really have an impact on the actual yardage gained on pass plays.

The Citadel’s quarterbacks have been sacked 16 times this season, while attempting 116 passes. Southeastern Louisiana’s offense has also suffered 16 sacks — but the Lions have thrown 396 passes.

– The Citadel’s 116 pass attempts ranks as the third-fewest in the subdivision. Only Davidson (81 pass attempts) and Kennesaw State (108) have thrown fewer. Wofford has attempted 154 passes, fifth-fewest; Mercer has thrown the seventh-fewest.

– Not surprisingly, Davidson, Kennesaw State, and The Citadel rank 1-2-3 in percentage of run plays, with the Wildcats rushing on 84.6% of all plays from scrimmage. The Bulldogs run the football 79.5% of the time.

The SoCon as a whole prefers the ground attack. Wofford (68.6%) is 5th nationally in run rate, Mercer 8th, Chattanooga 13th, ETSU 20th, and Furman 22nd.

– Presbyterian has a pass play rate of 73.4%, tops in FCS. The rest of the top 5: Western Illinois, Morehead State, Incarnate Word, and Southeastern Louisiana. The Blue Hose are averaging 59.3 passes per game.

– Points per offensive play (national average: .383)

Top 5: South Dakota State (.627), Eastern Washington, Southeastern Louisiana, Sam Houston State, Central Arkansas
Bottom 5: Bucknell (.161), Lehigh, Dixie State, Cal Poly, Drake
Wofford is 91st (.320), The Citadel 96th (.313). Mercer is 12th, Samford 16th, ETSU 20th.

– Third down conversion rate (national average: 37.52%)

Top 5: Davidson (54.81%), Southeastern Louisiana, Eastern Washington, Incarnate Word, Missouri State
Bottom 5: New Hampshire (22.52%), Bucknell, Wagner, Eastern Illinois, Grambling State
The Citadel is 32nd (42.03%), Wofford 97th (33.33%). ETSU is 12th, Mercer 13th.

– Fourth down conversion rate (national average: 48.99%)

Top 5: Kennesaw State (88.24%, 15 for 17), Furman and Delaware (tied for 2nd at 80.0%, 8 for 10), Norfolk State, Davidson
Bottom 2: Howard is 1 for 11 on 4th down, while Lehigh is 2 for 16
The Citadel is tied for 46th at exactly 50% (16 for 32), while Wofford is tied for 105th (36.36%, 4 for 11)
VMI is 7th, Mercer 9th (albeit on only 7 attempts), Samford 17th.

– Fourth down attempts

Presbyterian is 22 for 70 on fourth down attempts. Stetson has the 2nd-most attempts (38), followed by Eastern Illinois and (in a tie for fourth) The Citadel and Central Connecticut State.
Montana State has the fewest fourth down tries, with 5 (one successful). Eastern Kentucky and Central Arkansas have gone for it six times; Mercer and Chattanooga have each made seven attempts.

– Go rate

Presbyterian’s go rate of 87.5% leads the nation, as expected. Stetson, Davidson, Brown, and Southeastern Louisiana round out the top 5.
The Citadel is 8th (41.56%), Wofford 105th (15.15%).
Montana State has the lowest go rate, at 7.81%; Chattanooga is third-lowest.

– Red Zone offense (scoring)

Holy Cross has an estimated points per red zone possession rate of 6.15, best in FCS. The rest of the top 5: Youngstown State, Central Arkansas, Southeast Missouri State, and Southeastern Louisiana.
Bottom 5: Arkansas-Pine Bluff (3.03), Cal Poly, Lehigh, Dixie State, Indiana State
The Citadel is 65th, Wofford 101st.

– Red Zone offense (possessions)

Southeastern Louisiana leads the nation in red zone trips per game, at 6.11. The national average is 3.51.
Other teams with lots of trips inside the opponents’ 20-yard line: Eastern Washington, Norfolk State, Samford, and VMI.
Lamar (1.00) has the fewest red zone trips per game.
The Citadel ranks 74th (3.33), Wofford 117th (2.44).

– Fastest/slowest offenses

Top 5, fastest: Samford (18.76 seconds per play), Presbyterian, Charleston Southern, Eastern Washington, Brown
Top 5, slowest: Delaware State (31.65 seconds per play), Lamar, Duquesne, Chattanooga, North Dakota State
The Citadel has the 67th-fastest offense (27.49 seconds per play), Wofford 120th-fastest (30.18). The national average is 26.96.

– Curious statistic that I thought was worth mentioning…

The Citadel’s offense has only picked up seven first downs via penalty this season. The Bulldogs have run 645 offensive plays, so the first down via penalty rate on a per-play basis is just 1.085%, which is the lowest rate in all of FCS. Wofford, by comparison, has a rate of 2.107%, slightly below the national average (2.571%).

No, I don’t know what it all means either…

—

Defense

– Yards per play (national average: 5.55)

Top 5: Jackson State (3.74), James Madison, Harvard, Prairie View A&M, Villanova
Bottom 5: Southern Utah (7.15), Western Illinois, Youngstown State, Brown, Butler
Wofford is 116th (6.45), The Citadel 122nd (6.74). Chattanooga is 14th, Mercer 21st.

– Adjusted yards per rush (national average: 4.81)

Top 5: James Madison (2.93), Harvard, Sam Houston State, Montana, Villanova
Bottom 5: Youngstown State (6.34), Lamar, Western Illinois, Butler, Alabama A&M
Wofford is 114th (5.63), The Citadel 118th (5.77). Chattanooga is 24th.

– Adjusted yards per pass (national average: 6.31)

Top 5: Jackson State (3.27), Sacred Heart, Prairie View A&M, Merrimack, Dartmouth
Bottom 5: Southern Utah (9.14), Brown, The Citadel (8.05), Idaho State, Robert Morris.
Wofford is 108th (7.49). Chattanooga is 15th, ETSU 23rd.

