Washington, DC—The Howard University football team will be looking to rebound from a mistake-filled loss to Monmouth last week when it entertains South Carolina State in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference contest. The game kicks off at 1 pm in Greene Stadium and you can hear all the action by logging onto www.whbc963hd3.com with Trevin Jones on play by play and Michael Lindo and Tiffany Hoyd providing color commentary.
The Bison (1-5, 1-2 in the MEAC) made numerous mistakes on defense, offense and special teams, allowing the visitors to run away with 59-27 victory. There were untimely holding penalties on offense, poor tackling on defense and mental errors on special teams.
The lone bright spot was the play of junior running back Anthony Philyaw, who rushed for a career-high 234 yards and three touchdowns.
"He's a tough kid," said Howard head coach of Philyaw, who was the MEAC Co-Offensive Player of the Week. "He does everything at the running back position. He can block, he's good in protection, he can run routes and he's good in the passing game. He has good hands and you can see what he can do with the ball in his hands. We're fortunate to have a kid like Anthony Philyaw in this program and there's no telling where he would have been had he not missed the last two seasons. I call him Ali. He's missed three years and comes back even better. He's a great kid and he's hungry for the time that he missed.
He runs physically and runs very angry. We played two Big Ten opponents – Maryland and Rutgers – and I feel we had the best running back on the field (in Philyaw). He's very deceptive with his speed. (Philyaw is second in the MEAC in rushing at 119.4 yards per game). And he's just a junior."
Howard will have to get production from others on offense if they are to snap the nine-game losing streak to the Bulldogs. SC State (1-3, 1-0 in the MEAC) has face similar challenges this season. They started the season with back-to-back-to-back-to-back road games at FBS opponents Central Florida, Louisiana Tech and Clemson before getting their first win at Florida A&M two weeks ago.
SC State then had its home contest against Bethune Cookman re-scheduled due to the inclement weather last weekend.
When you have these kind of circumstances (three FBS games), we're kind of unknown ourselves," explained SC State head coach Buddy Pough. "We had a chance to go down and play Florida A&M and played somewhat better. It's been so long now that we're not sure
where we are. It'll be interesting to see how we play coming off of this kind of unusual bye week."
Defensively, the Bison will have to do a better job stopping the run. Monmouth amassed over 300 yards on the ground and six TDs, two of them for over 70 yards.
"Howard's been a little bit snakebitten," noted Pough. "They've had some injuries and they've moved some people around. They've had a tough schedule. They've played some D1 money kind of games and that tends to distort your record a little bit. They played some teams in our league well - Morgan , Norfolk State. Hampton and got after them a little bit."
He continued. "You could see in that Norfolk State game (a 33-28 Howard win) is more of what we expected from Howard this year. They came back to win a tough football game. We feel we've got our work cut out for us to go up and play them at their place Saturday. We're more concerned with where we are after what we've been through (a 1-3 start, three FBS games)."
Harrell says the team has to play well to secure its second win of the season.
"It's home; we didn't protect home in our last game and we want to protect it this week," said Harrell, in his fourth season at the helm. "It's an opportunity to get back into MEAC play. It's a tough and worthy opponent in SC State. We have do what we have to do. We're scoring enough points. Now we have to make sure that all three phases are in line. We have to make sure that everybody's doing their job."
GAME NOTES: The Bulldogs have not played the Bison since 2012 in Orangeburg, SC but they have defeated Howard nine straight times, dating back to 2002…Howard last won in 2002, 23-9 in Orangeburg…Current associate head coach Ray Petty was the head coach.
INJURIES: The Bison will be without the services of safety Alonte Dunn, running back Carlton "CJ" Rainey and wide receiver/return specialist Jalen Avery.
NEXT UP: SC State hosts Delaware State next Saturday for its homecoming at 1:30 pm while the Bison host North Carolina A&T for their homecoming next Saturday at 1 pm.
GAME NOTES: /documents/2016/10/15//FB_Game_Notes_SC_State_Uni.pdf?id=457
