Buddy Pough has been able to figure out a lot in his two-decade run as South Carolina WhereState head coach.
But what the longtime coach has yet to grasp is how a group that won the MEAC and Celebration Bowl in 2021 came crashing down to earth 12 months later.
While SC State got off to an 0-5 start in 2022, there was hope that the Bulldogs could turn it on during conference play, where it historically had dominated.
That appeared to be the case after South Carolina State knocked off eventual MEAC champion and Black College national champion North Carolina Central.
Then the Bulldogs fell off a cliff, losing the final four games of the regular season to finish a disappointing 3-8.
“I think we had a little bit of a big head coming out of the gate,” said Pough in reference to the team’s possible Celebration Bowl victory hangover. “I don’t know how you go from where we were to where we ended up, but that is what we’ve got to fix going into this year.”
Where it might have gone wrong for the Bulldogs can be pinpointed to an offense that was dead last in rushing at 3.1 yards per game between ball carriers who were only able to muster 106 yards per game on the ground, also last in the MEAC.
The other side of the ball wasn’t any better, either. The Bulldogs’ defense — the strength of the team for years — had stumbled, allowing an average of 30.7 and 354 yards per game.
In the offseason, there were wholesale changes on offense and defense. Both coordinators from a year ago were replaced.
Jonathan Saxon left SC State to become the co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach at Wofford College. He was replaced by Thomas Howard, who spent time at Norfolk State and North Carolina A&T in previous stops.
While working as defensive backs coach, the NC A&T secondary was ranked 12th nationally in passing yards allowed and ranked 35th in interceptions.
The new offensive coordinator this season is Kevin Magouirk, who was the team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2008 to 2012.
Prior to returning to Orangeburg, Magourik was the offensive coordinator at Division III Methodist University in Fayetteville, NC. There, Methodist averaged 437 yards per game and 31 points per game last year.
The switch to Magouirk, according to Pough, was more schematic in nature.
“We felt like we had a good solid plan in place, but we just want to kind of tweak it a little bit,” said Pough.
Along with the shuffling of the staff, is the return of sixth-year QB Corey Fields, who has been tasked with being more of a vocal leader for a group that was admittedly without that presence last season.
“Just looking at last year, we didn’t have a vocal leader on offense,” said Fields, who explained that his teammates encouraged him to be more outspoken. “So, going into the spring and summer, I took that approach.
For linebacker Patrick Godbolt, his edict for 2023 is to “don’t let the team fall apart because that’s what we did.”
