No slowing down for Buddy Pough at SC State, especially when facing USC on short week

The lights at Oliver C. Dawson Stadium flicker on at 5:58 a.m. Wednesday as South Carolina State’s football players trickle through the chain-link fence just off Buckley Street and toward the locker room.

It’s almost pitch-black around campus. A handful of street lights illuminate the interwoven streets of the college that has five football national championships in its 115-year history.

The only noise at this hour of day comes from the shuffling of players’ cleats and the sounds of ROTC cadets running sprints on the field adjacent to the Bulldogs’ home turf.

With the majesty of Pegasus and the speed of Dale Earnhardt Jr., head coach Buddy Pough whips through the gate in the southeast corner of the stadium aboard his personalized S.C. State golf cart at 6:29 a.m.

The sea of players scattering the turf parts for Pough. Everyone knows to move out of his way. Pough — even at 69 years old with program-best 143 career wins and three Black college football national titles — insists he’s not slowing down.

“He may not hit you, but he’s going to come close enough to let you know you need to get out of the way,” defensive coordinator Jonathan Saxon joked.

“There’s no ‘almost,’ ” receiver Shaq Davis added, laughing. “We’ve done seen him run people over.”

On this day, Pough and the entire Bulldogs staff are in a rush. And with good reason.

S.C. State’s game against South Carolina, originally scheduled for Saturday, had been bumped to Thursday due to weekend threats from Hurricane Ian. The Bulldogs’ staff first heard rumblings Monday night that a change could be coming. A final call wasn’t announced publicly until 9:53 a.m. Tuesday — just over an hour after Pough’s squad wrapped up its first practice of the week, leaving little time to adjust its schedule.

The State spent parts of two days with S.C. State’s football program to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Bulldogs’ quick turnaround to play the rescheduled game against South Carolina.

As Pough gathered his team at midfield for one last post-practice speech before making the 45-minute drive up Interstate 26 on Wednesday afternoon, the clock had already begun ticking.

“We’re screwed,” S.C. State offensive line coach and ex-Gamecock tackle Na’Shan Goddard joked of the frantic schedule.

Let the mad dash begin.

A return to South Carolina and Columbia

Pough is plenty familiar with this trek from Orangeburg to Columbia. S.C. State and USC have met thrice over his 21 years as head coach. He made his own pilgrimage to USC in 1997 when hired as offensive line coach on Brad Scott’s staff that extended into a trio of seasons under Lou Holtz.

The grizzled Pough smirks when prompted on his earliest memories of Holtz. It was a staff meeting shortly into the transition from Scott’s staff to Holtz’s, he said. Pough’s new boss wanted to ensure he felt welcome.

“Bubby, I’m gonna tell you, I’m so excited to have you on staff,” Holtz said before being pulled out of the meeting by his secretary. “We didn’t retain you. I hired you.’”

“The first thing I said (after Holtz left the room) was, ‘The first (SOB) to call me ‘Bubby,’ I’m kicking his ass,’ ” Pough recounted, tongue in cheek.

These days, S.C. State video coordinator Ross Talbert plays the team’s new-guy role once occupied by his boss.

Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Talbert was working the front desk at the Best Western in New Providence, New Jersey. He’d left football after working in the video departments at Kean University — a Division III school in Newark, New Jersey — as well as at Lafayette College, Cornell and Rutgers. He had fixations on entering a career in cybersecurity. “Spy s—,” as he puts it.

Now? He’s wandering the sidelines of Oliver C. Dawson Stadium armed with a walkie-talkie, running through a mental checklist of all the things he needs before driving down to Columbia to scope out the hotel ballrooms he’ll help convert into meeting rooms later that afternoon.

Oh, he also needs to run home and do laundry.

“My mother texted me that my sister found out that they moved (the game) because she got a notification from ESPN,” Talbert said. “... I didn’t think it was going to move. I’m from (New Jersey). I thought they could play in five inches of water. What am I supposed to know?”

‘It’s definitely been a whirlwind’

The S.C. State caravan comprised of three charter buses and a gray Toyota Sequoia driven by Pough pulls into the Embassy Suites parking lot in Columbia at 7:42 p.m. Wednesday.

