A business trip to Dover, Delaware turned into a joyride for the South Carolina State football team.
Or better yet, a joy run.
Three different Bulldogs running backs scored touchdowns, including three by freshman Jawarn Howell as SCSU opened MEAC play with a convincing 35-7 win over Delaware State on Saturday.
“A lot of our success came because [DSU] was shorthanded,” head coach Buddy Pough said of the Hornets missing their regular starting quarterback Marqui Adams. “He was the guy I was worried the most about.”
Starting in place of Adams was graduate student Aaron Angelos, who started off well enough by engineering a 65-yard opening drive that ended with a 7-yard touchdown pass to sophomore receiver Ny’Ghee Lolley.
That was the Hornets’ only highlight of the day, however.
Corey Fields Jr. found an open receiver in Justin Smith-Brown, who caught eight passes for 120 yards in the first half before leaving with an ankle injury. No worries, the Bulldogs (3-4 overall, 1-0 MEAC) turned to the ground game and in the first half, that was all Howell, who scored on runs of eight, 35 and one yard to boost SCSU to a 21-7 halftime advantage.
“We work very hard in practice on getting our running schemes down and our fits right,” Howell said. “We really locked in as a unit and perfected our craft.”
Perfection indeed as South Carolina State ran for 357 yards, two weeks after the Hornets gave up a school-worst 498 rushing yards at Central Connecticut State. Howell (119 yards on 13 carries) and Tyler Smith (122 yards on 12 carries) crossed the 100-yard mark and Josh Shaw just missed out with 94 yards rushing on 11 carries.
Shaw broke the game open on a one-yard touchdown run 9 minutes into the third quarter and Smith added some insurance with a 40-yard dash to the end zone with 8:52 to go in the game.
“Once you step on that plane until you step off the field after the game, it’s a business trip,” Howell said. “You have to come in with a business mindset and Coach Pough did a great job of keeping us intact in that aspect.”
For linebacker, Aidan Weber, it was a homecoming for him as well, as he played his first two seasons at DSU before hitting the transfer portal this summer and joining SCSU.
“It was good to see everybody today; I still got love for my old teammates and my family was able to come and see me play today,” he said. “It was great to play a complete game offensively and defensively. A great experience overall.”
“We’ve got to go 1-0 each week,” Pough said. “It’s good that we won today, but we’ve got to get ready for North Carolina Central in five days. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
