The reigning MEAC champions will not have a head coaching vacancy anytime soon as it has been announced that the South Carolina State University Board of Trustees have unanimously extended longtime coach Buddy Pough through the 2023 season.
This news comes one day after the university announced it was parting ways with their athletic director Stacy Danley.
Pough is the longest-running head coach in all of HBCU football, holding this position with the Bulldogs since 2002.
Before coaching South Carolina State, Pough played for the team as an offensive lineman from 1971-1974 when he was a senior member of the first-ever conference championship-winning team.
Also read: Buddy Pough went from Celebration Bowl skeptic to lauding its impact
The South Carolina State University Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution that will keep head football coach Buddy Pough on the sidelines through 2023.https://t.co/IrCNldSHzO pic.twitter.com/ZLlTcmuIyw
— MACCEXCLUSIVESAPPAREL (@maccexclusives2) August 11, 2022
His first coaching stint with his alma mater came in 1979 as an assistant coach where he would remain until 1988. During that time, the Bulldogs won four consecutive MEAC championships from 1980-1983.
After serving as a head coach for high schools in South Carolina and holding an assistant coach position at the University of South Carolina, Pough returned to Orangeburg in 2002 to become head coach of his alma mater.
In his 20 seasons at South Carolina State, the longtime coach holds an overall record of 143-80 and a 109-38 record against MEAC opponents.
The Bulldogs have won eight MEAC championships (three outright) in that time and three Black College National Championships. He has also been named MEAC Coach of the Year three times.
South Carolina State is coming off a season in which they finished the regular season a perfect 5-0 in MEAC play winning the MEAC title. Then they beat Jackson State 31-10 in the Celebration Bowl.
