The Citadel coach Maurice Drayton figured a noon kickoff would benefit the Bulldogs.
After all The Citadel’s Corp of Cadets rises very early each day – most mornings before the sun comes up – at the downtown military school.
Drayton was correct, the early kickoff did benefit the Bulldogs – just the wrong Bulldogs.
Eric Phoenix threw for 194 yards and running back Deondra Duehart added 128 yards on the ground to lead South Carolina State past The Citadel, 23-20, before a crowd of 10,579 at Johnson Hagood Stadium on Sept. 7.
The Citadel fell to 1-1 and will face Division II North Greenville next Saturday at home. S.C. State improved to 1-1.
For the second straight week, The Citadel got off to a slow start and had to play catch-up for most of the game.
“We have to start faster,” Drayton said. “You can’t spot a team points and expect to win consistently. We’re not that kind of unit. We’re The Citadel and we have to play complimentary football. It’s almost as if we have to wait for something to happen to jump start us and get us going.
“The fact that the kickoff was at noon excited me. Why? Because we get up at 5 a.m. every day and we’re running around, and we’re used to it. We have to figure it out and start faster and it’s going to start at practice (Sunday).”
The Citadel also had too many unforced errors, both physically and mentally. The Citadel were flagged for six penalties for 50 yards, but most came at crucial moments or at the start of offensive possessions.
“We have to play intelligently,” Drayton said. “We started three drives with a penalty. We had an illegal hands to the face penalty, a roughing the passer penalty, had 10 men on the field on one play. These are things we haven’t done up to this point in practice or in a game.
“You can’t do that against a team that is as talented as S.C. State. I’m hoping we learned a valuable lesson today with some of our undisciplined penalties and mistakes.”
Despite the miscues, The Citadel still had a pair of chances to tie or win the game late in the fourth quarter.
Trailing 23-20 with five minutes to play The Citadel was unable to pick up a first down and was forced to punt.
After The Citadel defense forced another three and out, the offense took over at their own 15. A Corey Ibrahim run, and two straight completions from Bennett took the ball to the 46-yard line with under a minute to play.
But an S.C. State sack and two incomplete passes ended any hopes for a second-straight come-from-behind victory for The Citadel.
“They made some good calls defensively, did some things that made it tough on us, especially on those last two drives,” said Citadel quarterback Johnathan Bennett, who 13 of 22 passes for 169 yards and a TD. “We need to execute better in those situations, and I’ve got to make better throws. But mainly we have to start faster.
“The defense was on the field all day. We’ve got to do a better job of picking up first downs and keeping control of the ball.”
S.C. State, which rolled up 421 yards, ran 71 offensive plays to The Citadel’s 48. S.C. State also took a page from The Citadel’s playbook, running a version of the triple option on several occasions.
“We made some adjustment in the second half and we were able to stop those runs a little better,” said Citadel safety Cale Williams, who finished with seven tackles. “We did a lot better job in the second half, but we need to play better earlier in the game.”
Former Hanahan High School standout Josh Shaw scored twice on short runs in the second half – the second coming with 13:23 left in the game to give S.C. State a 23-13 advantage.
But The Citadel answered just three plays later when Bennett bulled his way into the end zone to cut the lead to 23-20 with 11:30 to play.
The TD was set up by a 51-yard bomb to Devron Pesnell that took the ball down to the S.C. State 1.
Saul Diaz caught a 10-yard TD pass from Bennett midway through the third quarter as The Citadel closed to within a field goal, 16-13, late in the third quarter.
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Publish date : 2024-09-07 10:00:00
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