Jackson State’s prowess against the pass is best illustrated by its sack rate of 12.9%, tops in the nation.

– VMI’s opponents have run the football on 62.1% of their plays from scrimmage, the highest percentage in FCS. The rest of the top 5 in that category: Butler, Eastern Illinois, Western Carolina, and Samford.

There are several other SoCon schools in the top 25, including Furman (11th), The Citadel (12th), Mercer (22nd), and Wofford (25th).

– Harvard’s opponents have passes (or attempted to pass) on 60.7% of their plays from scrimmage, the highest rate in the subdivision.

– Points allowed per play (national average: 4.04)

Top 5: North Dakota State (.172), Montana State, Harvard, Montana, Jackson State
Bottom 5: Presbyterian (.835), Brown, Lamar, Western Illinois, Wagner
Wofford is 99th (.484), The Citadel 118th (.544). ETSU is 16th, Chattanooga 19th.

– Third down conversion rate against

Top 5: North Dakota State (23.4%), Yale, Harvard, James Madison, Prairie View A&M
Bottom 5: Southern Utah (54.6%), Lamar, Idaho State, Jacksonville State, LIU
The Citadel is 112th (45.3%), Wofford 122nd (49.2%). Chattanooga is 8th.

– Fourth down conversion rate against

Top 5: St. Thomas (17.6%, 3 for 17), Holy Cross, Alcorn State, Harvard, Furman (2 for 8).
The Citadel is 70th, Wofford 79th.
Bethune-Cookman has allowed 12 of 13 fourth down conversion attempts (92.3%). North Alabama and Mercer have each allowed 11 of 14 (78.6%).

– Fourth down attempts against

Four teams have faced only eight 4th-down attempts: Furman, Youngstown State, The Citadel, and Drake.
William and Mary has faced 28, the most of any team not named Presbyterian or that has not played Presbyterian.

– Havoc Rate

Jackson State (23.46%) leads the nation in Havoc Rate, followed by James Madison, Chattanooga, Prairie View A&M, and Stephen F. Austin.
Wofford is last in Havoc Rate (9.16%). The rest of the bottom five includes Southern Utah, Bucknell, The Citadel (10.78%, fourth-worst), and Marist.

Of the bottom 25 teams in Havoc Rate, only two have winning records — Fordham and VMI.

– Red Zone defense (scoring)

Top 5: Dartmouth (2.84 estimated points per red zone possession), Harvard, North Dakota State, Montana, Kennesaw State
Bottom 5: Western Carolina (6.28), Columbia, Lamar, Brown, Butler
The Citadel is 59th, Wofford 101st. Chattanooga is 6th.

– Red Zone defense (possessions)

Top 5: James Madison (allowing 1.44 red zone possessions per game), North Dakota State, Sacred Heart, Jackson State, Villanova
Bottom 5: Presbyterian, Southern, Houston Baptist, LIU, Western Carolina
Wofford is 55th, The Citadel 91st. Chattanooga is 15th.

—

Miscellaneous

– St. Thomas leads FCS in interceptions per pass attempt (one pick every 16.23 opponent throws). Chattanooga ranks second in this statistic, followed by Holy Cross, Villanova, and Stephen F. Austin. Mercer is 11th, Furman 13th, The Citadel 57th (33.57), and Wofford next-to-last (131.50). Howard has faced 253 pass attempts, but has only one interception.

– Montana continues to set the pace in net punting (44.20). The Citadel is 28th, Wofford 60th, and Presbyterian (predictably) last.

– Furman is averaging the fewest penalty yards per game in FCS (31.00). The rest of the top five includes Bucknell, Wofford (32.67), Princeton, and South Dakota. Mercer is 8th, The Citadel 27th (47.00).

Florida A&M averages the most penalty yards per contest (96.33).

The cumulative record of the ten teams with the worst penalty yardage numbers is 49-40. The cumulative record of the ten teams with the fewest penalty yardage stats is 40-47.

– James Madison has a turnover margin per game of +1.33, tops in FCS. Chattanooga and Montana State are tied for 2nd. The next group of tied teams includes East Tennessee State, McNeese State, South Carolina State, South Dakota State, and UC Davis.

The Citadel is tied for 95th (-0.33), Wofford tied for 77th (-0.11). Presbyterian (-2.56) is last.

– The Citadel is 14th in time of possession, while Wofford is 87th.

– The Citadel’s home attendance per game is 27th-highest nationally; Wofford’s is 88th.

—

I’ll probably have another relatively short writeup as Saturday’s contest draws closer.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: FCS, SoCon, The Citadel, Wofford | Leave a comment »

Looking at the numbers, 2021 preseason: returning starters in the SoCon

Posted on July 31, 2021 by Sandlapper Spike

Looking at the numbers, 2021 preseason: close games

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Sandlapper Spike

Here are links to other posts I’ve written this month as the 2021 fall campaign approaches:

—

I’ve often stated that marginal improvement in various statistical categories can make an outsized difference in a team’s success, and lead to winning more games. For example, in my post about havoc rates, I wrote:

…one play — a forced fumble, a big tackle for loss, an interception — could well be the difference between a win or a loss. After all, just think about how many close games The Citadel has played in the conference in recent years.

This is certainly true, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually researched just how many close games the Bulldogs have played over the past few seasons. It was time to change that oversight.

Thus, I created a spreadsheet (of course). This one includes all Southern Conference games played between 2011 and the 2021 spring campaign for every league team which played during the period. That is ten seasons of data.

I am defining close games by the more-or-less standard definition, matchups decided by eight or fewer points — in other words, one-score games. That obviously includes all overtime contests.

