COLUMBIA, S.C. – After a season-opener plagued by turnovers and poor play, the Benedict College Tigers are looking to turn things around on the road against Johnson C. Smith University on Saturday evening.

Kickoff from JCSU's Irwin Belk Complex is 6 p.m. JCSU will provide a live video stream, as well as live stats. JCSU radio station is WGNC 1450 AM.

"This is a big game for us after not playing well in the home opener," Benedict head coach Mike White said. "I hope we get off to a better start. We got off to a bad start the last game, so we just want to get back on the field and put those bad memories we have about that game behind us, and let's move forward and see what we can do with this team."

The Tigers are coming off a 33-14 loss to Florida Tech in last week's season opener. Benedict fumbled the ball five times, losing one, and threw three interceptions. One interception came on Benedict's first offensive play of the game and Florida Tech returned the pick for a touchdown.

"We've just got to play better," White said. "It was a lot of things. Probably the biggest one was the turnovers that hurt us. I thought we had some really bad penalties that hurt us at certain times, stuff that we tried to talk about during camp. We didn't want to allow big plays defensively, and we allowed a few of them, and to try to work on our special teams. Those are things we tried to put a little more time on this week."

The Tigers also struggled on special teams. A bad snap led to a safety for the Florida Tech Panthers, and the Panthers took advantage of another bad snap and illegal kick penalty to score a field goal. Benedict averaged 26.1 yards on seven punts.

Defensively, the Tigers held Florida Tech to 277 yards of offense, but gave up a 42-yard touchdown run, and four passes of 20 or more yards.

"I thought the defensive line played pretty good, other than a few snaps," White said. "I thought our linebackers and secondary made some plays. For us, it's about being consistent. We'd play eight good plays then break down. That's not good defense."

Offensively, the Tigers were held to just 61 yards on the ground last week. Quarterbacks Dominique Harris and Phillip Brown combined to complete 21 of 36 passes for 287 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but threw three interceptions. Wide receiver Drelon Freeman caught three passes for 118 yards and both of Benedict's touchdowns, including an 80-yarder from Brown late in the fourth quarter.

The Golden Bulls opened their season on Thursday, Aug. 30 on the road at Wingate University, and fell 36-0. The Golden Bulls managed just six first downs, 20 net yards rushing and 123 yards of total offense. Johnson C. Smith gave up nine sacks and converted just one of 15 third downs. White knows the Golden Bulls will be working hard to redeem themselves from that game in front of their home crowd.

"Being their home opener, I know they're going to be fired up and coming at us," White said. "We're really trying to focus in on us this week. We think if we play the way we're capable of playing, we should be in good shape. It will probably be a four-quarter battle, but we've just got to do the things we need to do and let that take care of itself.

"I know the team they played is a pretty good team. I look at it as we didn't play well, they didn't play well, and it's two teams fighting to get back into the winning column. I'm quite sure with them being at home, they'll be coming at us with their foot on the gas."