Thanks to injuries and a desire to shake things up, South Carolina State played several first-year players in last week’s 24-3 loss to FBS opponent Charlotte. Head coach Buddy Pough says that giving the young guys a chance in non-conference games will likely help his team as the season goes from summer to fall.
“It’s one of those situations where we have a couple of injuries, and we have to press guys into service a little bit earlier than we’d like, but they seem to be up to the challenge,” Pough said. “We’re excited to see what might be down the road for South Carolina State. We’re trying to get these guys ready for our conference race.”
Pough characterized the change of plans as a youth movement, and players, such as redshirt freshman quarterback Andre Washington and true freshman running back Kacy Fields, will only get better with experience.
“We’re trying to develop this team as we get through our non-conference schedule, and it’s been fun,” he says. “Our kids are enjoying the opportunity. We’ll get an open week and then get back to our level, but it’s fun to see these guys get to play these in these kinds of games.”
The Bulldogs will have one more game of that magnitude before their bye week with another trip to Atlanta, this time to face Georgia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference on Saturday.
“Those guys are tremendously advantaged in this game; they’ve got some huge people everywhere,” Pough said. “They’ve been an option team, but they’re transitioning to a traditional style offense. It’ll be a fun opportunity to see if we can stop these cats because they’ve got a little bit of everything everywhere.”
The key for S.C. State is to put points on the board, something Pough hopes his team can do against the Yellowjackets in preparation for MEAC play.
“We’ve got to find some offense. Anytime you play offense like we are, it takes away from your defense, and that’s a big issue that we have,” he explains. “We got into a couple of situations where you could see we were better offensively, but we didn’t finish a couple of opportunities to score. I think that is one of our main issues, trying to find a way to finish these drives.”