Close games in the SoCon, 2011-S2021

The chart includes three teams no longer in the conference (Appalachian State, Elon, and Georgia Southern) and all of the current league members, including two teams (ETSU and VMI) that rejoined the conference since the 2011 season.

As mentioned, only conference games are listed. I’ve also noted the total number of league games played each year.

Since 2011, 44.81% of all SoCon contests have been close games. The rate has been quite consistent over the years; the highest percentage of close games during that time was last season (55.17%), while the lowest was in 2014 (32.14%). If you combine those two campaigns, the average comes out to 43.86%, right near the mean — and the other years are all between 41%-50%.

A few random observations:

Not counting Appalachian State or Georgia Southern (both of which left the SoCon after the 2013 season), the team with the best record in one-score games has been Wofford, while the unluckiest team in that respect has been VMI.
In its five seasons since rejoining the conference, East Tennessee State has played by far the highest percentage of close games (68.42%).
Conversely, Western Carolina has the lowest rate of close games (26.32%).

—

The Citadel has played 78 league games since 2011. In 39 of those contests — exactly half — the Bulldogs have been involved in a one-score game.

In all SoCon matchups over the period, The Citadel has a record of 41-37, so the Bulldogs have a slightly better record in games that are not close (22-17) than in games that are (19-20).

What does it all mean? Does it mean anything at all?

Generally speaking, over time a team’s record in one-score games should be right around .500, and that is the case for The Citadel. When it comes to close contests, the program has not been a statistical outlier from a historical perspective (which might comes as a surprise in some quarters).

One takeaway, then, might be that instead of hoping small advancements will lead to a better record in close games, the actual intended results should be for fewer close games, with the difference being several more decisive victories.

Regardless, odds are that at least three of the Bulldogs’ league matchups this season will go right down to the wire. As always, critical plays have to be made in those key moments.

The fans have to be ready, too…

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Appalachian State, East Tennessee State, SoCon, The Citadel, VMI, Western Carolina, Wofford | Leave a comment »

2021 Spring Football, Game 6: The Citadel vs. Wofford

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel at Wofford, to be played at Gibbs Stadium in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with kickoff at 1:00 pm ET on April 3, 2021.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Pete Yanity will handle play-by-play, while Jared Singleton supplies the analysis.

The contest can be heard on radio via The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station.

Luke Mauro (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) calls the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze.

—

Links of interest:

– Game notes from The Citadel and Wofford

– SoCon weekly release (when available)

– Preview on The Citadel’s website (when available)

– Preview on Wofford’s website (when available)

– “Live stats” online platform

—

This will not be my standard writeup, for a couple of reasons. First, the events of this week from a conference perspective made writing your typical game preview seem less than relevant.

The second reason is that WordPress has now forcibly converted this blog to its new editing system, and I have really struggled to get a handle on it. I might be done with WordPress. (And yes, I might be done with blogging for a while, too.)

For now, I am going to stick to writing what amounts to an essay on the state of SoCon football in 2021, beginning with Chattanooga waving goodbye to the spring football season.

—

After Chattanooga announced it was “opting out” of the rest of the spring football campaign, the SoCon released a very short statement:

The Southern Conference supports Chattanooga in its decision to discontinue its 2020-21 football season as it is left unable to field a sufficient number of players at several position groups to meet the conference’s COVID-19 guidelines. The Mocs’ remaining scheduled games will be recorded as no-contests.

Also a no-contest: any attempt by the SoCon to compel Chattanooga to complete its schedule. At least a couple of media sources have suggested that the Mocs never had any intention of actually completing the spring campaign; those pundits believe that UTC’s move was a fait accompli from the time the season started.

Chattanooga head coach Rusty Wright was one of the leading voices in the “spring skeptics” camp, and he appears to have been supported in that viewpoint by his administration. The shutdown wasn’t cleanly executed, however; the bizarre decision to play almost no starters in UTC’s final game (against Mercer) appears to have been a bit impromptu.

As outlined by Gene Henley of the Chattanooga Times Free-Press:

On Monday, the combination of academic classload and concern for the unknown toll that could be inflicted on players’ bodies from potentially playing as many as 19 combined games this spring and fall, led “around 30” players — according to university sources — to opt out of the remaining spring season...

…Early in [Chattanooga’s game against Furman], the Mocs lost starting center Kyle Miskelley to a lower body injury. Miskelley had become the unofficial offensive line coach, since the Mocs didn’t have a coach at that position, and was beloved by his position mates as well as other teammates.

“That was the nail in the coffin,” Wright told the Times Free Press Monday.

Most of the veteran players attempted to opt out after that Furman game, with Wright again having to convince them to stay, albeit to handle scout-team work as it had been decided that younger players would play exclusively against Mercer last Saturday.

—

The SoCon drew some criticism for its eight-games-in-nine-weeks spring slate, in part because of the large number of games the schools would wind up playing in 2021 as a result (and also because it didn’t build any real schedule “buffers” in case of COVID issues). Nobody should be surprised that a lot of players weren’t overly excited about playing that many games in a calendar year.

The spring games have also arguably been a hindrance to long-term player development. Instead of the standard work done on the field (and in the weight room), coaches and players are having to prepare for weekly contests.

The reality is that the conference was split in terms of schools wanting to play in the spring, versus those that preferred waiting until fall 2021. Chattanooga was clearly in the latter camp.

—

The Mocs aren’t the only FCS school to have stopped playing this spring. So have Cal Poly, Illinois State, and Albany. There will almost certainly be more schools that do the same. The rumblings can even be heard in Fargo:

An ill-advised spring football season that until a few days ago looked like a farce from afar looks like a close-up farce now.

When they are debating the value of continuing the season in the heart of Bison country, you know something is up.

