By THOMAS GRANT JR., T&D Senior Sports Writer Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Winning the mythical “2009 Black College Football National Championship” was not a primary goal for South Carolina State when it started training camp back in August.
After the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champions officially received the honor, placing first in the final SBN Sports Black College Football poll Monday, the news was swee
t music to the ears of head coach Oliver “Buddy” Pough.“Anything you get a chance to put that by your team’s accomplishments for the year, it sounds good,” he said. “It sounds very good.”
A year after getting edged out by Grambling in the poll, S.C. State (10-2) found the voting in its favor this year in beating out Southwestern Athletic Conference champion Prairie View A&M by 13 points in the poll. Despite losing in heartbreaking fashion two weeks ago 20-13 to Appalachian State in the opening round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and the Panthers beating Alabama A&M 30-24 in the SWAC championship game this past weekend before a nationally-televised audience, the Bulldogs still managed to maintain the top spot in the SBN Sports BCF poll they’ve held since beating Grambling 34-31 in the season-opening MEAC/SWAC Challenge.
Claiming the SBN Jake Gaither National Championship Trophy for the first time since 1981 caps a season of individual and team achievements for the program in its eighth season under Pough. In repeating as MEAC champion by finishing with an unblemished 8-0 conference record for a second straight year, S.C. State also set a new MEAC record for consecutive conference victories (19), defeated two Top 25 FCS opponents (Grambling, Florida A&M) and ranked as high as seventh in the national polls.
All-American running back William Ford set new MEAC and school career rushing marks, quarterback Malcolm Long became the school’s first-ever 2,000-yard passer and wide receiver Oliver ‘Tre’ Young and place-kicker Blake Erickson each established single-single records for catches and field goals made, respectively.
“The fact that we had this body of work over the season, the fact that we have played as well as we had in the two losses, we’re down 10-7 at the half to the University of South Carolina (before losing 38-14) and we go down to the wire with a good Appalachian State team, gives the opinion that we were a pretty good football team.”
While Pough acknowledges the program’s ultimate goal is winning the FCS national championship, ranking as the top team among his black college football peers signifies another progression in the pursuit of that title.
“This is a tremendous honor in the fact that we can say that we are the best Division I HBCU team for a year and I think you’ve got to take that into account,” Pough said. “So hopefully, that will give us another accolade or honor or whatever we can use to say what we’re about as far as people getting involved in our program whether it’s recruiting players, sponsors or whatever. It gives you more credibility.”
S.C. State will be honored during the 36th Annual SBN Sports Black College All-American Awards Weekend, February 12-14, in Orlando, Florida. American Urban Radio Networks will also be honoring the 24-member SBN All-American Team, SBN’s Coach of the Year and SBN’s Offensive and Defensive players of the Year. Special invited guests include former SBN Black College All-Americans, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (Arizona Cardinals), Kendall Langford (Miami Dolphins) and Antoine Bethea (Indianapolis Colts).
T&D Senior Sports Writer Thomas Grant Jr. can be reached by e-mail at tgrant@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5547. Discuss this and other stories on-line at TheTandD.com.
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