The travel party, donning their team-issued blue tracksuits, is met by offensive coordinator Bennett Swygert, who beat the group to the hotel and spent the better part of 20 minutes organizing envelopes with room keys.

Swygert also slides a bright pink box of a dozen Crumbl Cookies onto the table beside him — a pregame present from his wife, Lindsey, intended for the quarterbacks and a handful of offensive staffers.

“She always says they’re for all the people I yell at,” Swygert jokes.

Salons C and D — the ballrooms just off the lobby — have been fashioned into a meeting room of sorts. Red felt chairs run in two columns five wide and five deep with a walkway through the center.

Players slip upstairs to put luggage away before coming down to the ballrooms for a 30-minute chapel service.

This much is normal.

S.C. State’s nightly road trip routine remained largely the same despite the adjusted morning schedule. The team went through its pregame service, followed by stretching, treatment, snack and a 10 p.m. curfew.

“It’s definitely been a whirlwind,” Swygert concedes. “And then you’re trying to prepare for a group (South Carolina) that’s been pretty stout. They may not have had the production they want, but a lot of potential out there.”

Saxon rides the glass elevator in the center of the hotel from the second floor down to the lobby before nestling into a chair in the Terrace Restaurant and Lounge situated a few feet from the elevator bank.

The 33-year-old former Bulldogs offensive lineman has long been a morning person, something he picked up from working as a graduate assistant on Charlie Strong’s staff at Louisville in 2012 and 2013. On Wednesday, Saxon had been awake since his personal lift at 4:30 a.m. followed by practice, a handful of meetings and departure to Columbia.

Friday is usually his morning to sleep in a touch, given that it’s often a travel day or a later walk-through practice. This week, the Bulldogs more than likely won’t get back to Orangeburg until well after midnight on Thursday.

“A lot of our guys know their guys, we know a lot of their coaches — so there’s a back and forth,” Saxon said. “It’s just exciting to play against a bigger crowd.”

Back to MEAC play after a night at Williams-Brice Stadium

Pough was optimistic but realistic entering the week. He’s cognizant of the gap in talent, size and speed between his own squad and that of South Carolina. It only takes a brief comparison of rosters to see as much.

S.C. State had to do something to differentiate itself on Thursday at Williams-Brice Stadium. It’s why Pough and Swygert planned to mix backup quarterback Tyrece Nick with incumbent starter Corey Fields to keep USC off-kilter.

It worked to some degree, as the Bulldogs cut the Gamecocks lead to 22-7 via an eight-play, 75-yard drive on the first possession of the second half — capped off by a 1-yard Nick touchdown plunge.

But, as they often do in FBS vs. FCS matchups, the levees broke.

South Carolina piled up the game’s final 28 points. Three S.C. State interceptions expedited that process. USC put up 50 total points in back-to-back games for the first time since 1995 — when Pough was the head coach at Fairfield Central High School.

“We didn’t know if we could protect in a situation against those guys, those big behemoths those guys have got,” Pough said postgame. “Those defensive ends they’ve got … those are big guys and they can run. They’re not just going to let you sit back there and throw the football 20, 30 times. They were going to beat us to the doggone ball.”

Standing in the middle of the visiting locker room postgame, Pough has an almost angelic look. Eyes are fixated on the head coach. His voice — deep, a touch raspy and filled with drawl — echoes off the metal lockers and rubber floor.

“We hung in there as long as we could,” he said. “... We’ve got a lot of work to do, but I see a little bit of damn daylight on the horizon.”

S.C. State closes its night with one last group prayer. Players, coaches and staffers bow their heads and clasp the shoulder of the person in front of them. Pough leads the prayer, asking for safety in the coming hurricane and that everyone will return home safely. He calls for a higher power to watch over his squad as they enter the heart of Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference play next week.

The Bulldogs head back to Orangeburg with a 1-3 record and questions at quarterback. It’s not an altogether unfamiliar spot. It’s only a year ago S.C. State started 1-4 before winning a national title.

Pough still takes these losses hard. Harder than he did as a 46-year-old in his first year on the job at S.C. State in 2002.

He may insist he’s not slowing down, but time can force one’s hand.

“It’s worse now,” Pough said Wednesday, chuckling as if to fight off the idea of retiring someday, “because I don’t have as many (games) left.”