—

I am not sure why UTC just didn’t sit out the spring season entirely; perhaps there was pressure brought to bear by the conference, which presumably wanted all of its schools to move in the same direction. If that were in fact the case, it was a mistake (as was the effort to play a complete round-robin spring slate).

My only real criticism of Chattanooga is that it fielded what amounted to a ‘B’ team against Mercer, an act not really in the spirit of what could be called “competitive integrity” (although your mileage could definitely vary on that subject). It could potentially have an impact on the conference title race, which would be a nightmare for the SoCon.

There is a scenario in which the top of the league standings going into the final week of the season look like this:

VMI: 5-1 (scheduled to host The Citadel)
Mercer: 5-2 (scheduled to play at Samford)

In that situation, a loss by VMI and a Mercer victory would result in the league crown and auto-bid heading to Macon, with the difference in the records being Mercer’s win over Chattanooga (as the Keydets’ matchup with the Mocs has been declared a no-contest, per the SoCon).

Furman also has a possible route to the title, but its loss to UTC is problematic – especially because VMI and ETSU didn’t play Chattanooga (and a no-contest, while not as good as a win, is still better than a loss). I should note that the Paladins are a solid favorite (10 points) at Mercer this week.

There is also a possibility that East Tennessee State’s postponed game at Wofford could be very important in the league standings, as the Buccaneers are very much in the picture for the conference crown (and are a 1-point favorite at VMI on Saturday). The Terriers are supposed to play at Furman on the final weekend, while ETSU’s scheduled game against Chattanooga has been canceled. Would the league sideline the Paladins and have Wofford host ETSU instead if the latter matchup proves potentially consequential?

Now, if VMI beats East Tennessee State on Saturday, none of those would-be storylines will happen, as the Keydets would clinch the championship. That would undoubtedly be a relief to certain individuals within the league hierarchy.

—

VMI is one of the schools that wanted to play in the spring. From what I can gather, East Tennessee State, Furman, and Mercer were probably in that group as well, along with Wofford – although there might have been mixed feelings even in that cohort.

Furman’s coaching staff clearly believed the Paladins were capable of winning the league and having success in the FCS playoffs, which likely helped drive their position. VMI and Wofford also had promising teams — but their senior classes would only have the spring to compete for their respective institutions, as neither has a graduate school.

One other thing VMI and Wofford have in common is that it is relatively unusual for players to transfer into their football programs from other schools. That was surely also a factor in wanting to compete in the spring, although it turned out to be a double-edged sword – at least for Wofford.

—

The transfer portal can be a very difficult thing to navigate in the best of circumstances. When a school loses players to the portal but is not really in a position to receive other players in return (so to speak), it can be a real challenge.

Just this week, Wofford lost two of its top offensive players, who both elected to enter the portal. Each player had actually been listed on the two-deep for Saturday’s game against The Citadel (the game notes have since been changed to adjust the depth chart).

Of course, the Terriers already have had one game postponed this season (the aforementioned contest versus ETSU) because of a shortage of defensive linemen. In a newspaper article by Eric Boynton from the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Wofford head coach Josh Conklin was outspoken about what he sees as a clear competitive disadvantage between schools that can bring in numerous transfers and those which cannot:

“The reality of our situation right now is it’s going to be a tightrope every game,” Conklin said. “It’s going to be can we put six guys at defensive line to play. It’s a compound issue at one position and here we sit. The thing you battle as a head coach is you grind those guys through it and they don’t have a year to recover. They’ve got to make decisions on, ‘Do I get my surgery now and miss these games that are coming up or do I wait until the end of the season, get my surgery and have to miss half the season in the fall?’

“These are the issues we’ve talked about in theory, but now we’re here and it’s reality. We have 63 scholarships, we don’t have 85 and that’s a huge difference. Those are the issues you have when you’re trying to play a season in the spring and then turn around and play one in the fall and you have some injuries.”

…The Terriers looked at the transfer portal but found nobody who was a fit for the program both on the field and academically.

“That’s the reality,” Conklin said. “It’s disappointing and frustrating, especially when you look at a Chattanooga who had 30-something transfers I think and some of those guys were graduate transfers. Kennesaw State has somewhere between five and six grad transfers. Those are the things at our level that will have to be addressed at some point in time or it’s going to be an unfair advantage.”

I’m sure the league office was less than thrilled that Conklin specifically called out a fellow conference member. It could also be argued that when it comes to the issue of player movement, Conklin is not the ideal spokesman, given his tendency in recent months to throw his hat in the ring for just about every open FBS defensive coordinator job.

—

Conklin’s complaint is a reflection of a longstanding issue within the SoCon. The league has historically been a hodgepodge of schools, often with little in common other than geography (and sometimes not even that). At times, the different missions and sizes of the institutions are at odds with one another.

In this case, the conflict is between a small, private college (Wofford) and a larger, public commuter university (Chattanooga). It is no surprise that they might differ on smaller or larger points when it comes to roster construction for a football team.

What has usually happened in the league is that schools which eventually get too “large” for the conference (West Virginia, East Carolina, Marshall) eventually leave for more like-minded conferences. Sometimes, smaller schools depart as well, though in those cases the reasons are more institution-specific (Washington and Lee de-emphasized athletics; Davidson’s administration decided scholarship football was a fascist enterprise).

The bottom line is this: as I have said before (and will happily say again), being a member of the Southern Conference means accepting the differences that exist in the league schools, getting on the bus, and going to the game.

—

Is it time for The Citadel to pull the plug on this spring season?

Brent Thompson firmly says no:

“…I still think it is worth it to play for a lot of reasons, and some of them may just be personal reasons.

“Some of them are, we’re getting better, we’re improving. We’re playing a lot of our younger guys anyway, so let’s give those guys an opportunity. We’re playing some guys who are walk-ons, who are on partial scholarship and they are fighting their butts off. At this point, I think we’re more playing for the fall, but I certainly do think it’s worth it.“

…Thompson said young players develop faster in games than they would in a normal spring practice.

