Benedict College rallies to beat rival Allen, remain undefeated
Ron Dickerson’s hat said it all.
The Benedict football coach has the word “Vision” in gold letters on his white hat. After a rough first season, Dickerson continued to believe in his vision for the Tigers’ program and has them back on track after a rough first year.
The Tigers (5-0, 4-0 SIAC) stayed unbeaten on the season and on top of the Southern Intercollegiate Conference standings as they defeated rival Allen University, 38-28, on Saturday at Charlie W. Johnson Stadium.
A’Chean Durant and Triston Morgan scored touchdowns in the fourth quarter as the Tigers won their fifth straight over Allen since the rivals resumed the series in 2021, when the Yellow Jackets restarted their program.
“You see my hat. You got a vision and my vision was that we keep building these young men,” Dickerson said. “And in this transfer portal, there is no ‘we’ anymore. I make a million dollars and I am blessed. All we have is Uncrustables and Gatorade and we love each other for it.
“… It is great to have money, but if you forget why you play the sport, that is what a lot of people have done. But my team hasn’t done that. They love playing football as a team.”
With the win, Benedict leads the SIAC by a half-game over Edward Waters and Albany State. The Tigers play both of those teams later this month, which will go a long way in deciding the conference title.
Benedict has enjoyed being at the top of the conference recently. The Tigers enjoyed success under Chennis Berry, who led the program to back-to-back Division II playoff appearances in 2022-23 before leaving to take the South Carolina State job after the 2023 season.
The Tigers lost several key roster pieces either to graduation or the transfer portal and had just 33 players in spring of 2024, which made for a tough transition for Dickerson. Benedict went 4-6 and missed the playoffs.
Dickerson went out in the offseason and signed a 33-player recruiting class, which included 11 transfers and guys who were aligned in what he was looking for in the program.
“They believe in each other and believe in the coaching staff and that is something we didn’t have last year,” Dickerson said. “You will always hear me say this year we are a ‘we’ team. There are no ‘I’s.’ We will win together, work together and eat together. We stayed together.”
For the second straight year, Benedict and Allen played another close game. The Tigers won last year in overtime but trailed 28-21 after the Yellow Jackets’ Fabian Duncan, the SIAC’s leading rusher, scored on an 11-yard run with 1:22 left in the third quarter.
Kolten Ford cut the lead to 28-24 with a 30-yard field goal in the fourth quarter and then Durant, a former McCormick High product, scored on a 57-yard run with 8:28 left as the Tigers went back on top, 31-28.
“We knew they were going to do some things to shut the passing game down,” Dickerson said. “We have a good offensive line. So, we called something knowing they were going to take away the pass. But that is what we do at practice. We run and finish the run and that is what A’Chean did.”
Morgan added a TD run with less than two minutes left to finish the scoring. He finished with 81 yards rushing. Durant led the team with 82 as the Tigers rushed for 239 yards.
Benedict scored an offensive, defensive and special teams touchdown to lead 21-7 after the first quarter. Jahmal Sam, one of the team’s transfers, returned an interception for a touchdown. It was the Tigers’ fifth defensive touchdown of the season, the most in Division II.
David Smith returned an Alex Powell blocked punt as the Tigers scored twice in a two-minute span.
Allen answered on the drive in the second quarter. Jamir Dismukes hit Calvin Parker on a 25-yard touchdown pass. The Jackets tied it 21-21 when Dismukes found Maryland transfer Marcus Fleming on an 80-yard touchdown with 7:06 left in the second quarter.
Dismukes was 11-of-16 passing for 170 yards and two touchdowns.
With the loss, Allen drops to 2-5 but the Yellow Jackets already have equaled their win total from last year and played two of the top teams in the SIAC in back-to-back games.
“It was a good game, a back-and-forth contest. We knew it was going to be like that all week,” Allen coach Cedric Pearl said. “We just came up a little short. We played hard for 60 minutes and represented Allen well and that is what it is all about.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2025 at 6:37 PM.
