COLUMBIA, S.C. – Saturday's contest between the Benedict College Tigers and the Clark Atlanta Panthers could be a pivotal game for both teams.
"We need a win bad," Benedict coach
James Woody said. The Tigers are riding a three-game losing streak and are 2-4 overall and still searching for their first conference win at 0-3 in the SIAC.
"I think it's huge," said Clark Atlanta coach Kevin Weston. The Panthers have an identical record of 2-4 overall and 0-3 in the SIAC.
After Saturday, one team will be moving up to try and catch the Eastern Division leaders, while the other will be at the bottom.
The Tigers dropped a high-scoring affair to Stillman last week, giving up 700 yards of offense, including 488 yards through the air.
This week, the Tigers will face a completely different offensive attack in Clark Atlanta's Wing-T, triple-option offense that relies primarily on running the football. The Panthers rank first in the SIAC in rushing yards, at 228.2 yards per game on the ground. But the Panthers rank last in the SIAC in passing, throwing for just 57.7 yards per game and rank 11
th of 12 teams in total offense.
"They love to run the football. It's a great challenge to try and stop the run. We've got our work cut out for us," Woody said.
Clark Atlanta's Montavious Taylor ranks third in the SIAC in rushing, averaging 93.7 yards per game. He rushed for 187 yards and four touchdowns in last week's 41-0 victory over College of Faith.
"It's very, very scary," Woody said of the Panther offense. "They do what they do good. We've got to be mistake free. One guy out of his assignment and there's a break for a 50 or 60 yard touchdown run. We've got to try and make them throw the football, something they don't like doing. We have to be very, very aggressive and hopefully create some turnovers and score early. The main thing is we want to get on top of these guys fast and hopefully it will happen."
The Tigers are hoping to get off to a better start. In their past two games, the Tigers have trailed 23-6 at halftime against Miles and 20-0 early in the second quarter against Stillman. The Tigers rallied late in both games to get close, but couldn't overcome the early large deficit.
"We've got to be able to start off fast," Woody said. "When you get behind, you've got to play catch-up, and we're not that type of football team. I want to come out fast, I want to put points on the board early, I want to shut people down early. We can't watch one team play well and the other team sit back and relax, or two out of three teams – offense, defense and special teams – not working on all cylinders. We've been doing that all year, and that's the reason why we're playing catch-up, the reason why we can't stop anybody. I challenge these guys all the time to make that total commitment to the game itself. That's what we've challenged them with this week, and that's what we're hoping they can get done to move this football team forward to victory. We've got to get a victory."
Clark Atlanta's Weston sees a lot of similarities between his Panthers and the Tigers – two teams that are young and hungry for a conference win.
"They have an explosive offense. We know they throw the ball pretty good. Our linebackers and our defensive backs will play a huge role. Defensively, they're getting after it and they're playing pretty solid." Weston said. "They're a football team that is very similar to us. We can't afford to stub our toe versus them, making mental mistakes and having a lot of penalties. We've got to do a good job of completing our assignment and making sure we're on it mentally. We have to take care of the football and we can't give up the big play on defense."