“You look at (fullback) Nathan Storch, he’s getting better every single day,” Thompson said. “He’s had some really good days and some tough days in there … The only way to do it is to go in there and get live reps.”

Thompson doesn’t seem likely to pull the plug. Remember, he’s the coach who refused to shorten the second half of last year’s game at No. 1 Clemson, despite trailing 49-0 at the half.

I agree with the coach. At this point, I don’t see any reason to end the season. The Citadel made a commitment to play the spring schedule, whatever the misgivings of the school’s administration and coaches might have been, and the Bulldogs should complete the slate. The only caveat would be if circumstances dictated that it is unsafe to do so.

—

So, barring something unforeseen, the Bulldogs will play Wofford this Saturday in Spartanburg. It should be clear and cool (about 60°).

The Terriers are a 7½-point favorite, with an over/under of 48.

I don’t have any significant observations to make about the game. I am hopeful that The Citadel’s offense will not turn the ball over every other possession (seven turnovers on 15 full drives versus Samford). Just cleaning up some of the mistakes should result in a much more competitive contest.

I can’t be in Spartanburg (the first time I’ve missed a game there involving The Citadel in many years), but I’ll be rooting hard for this group of players. They deserve all the support Bulldog fans can muster.

—

One other thing: this is probably the last blog post of this abbreviated spring season (regardless of sport). As I mentioned above, I’m having some technical problems with the platform. I also have some issues with time, to be quite honest.

I don’t know yet what I will do in the summer/fall. I might continue my traditional previews and statistical analysis posts, but if so, the formatting could change. Or it might remain the same. I have no idea.

I just hope that the world of sports has returned to something approaching normalcy by the time football season rolls around (again). That’s more important than any blog, anyway.

Go Dogs!

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Brent Thompson, SoCon, The Citadel, Wofford | 2 Comments »

2019 Football, Game 12: The Citadel vs. Wofford

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Sandlapper Spike

The Citadel vs. Wofford, to be played at historic Johnson Hagood Stadium, with kickoff at 12:00 pm ET on November 23, 2019.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Matt Dean will handle play-by-play, while Dominique Allen supplies the analysis.

The contest 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.

Luke Mauro (the “Voice of the Bulldogs”) calls the action alongside analyst Ted Byrne.

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The Citadel Sports Network — 2019 radio affiliates

Charleston: WQNT 1450 AM/92.1 FM/102.1 FM (Flagship)
Columbia: WQXL 1470 AM/100.7 FM
Sumter: WDXY 1240 AM/105.9 FM

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Links of interest:

– Preview from The Post and Courier

– “Jeff’s Take” from The Post and Courier

– Game notes from The Citadel and Wofford

– SoCon weekly release

– “Gameday Central” on The Citadel’s website

– Game preview on Wofford’s website

– Brent Thompson’s weekly press conference (11/18)

– The Dogs: Episode 12

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I’m going to begin this preview by discussing the fact that the corps of cadets will not be in attendance at Saturday’s game. Obviously, that is ridiculous. Other than the 2004 game against Western Carolina, I am unaware of any other regular-season game in the last 50 years at Johnson Hagood Stadium that did not feature the corps.

There are a few people out there (thankfully, just a few) who don’t think this is a big deal. It is absolutely a big deal. The corps of cadets attending home games is a part of the school’s fabric. It is an essential element of the gameday experience, and a very popular one. It is distinctly traditional in all the best ways.

I got angrier and angrier as I read Jeff Hartsell’s article on this topic.

…when the 2019 schedule was released last January, a home game with Wofford was slated for Nov. 23, the day after The Citadel’s furlough was to begin. The Citadel’s “money game” was early in the season — a Sept. 14 game at Georgia Tech that the Bulldogs won by 27-24.

Athletic director Mike Capaccio said he tried to work with the Southern Conference to get the game moved, but it was too late. Geoff Cabe, the SoCon senior associate commissioner, said the league was unaware at that time of any special requests The Citadel might have for scheduling…

…”When we discussed it with the conference office, they said they were not aware of any rule we had,” said Capaccio, who took over for Jim Senter as The Citadel’s AD in August 2018, about six months after Senter left for Texas-El Paso. “They were not aware that if we didn’t have the corps there, we shouldn’t be having a game.

“But the bottom line is, we signed off on it and approved it.”

Requiring the corps to remain on campus until after the game would have been problematic, given travel plans and other arrangements made in advance.

“There was some discussion about it, but it was kind of a non-starter,” Capaccio said. “Obviously, that’s up to other folks on campus. It’s just a bad situation, and the bottom line is that we approved it.”

Sigh…where to start…

– Capaccio has been the AD at The Citadel since August 15, 2018, and was the interim AD as of no later than July 20 of that year. Of course, he had previously been working for The Citadel Development Foundation, as the school went on an eight-month odyssey to find a new director of athletics (paying a search firm $70,000 in the process) just to pick someone who was already on campus.

I don’t know when the SoCon sent the 2019 football schedule to The Citadel for approval. I would be very surprised if it was sent prior to July of 2018. Maybe it was; that isn’t entirely clear. If so, responsibility for its approval would have fallen on either Jim Senter or former interim AD Rob Acunto.

However, it seems unlikely the schedule would have been approved by the college that far in advance, since it wasn’t officially released until January 2019.

Basically, the schedule got rubber-stamped at The Citadel (readers of this post can make up their own minds as to by whom) and sent back to the SoCon office, seemingly without even a cursory check to determine if there was a potential problem. Then the slate was released by The Citadel on January 31, 2019 (though Wofford had already announced its schedule three days earlier).

