Fall football doesn’t look same for South Carolina’s HBCUs. Hope keeps teams going

For Chennis Berry, this fall was to be his debut as a college head football coach. After two decades as an assistant at several historically black colleges, including the past seven seasons as Southern University’s offensive coordinator, he finally had his own program at Benedict College.

Buddy Pough, who in 2019 surpassed former coach Willie Jeffries to become South Carolina State’s all-time wins leader (133-74), was looking toward his 19th season at his alma mater. Rumors in 2018 of possible retirement disappeared after an 8-3 season, and “they seem to want to keep me around, and I don’t seem to want to leave,” he said with a chuckle.

Teddy Keaton, coming off his (and Allen University’s) second season, was anticipating the Yellow Jackets’ upcoming move from NAIA to NCAA Division II. In anticipation, he added a second full-time assistant (special teams/linebackers coach Ronnie Baker, joining defensive coordinator Tommy Brown) to his mostly volunteer coaching staff.

Then COVID-19 happened. And for all three of South Carolina’s football-playing HBCUs, everything changed.

“I’m broken-hearted not to play (this fall),” Pough said.

Schools practicing, testing, preparing for what’s next

While the current pandemic caused major alterations in Division I and BCS football, the Power Five conferences and most Group of Five schools are playing a modified fall schedule. But Division II (home for Allen and Benedict) postponed play until spring 2021, while S.C. State’s Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (a Division I FCS league) also erased its fall schedule, with tentative plans for a reconstructed slate in the spring.

Instead of games, Berry, Pough and Keaton now plan largely non-contact practices, monitor COVID testing for players and coaches, and try to maintain some normality in recruiting ... not to mention learning more about Zoom video calls than any of them thought possible.

“All those things that happened are out of my control,” said Berry, who was hired in February, only to see his first spring practices and season disappear. “I walked in, started hiring coaches, but on March 11, they said school’s shut down. It’s been a whirlwind.”

“We went home for spring break, then (S.C. State officials) said stay home another week, then ‘we’ll be back in a couple of weeks,’” Pough said. “We didn’t think it was possible there’d be no season, but it’s all so new, we have no understanding of what could be.”

Allen, Benedict and S.C. State recently kicked off a fall version of spring practice. As with normal spring ball, teams have roughly a month in which to schedule 14-15 practices — and those also are different from the past.

“The first of October, we started workouts in small groups, about eight per group, following CDC guidelines, testing every two weeks,” Keaton said. Allen so far has had “less than 10” players test positive for COVID-19, he said, and those were quarantined on campus.

“We’re working out, without footballs, and in the weight room (in small groups), running on the field, team building. The main objective is to stay in shape, so we can handle” when a schedule is known, he said. “The No. 1 thing for us is to keep the environment safe, and I think the school is doing a tremendous job.”

Testing for all three schools has cost implications. While South Carolina, with its Southeastern Conference-assisted budget, is testing players three times a week this fall, Allen is testing every two weeks, and “we pay a lot for those tests,” Keaton said. Berry said Benedict is doing “frequent testing, nasal swabs, rapid testing, we’ve done it all,” and S.C. State tests about once a week, Pough said.

Berry, who inherited a team that went 1-9 in 2019, said that in addition to testing in players’ home towns before returning to campus and “at least a dozen times” since, small-group workouts, which began Oct. 12, initially separated athletes living on campus from those living off-campus.

“Now we’re in Phase 3, we mix them all together, business as usual,” though not totally: Team meetings are held virtually, and players are dressing not in their usual locker room but in makeshift, spread-out spaces at Charlie Johnson Stadium and on nearby tented tennis courts.

When the Tigers return to their regular space, they’ll notice an upgrade. Their locker room and coaches’ office, Berry said, have been “wrapped” with team logos and colors “to change the brand. We’ll have slogans on the walls, new equipment” to give the team a fresh start after former coach Mike White’s six seasons (19-30).

“I told the guys from Day One, the past is the past,” Berry said. “They’ve got a clean sheet, and they control what they put on it.”

Benedict’s “spring game” scrimmage is scheduled for Saturday; neither S.C. State nor Allen will stage a post-practice intra-squad game.

Pough’s team will hold 14-15 practices through Nov. 20. Before then, with players back on campus, “we felt like we needed to get in condition before we get back up and running,” he said. “If we’re going to play in the spring, we’d better get in condition to play.”

S.C. State players were required to be tested before returning, with “one or two” testing positive, and “since they all got back on campus, we haven’t had a positive, though we had a couple of scares,” Pough said. “We’d like to try a ‘bubble’ but that’s impossible with our resources. But our guys have done a nice job so far following protocols.”

When will HBCUs return to play?

Recruiting had seen adjustments, too. Keaton, whose roster has “seven to eight seniors,” says that’s not as much of an issue for Allen. “I’m trying to fill some spots, so spending more time watching film to see how guys might fit in.” The Yellow Jackets haven’t had any players transfer out because of not having a season, he said; “Where are they going to go? No one’s playing at this level.”

Berry, as a new coach, is more aggressive, sending his staff to “six to eight high schools per coach every Friday” to meet coaches and build relationships in South Carolina.

“We’ve hit 83 (schools) so far, and I think we’ll steal some quality players” from larger schools, he said.

Pough’s staff has long-established contacts in-state, and “this class we brought in last year has got four years of eligibility” per NCAA decisions during COVID-19. The Bulldogs did lose a graduate-transfer defensive lineman, its best prospect, who transferred to Illinois in order to play this fall.

So when will the teams return to the field?

All three coaches said schedules for the spring remain in the works. For S.C. State, “all that is supposed to be decided around November, a schedule finalized,” Pough said. The MEAC’s football-playing schools will split into North and South divisions, with S.C. State playing six games vs. North Carolina Central and Florida A&M (two games vs. each) and North Carolina A&T and Bethune-Cookman (once each).

“We’re supposed to play six weeks, which would take us to the time for a championship game,” he said. The winner of the title game will receive automatic qualification for the NCAA FCS playoffs, and “that’d give us incentive to have a good season,” Pough said.

Keaton and Berry said they haven’t seen tentative (and likely abbreviated) spring schedules yet, but “I definitely want (his players) to have something to play for,” Berry said. “As long as they tell me we’re playing, we’ll be prepared.”

“The one good thing (about the pandemic) is, it’s not just us but all across football in America,” Keaton said. “We all see it. This is the norm of COVID-19.”