How is USC helping Charleston Southern during hurricane? The Bucs are moving in
Seated in front of a garnet-padded wall and seeing Will Muschamp’s picture in the distance, Autry Denson recognized the uniqueness. He was almost spooked by it.
“I would be lying to say it felt anything other than weird,” Denson said. “I still feel like somebody is watching us right now.”
Denson is Charleston Southern’s first-year coach. On Saturday, he’ll lead the Buccaneers against South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium. On Tuesday afternoon, he had lunch with his team at USC’s Dodie Anderson Academic Enrichment Center. On Tuesday evening, he led practice at the Spurrier Indoor Facility.
Some form of this routine will likely keep up through the week. Yes, it’s unusual for a visiting team to be all over a host’s campus this far out from a game, but these are unusual times for Charleston Southern.
The threat of Hurricane Dorian led CSU to shut down for evacuation. For the football team, that meant finding a temporary place to live and practice. So the Buccaneers — players, coaches, coaches’ families, coaches’ dogs — are staying at a hotel in Charlotte and commuting each day to Columbia for training, scouting, game-planning, etc.
CSU will “practice in our indoor and use the Dodie to eat lunch and dinner every night,” Muschamp said, “use the Crews facility for all their film work and use our indoor for walk-throughs and use our weight room to lift.
“We certainly want to be able to help these guys out in a very difficult situation. And our thoughts and prayers are with everyone in path of the storm.”
CSU, which competes in the lower-tier Football Championship Subdivision, suffered a season-opening loss to Furman last Saturday. Sunday night, Denson said, was when plans were put in place for relocation.
Why Charlotte?
“It was just trying to get out of harm’s way while still, from a logistics standpoint, be close enough to here to be able to drive over, back and forth and do the things we’re able to,” Denson said. “Because we basically had to pick up all our operations and come here. And we still plan on playing Saturday, so we wanted to stay in proximity to here, but also be far enough where we weren’t at risk.”
Charleston Southern athletics director Jeff Barber was an associate AD at South Carolina from 1996-2006. Such a connection, Denson said, helped in getting the Bucs to use USC’s facilities this week.
“Jeff Barber had been here, so he knew some people and it was a couple of phone calls,” Denson said. “You talk about being pressed for time, (you’re) trying to move a lot of stuff, trying to move a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. So he kind of went with what was natural, natural connections he already had, and this ended up being like the easiest place to transition to.”
Teams typically arrive the day before a road game and then check out the next morning. CSU got to its Charlotte hotel Monday and, barring any more storm-related issues, will return to Charleston on Saturday night. The longer stay isn’t ideal financially, but Denson credited his bosses for making things work.
“I’m just going to say God is able and we have a great president and we have a great AD,” Denson said. “They believe in us. It’s a little bit more now than just talking it. It is walking by faith.
“Because you are correct, no one can plan for this, you don’t plan for this. But by God’s grace, we were able to get it done.”
CSU is receiving a $400,000 payout for the game.
Asked for his team’s itinerary this week, Denson smiled and responded, “flexible and fluid.”
“We got a little bit of a circus going on,” he said, “but it’s our circus. We’re just thankful we’re able to do this.”
NEXT
Who: Charleston Southern at South Carolina
When: Noon Saturday
Where: Williams-Brice Stadium, Columbia
TV: SEC Network
This story was originally published September 3, 2019 at 7:33 PM.