– I don’t know when someone in the department of athletics noticed there was a conflict between the Wofford game and Thanksgiving furlough. I’m going to assume it was fairly soon after the release, because a number of other observers spotted it immediately.

There was plenty of time to adjust the academic calendar to account for the late-season home game. Instead, no change was made — presumably, based on Capaccio’s comments in the article, a decision (or non-decision) made by the folks in Bond Hall.

Curiously, VMI was faced with a similar situation this season, and evidently changed its calendar to ensure that the Keydets would be in attendance for its home game this Saturday, a rare example of VMI being more proactive and flexible than The Citadel when it comes to something involving varsity athletics.

– Apparently, Capaccio tried to get the game moved to Thursday, November 21. However, Wofford refused to go along with that plan.

Wofford head coach Josh Conklin:

“…one of the things that came up early on in the scheduling was they talked about moving this game to a Thursday. It wasn’t out of disrespect that we didn’t want to move it. For us, it comes down to the preparation. They are such a difficult team to prepare for offensively and defensively, and…it could be such an important game at the end of the year. Those 2 1/2 days of prep [that Wofford would not have]…are really important to us as a program.”

Conklin didn’t mention that in that scenario, The Citadel also would have had 2 1/2 fewer days of preparation. He was just looking for an easy way to explain why the Terriers weren’t going to go along with the switch.

I don’t think anyone should be surprised that Wofford refused to move the game. It was a great break for the Terriers, after all, as what could potentially have been a key road game would be played with reduced attendance on the home side — not just the absence of the cadets, but also the people who go to the games in part because the corps is there.

Wofford is used to playing in front of small home crowds in Spartanburg, so this turn of events worked out perfectly for the Terriers.

While I honestly can’t be too critical of Wofford for its lack of accommodation, clearly The Citadel won’t owe that school anything the next time it asks the military college for a favor. That next time could come sooner rather than later.

– I am more than a little surprised that the conference office did not know about The Citadel’s academic calendar. I suspect the league schedule is built around various “money games” each school plays, understandably so.

That said, The Citadel has not always had a scheduled “money game” for the last week of the season since the formulation of the current extended furlough period. Seasons in which the Bulldogs could have been assigned a home contest for the last game of the regular season (following the 2004 BOV motion referenced in Jeff Hartsell’s story) include 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014.

The Citadel played a road conference game on that Saturday in all of those years. Was this simply an amazingly fortuitous series of coincidences? I have my doubts.

It appears that someone in the league office was at least partly aware of the college’s scheduling concerns. Perhaps there was a loss of organizational knowledge sometime in the last five years.

—

The bottom line is that this whole episode is embarrassing and totally unacceptable, and it was also completely avoidable — a self-inflicted wound.

Mike Capaccio has now been in charge of the department of athletics for more than 15 months. So far, this debacle appears to be the most noteworthy thing to occur on his watch (whether or not he is actually at fault for it). Regarding his performance in the position to date, Capaccio has work to do when it comes to alleviating the concerns of a significant number of supporters of varsity athletics.

I believe responsibility for this affair, though, also must be shouldered by the school administration, including Gen. Walters. Someone in the administration probably needs to personally apologize to the coaches and players on the football team, especially the seniors. They were let down by the school.

Ultimately, the absence of the corps of cadets from Saturday’s game is simply due to ineptitude; nothing more, nothing less.

—

This little article has been making the rounds on the internet. I want to briefly comment on it, mainly because I think an opposing point of view is necessary, one which also happens to be the correct point of view.

…each year a football official visits the Laurens County Touchdown and creates the unmistakable impression that the refs are good guys who actually know the rules and what they are doing out there…

…Jack Childress, supervisor of officials in the Southern and South Atlantic conferences, pulled off the same trick Thursday. It turns out Childress, who has worn the white referee’s cap in just about every Southern palace where football games are held, knows more about the rules than everyone, with the possible exception of Bob Strock and King Dixon, at The Ridge.

He likely dissuaded most everyone else who thought he (or she) knew the rules, which, at something called a touchdown club, is just about everyone.

The general impression I get from this story is that Jack Childress is great, his officials are greater, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an unsophisticated rube who should shut up already.

Well, guess what. That isn’t true.

SoCon officials simply aren’t very good. Childress has been the football officiating supervisor for the SoCon since 2011, and things haven’t improved — if anything, they have worsened.

I wish that instead of making appearances on the rubber chicken circuit, Childress would spend more time showing his officials the proper way to spot a football. I’m tired of the Bulldogs having to pick up 11 or 12 yards for a first down instead of 10.

Maybe he could also do something about the inconsistencies surrounding the league’s replay review setup….or perhaps he could tell his officials not to become part of the action, particularly in close games.

The Citadel didn’t lose last week solely because of the officiating, but it was a factor. That is a scenario which has been repeated far too often over the years.

I would encourage the new conference commissioner, Jim Schaus, to fix the problem. Actually acknowledging there is a problem would be a good first step.

The coaches and players (and yes, the fans) of the conference deserve better. A lot better.

—

Not that I want to spend much time (any time, really) on last week’s game, but just a couple of points.

Brent Thompson definitely should have gone for 2 points after the Bulldogs’ last TD. Afterwards, the coach had this to say:

That did cross my mind there. We double-checked with analytics, and it didn’t say it was necessary. But you have the opportunity to put the ball at the 1½ [because of a dead-ball penalty on the Mocs], and that’s something that’s crossed my mind more than once since the game ended.

In this case, I think the coach needs a one-week refund from the data crunchers. I say that as someone who is a big fan of how Thompson has incorporated analytics into his decision-making process.

However, the touchdown was scored almost midway through the fourth quarter. This isn’t a case of going for it too early (as Chattanooga did in the first half). There weren’t going to be that many more possessions.

