As Jackson State head coach T.C. Taylor and South Carolina State head coach Buddy Pough sat on the hot seat in Hotlanta Wednesday, they were ready to talk about playing a football game, but not just any football game.
The Tigers and Bulldogs will meet at CenterParc Stadium August 26 in the Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge, less than two years after their last meeting, a 31-10 S.C. State victory in the 2021 Celebration Bowl. The game will be televised on ABC at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Taylor, named head coach following the departure of Deion Sanders to Colorado, admits that he and his players are looking forward to another match-up with the Bulldogs following that surprising result.
“For us, we talked about this game being a little bit of payback,” he said. “They kicked our butts pretty good on national television. Once they announced that we would be in this game, a few of our guys started licking their chops.”
“The SWAC is a rival of ours,” added Pough, heading into his 22nd season in charge of his Alma mater. “They’ve taken a couple of our teams (Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman) so that leads to a rivalry style of thought. Anytime you look across the field and you see a team like Jackson State that wants to get at you, I think it makes it easy to get yourself up to play.”
Both coaches spoke of unfamiliarity coming into the game – Taylor has several new staff members and Jackson State had a huge roster turnover with several players either following Sanders to Colorado or transferring elsewhere, while Pough has a new offensive coordinator guiding the S.C. State offense this year.
“You don’t know exactly what to prepare for,” Pough said. “You have to figure out all kinds of angles to prepare for what they possibly might do.”
“Any time you play that first football game, you talk to your team about playing hard and executing,” Taylor said. “Coach Pough has a couple of new guys on his staff too, so we’ve been trying to do our research on what we may see, but it’s about coming out and playing hard. I don’t think we’ll have hard time getting them motivated when you’re in Atlanta and JSU Nation shows up.”
The added bonus of being the first nationally televised game of the college football season adds not just some spice, but a boost to both schools and HBCU football as a whole.
“Anytime you have a wonderful occasion such as this, you want to try to have some meat and potatoes to support your community,” Pough said. “We want to create something that will spur young folk on to greater things in the future.”
“It’s good for S.C. State, Jackson State and all HBCUs to have that platform,” Taylor added. “It’s so important for us to put on at a high level because everything is on a high-level stage that weekend. Many people watching don’t know about HBCUs, so this is our time to shine.”