It was only the second major decision Thompson has made all season in which I strongly disagreed. (The other was his opting to go for 2 in the game against Charleston Southern, which was more complicated but still, in my opinion, a mistake.)

I also felt that the sequence at the end of the first half was not ideal, though it was a bit tricky. Nevertheless, The Citadel ended the half still holding a timeout. I think the Bulldogs may have left one or two plays on the table.

—

Wofford has played 10 games this season, and is 7-3 (6-1 in the SoCon). The Terriers have lost to South Carolina State, Samford, and Clemson, but have won 7 straight contests versus FCS opposition.

Every other team in the league scheduled 12 regular season games (including Mercer, which actually added a 12^th game against Presbyterian after the season had already started). Wofford has not added a 12^th game (when given the opportunity to do so because of the calendar) since the 2002 season, declining four subsequent chances to add another game to its slate.

—

A quick statistical ranking comparison between the Terriers and Bulldogs (these are FCS national rankings, and they include all games, including those versus FBS teams):

Yards per play, offense: Wofford (7^th), The Citadel (85^th)
Yards per play allowed, defense: Wofford (70^th), The Citadel (98^th)
Yards per rush, offense: Wofford (3^rd), The Citadel (43rd)
Yards per rush allowed, defense: Wofford (77^th), The Citadel (84^th)
Offensive third down conversion rate: Wofford (7^th), The Citadel (15^th)
Defensive third down conversion rate: Wofford (40^th), The Citadel (82^nd)
Net Punting: Wofford (26^th), The Citadel (5^th)
Punt return average: Wofford (2^nd), The Citadel (74^th)
Kickoff return average: Wofford (97^th), The Citadel (62^nd)
Fewest penalties per game: Wofford (46^th), The Citadel (T-26^th)
Time of possession: Wofford (2^nd), The Citadel (1^st)
Turnover margin: Wofford (T-56^th), The Citadel (T-76^th)
Offensive team passing efficiency: Wofford (49^th), The Citadel (3^rd)
Defensive team passing efficiency: Wofford (47^th), The Citadel (68^th)
Scoring offense: Wofford (25^th), The Citadel (43^rd)
Scoring defense: Wofford (T-29^th), The Citadel (62^nd)
Red Zone TD rate, offense: Wofford (15^th), The Citadel (22^nd)
Red Zone TD rate, defense: Wofford (104^th), The Citadel (36^th)

—

Odds and ends:

– The weather forecast for Saturday in Charleston, per the National Weather Service: partly sunny, with a high of 73 degrees. The forecast called for rain earlier in the week, but now it is anticipated that the skies will be relatively clear.

– Per one source that deals in such matters (as of Thursday afternoon), Wofford is a 6 1/2 point favorite over The Citadel. The over/under is 55 1/2.

Through eleven games this season, The Citadel is 5-6 ATS. The over has hit just four times, but two of those occasions have come in the last two contests.

– Other lines involving SoCon teams: Furman is a 44-point favorite over, uh, Point; Chattanooga is a 9-point favorite at VMI; Western Carolina is a 57-point underdog at Alabama; Samford is a 48 1/2 point underdog at Auburn; Mercer is a 39-point underdog at North Carolina; and East Tennessee State is a 20 1/2 point underdog at Vanderbilt.

– Also of note: Towson is a 9 1/2 point favorite over Elon, and Charleston Southern is a 2 1/2 point favorite over Campbell.

In games between FCS schools, the biggest spread is 31, with Kennesaw State favored over Gardner-Webb.

– Massey Ratings: The Citadel is ranked 43rd in FCS. The Terriers are 24th.

Massey projects the Bulldogs to have a 36% chance of winning, with a predicted final score of Wofford 31, The Citadel 26.

The top five teams in Massey’s FCS rankings this week: North Dakota State, James Madison, Montana, Sacramento State, and Weber State.

Other rankings this week of varied interest: Northern Iowa is 8th, Towson 12th, Villanova 13th, Maine 18th, Monmouth 21st, Furman 26th, Kennesaw State 31st, Elon 32nd, UT Martin 36th, Florida A&M 38th, Chattanooga 42nd, North Carolin A&T 46th, Holy Cross 49th, South Carolina State 54th, Jacksonville State 57th, Samford 65th, Rhode Island 70th, Colgate 73rd, Duquesne 78th, Campbell 80th, VMI 81st, East Tennessee State 82nd, Charleston Southern 84th, Mercer 85th, Georgetown 93rd, Davidson 100th, Western Carolina 102nd, Gardner-Webb 111th, Merrimack 117th, Presbyterian 125th, and Butler 126th (last).

– Wofford’s notable alumni include sportscaster Wendi Nix, longtime political operative Donald Fowler, and television anchor/reporter Craig Melvin.

– Future FBS opponents for the Terriers include South Carolina (in 2020 and 2022), North Carolina (2021), Virginia Tech (2022), and Clemson (in 2023 and 2027). Wofford also has a home-and-home series scheduled with Kennesaw State in 2021 and 2022.

– Wofford’s roster includes 41 players from the state of South Carolina. Other states represented: Georgia (16 players), North Carolina (10), Florida (7), Ohio (7), Tennessee (6), Kentucky (5), Alabama (4), and one each from Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia.

Offensive lineman Ronnie Brooks is from Washington, DC.

None of the Terriers are from internationally renowned pigskin power Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School. This ludicrous failure to recruit any of the fantastic football players who sport the famed maroon and orange will inevitably lead to the Terriers’ demise as a factor on the gridiron.

– The Citadel’s geographic roster breakdown (per the school’s website) is as follows: South Carolina (53 players), Georgia (29), Florida (8), Texas (5), North Carolina (3), Pennsylvania (3), Alabama (2), New York (2), and one each from Virginia, Nebraska, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Ohio, and Kentucky.

In addition, there are two Bulldogs with listed hometowns in other countries — junior tight end Elijah Lowe (Abaco, Bahamas), and freshman linebacker Hayden Williamson (Okinawa, Japan).

– This week’s two-deep for The Citadel is unchanged from last week.

– The Citadel has an all-time record of 5-7 for games played on November 23 (note: the 1935 game against Presbyterian listed in the school’s record book as having been played on November 23 was actually played on November 28).

Among the highlights from past contests on November 23:

1923: On a muddy field at the Allendale County Fair, The Citadel defeated Southern College, 18-3. John “Judge” O’Shaughnessy and Norman Holliday were the stars for the Bulldogs. Incidentally, Southern College is now known as Florida Southern; it is a D-2 school that no longer fields a football team.
1940: Before a crowd of 2,500 fans at the original Johnson Hagood Stadium, The Citadel edged Sewanee, 13-7. Marty Gold scored both touchdowns for the Light Brigade, as the football team was occasionally called during this period of time. The defense held Sewanee to only three first downs.
1946: At Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, The Citadel beat Davidson 21-13 before 4,000 spectators. Luke Dunfee, one of the greatest kick returners in school history, returned a kickoff 92 yards for a TD for the Bulldogs, and also threw a TD pass to Gene Foxworth (the only completion for the Bulldogs on the day). Dick Sparks ran for a 16-yard score, and Bill Henderson converted all three PATs.
1974: In front of 13,210 fans at Johnson Hagood Stadium, The Citadel whipped Davidson, 56-21. Andrew Johnson rushed for 107 yards and two touchdowns (one receiving), finishing the season with 1,373 rushing yards (at the time the SoCon single-season record). Gene Dotson rushed for 148 yards and two TDs, and threw another to Mike Riley (with Dotson breaking his thumb on the TD pass). Backup QB Rod Lanning threw a TD pass to Johnson and rushed for two scores himself, with Mike Bazemore adding a 28-yard touchdown run. Billy Long and Mike Dean had interceptions for the Bulldogs.
1991: In Charleston, a Homecoming crowd of 21,623 watched The Citadel beat Furman, 10-6, in one of the most intense contests ever played at Johnson Hagood Stadium. Jack Douglas scored the game’s only touchdown with 6:27 remaining in the fourth quarter, with the winning drive set up by a Lance Cook fumble recovery, after David Russinko had knocked the ball out of the hands of Furman’s quarterback. Rob Avriett kicked a 33-yard field goal and added the PAT after Douglas’ score. Shannon Walker intercepted a pass to thwart a last-gasp drive by the Paladins.

—

I hope that our players are ready to play this game. I think they will be, though there are a lot of aspects to Saturday that make things a bit cloudy on the prognostication front (and I’m not talking about the weather).

There is a lot of disappointment surrounding this contest – the fallout from the game against Chattanooga, and the failure of the administration which has led to the absence of the corps of cadets. The team has to put all of that behind it (even if some of its fans cannot), and perform at a high level against a good opponent.

Opportunity is still there for the Bulldogs – a 7-win season, a winning league campaign, and even a small chance at the FCS playoffs. If The Citadel were to win on Saturday, it would have the best résumé for an at-large team among all SoCon teams, including Furman.

I’ll be there on Saturday, along with a bunch of my much rowdier friends. The atmosphere won’t be quite the same as it normally would be at Johnson Hagood Stadium, but perhaps it may be memorable in its own way.

Go Dogs!

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Brent Thompson, SoCon, The Citadel, Wofford | 2 Comments »

Ruminating about ratings — 2019 preseason numbers for The Citadel, SoCon, FCS, and more

Posted on August 11, 2019 by Sandlapper Spike

Recent posts about football at The Citadel:

– “Advanced” statistics from The Citadel’s 2018 football season

– Inside the Numbers, Part 1: The Citadel’s 2018 run/pass tendencies and yards per play statistics, with SoCon/FCS discussion as well

– Inside the Numbers, Part 2: The Citadel’s 2018 4th down decision-making, plus Red Zone stats, 3rd down conversion info, etc.

– Football attendance at The Citadel (and elsewhere) — an annual review

– 2019 preseason rankings and ratings, featuring The Citadel and the rest of the SoCon

– During the 2019 football season, which teams will the Bulldogs’ opponents play before (and after) facing The Citadel?

– Homecoming at The Citadel — a brief gridiron history

—

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The Citadel plays a football game in Orangeburg for the first time since 1959

College Football Week 11, 2021: Thursday notes and observations

College Football Week 11, 2021: Tuesday notes and observations

Looking at the numbers, 2021 preseason: returning starters in the SoCon

Looking at the numbers, 2021 preseason: close games

2021 Spring Football, Game 6: The Citadel vs. Wofford

2019 Football, Game 12: The Citadel vs. Wofford

Ruminating about ratings — 2019 preseason numbers for The Citadel, SoCon, FCS, and more

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Archives

Team	A	B	C	D	E	F

The Citadel	46	24	43	36	39	59
VMI	91	111	114	107	106	120
Furman	28	33	20	25	27	32
Wofford	21	22	13	17	13	13
Chattanooga	51	49	54	42	33	43
ETSU	55	56	31	65	83	19
Samford	24	23	25	24	20	52
WCU	75	82	86	78	76	99
Mercer	49	54	56	48	41	67
Towson	26	29	11	28	18	23
Elon	33	36	24	40	38	26
Ch. Southern	87	83	62	74	97	62
Presbyterian	122	115	115	112	112	114
S.C. State	94	85	88	81	71	71
Kennesaw St.	19	5	7	9	15	8
N.C. A&T	54	37	18	37	53	11
Jacksonville St.	38	26	6	12	10	16