The Roost

QB MacDowall returns to practice, likely to start on Saturday

Senior quarterback Zach MacDowall was active in practice Tuesday for Coastal Carolina after sustaining what is being termed a concussion in the third quarter Saturday against Stony Brook.

MacDowall had said Monday night that he felt fine after banging the back of his head on the ground while trying to stretch into the end zone. The collision  temporarily affected his vision and forced him out of the game, but he has obviously been cleared to return to non-contact action.

With his return to the field Tuesday and with sophomore backup quarterback Aramis Hillary ailing with a bruised throwing elbow sustained in the game, it seems likely -- though not officially decided yet -- that MacDowall will get the start this weekend at Gardner-Webb.

"He did OK. He threw the ball a little bit better. His head's fine," CCU offensive coordinator Kevin Brown said Tuesday after practice. "I think he's going to be OK."

As for Brown's expectation for Saturday?

"We'll see what happens this week. Both of them are kind of banged up," Brown said of the quarterbacks. "... We'll see how they practice, and we've got a little package for [Jamie] Childers, so we'll have all three of them in the mix."

Brown was not certain if MacDowall had any more medical tests to pass to be cleared for game action this week. But health aside, he also acknowledged that there is a performance aspect to MacDowall's hold on the job going forward.

The senior three-year starter struggled Saturday, completing 13-of-24 passes for 103 yards and an interception while also losing a costly fumble in the second quarter. MacDowall has started all seven games this season while completing 58.3-percent of his passes for 1,251 yards, nine touchdowns and nine interceptions.

"It depends on what happens this week," Brown said. "Zach's been here for three years. We're hoping he takes control of it again, but if not, you know, if he's still banged up or limited in any way, we've got confidence in Hillary and Jamie. ...

"It's still Zach's to lose. He's been a three-year starter for us, so it's still his to lose unless something just dramatic happens these next two days of practice."

In the bigger picture, it seems the coaching staff would not hesitate to turn to Hillary later in the season if MacDowall were to struggle.

Hillary, an offseason transfer from South Carolina, had only thrown four collegiate passes before completing 9-of-21 passes for 100 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions in relief of MacDowall on Saturday.

He hurt his elbow scoring a late rushing touchdown when a Stony Brook player fell on his arm, Brown said. He's on a "pitch count" in practice this week.

"Aramis is starting to learn a little bit more," Brown said. "He said it was a little bit hectic for him Saturday. [He] felt like he wasn't prepared enough, and I think he kind of took a little disappointment in that. He's really been in the film room these last two days and really busted his tail to try to get caught back up."

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

 

More post-game comments from 38-28 loss to Stony Brook

Due to the late kickoff and an early deadline last night, I was only able to get a few post-game quotes into the paper. So here are the full comments from backup quarterback Aramis Hillary, running back Eric O'Neal and coach David Bennett about the loss -- in which Coastal Carolina fell behind 31-0 in the second quarter before mounting a partial comeback.

Also, as I had at the bottom of the story today, it was believed that starting quarterback Zach MacDowall sustained a concussion in the third quarter Saturday. That's why he was replaced by HIllary.

Coach David Bennett:

On what he thought happened in the first two quarters:

"I don't know, but it was like a dadgum bad nightmare. We've been up 31-0 on someone, but we've never been down, I don't think, 31-0. It was just a freaky thing. ... It was a freaky, freaky deal."

"I tell you what, though. I don't think we've ever been in that situation, I don't think we've been down 31-0, but I'll tell you what -- I'm very proud of our young men for how they fought back. We've just got to be ready to play from the very get-go. I thought our guys were ready to play, but it was just like a dadgum avalanche right there. ...

"They had everything go right for them, and we had everything go wrong for us. ...

"The defense played mighty darn good, I thought, in the second half. The offense played a whole lot better. But you can't get in that big a hole. We told them at halftime, 'This would be an awesome comeback. There hadn't been that many of them, but there have been a few, and we could have one.' So we didn't lose faith. Our kids didn't lose heart, and they fought hard."

On the severity of MacDowall's injury:

"I don't know."

On whether or not it is a concussion:

"I believe that's correct. I believe that's correct."

On how much of a setback this is in the Big South Conference race:

"Well, now you've got to go win them all. Unless I'm wrong, if we win out and somebody was to beat Stony Brook, you'd have a three-way tie. Then they go to head-to-head, and then you're going to have a mess. And then comes points allowed and all that. ...

"But you know what, right now we've just got to regroup, and we've got to take care of the fundamentals and keep these guys up. Because let me tell you something, I don't know how many teams are down 31-0 and fight back like that, but we were proud of them for doing that."

Quarterback Aramis HIllary:

On replacing injured starter Zach MacDowall in the third quarter:

"It kind of wowed me. I still don't really know what happened to Zach. He was off the field by the time [I went out there]. I had to go on the field, so I didn't really talk to him. It was surprising, but I felt like I was ready. I felt like everything was there."

On falling behind 31-0 before scoring three straight touchdowns:

"We got punched in the mouth real early, and we got down. I think we put up a great fight. ... Half of our fans left, but we were still fighting out there, playing for ourselves."

On the mood at halftime, down 31-7:

"We had a lot of intensity, actually. We came out and we were just like, 'We've got to win by 31. Someway, somehow we've got to come out and win by 31. That was our whole mentality when we came out here [after halftime]. We know we got punched in the mouth, but stuff happens. We had to come out here and do the best we can."

On losing the game:

"It's real tough. We've got a lot of preparing to do. Our goal's still ahead. And whether we like our record or not, we've still got to come out and play four games, and we've got to prepare just like it's the first game of the season."

Running back Eric O'Neal

On what happened in the first two quarters:

"We got ourselves in a big hole, and we couldn't get out of it. We came out, played flat in the first half and they jumped out on us. We had to make some adjustments in the second half and came out with a lot of fight, a lot of effort and fought it back, but we just came up short."

On the surprise of falling behind so big so early:

"Like any team when you get hit in the mouth, it's a shocker. But we had to regroup, get things together, figure out what the problem was, and we just fought hard."

On the mood at halftime:

"We just went in the locker room, and we didn't really talk about things we were doing wrong. I mean, we were hurting ourselves. ... Too many [missed assignments]. They really hurt us in the first half, so we tried to cut that out."

On what kind of setback this loss is in regard to the Big South race:

"We'd like to [have] run the table, but that loss is under our belt now and we just have to work hard, and we have to definitely win out now. We'll see how things go."

On what knocked MacDowall out of the game:

"I didn't really see what happened. I just heard he was out, and I went and talked to him on the sideline, and he said he was a little woozy. So I figured he had a concussion or something like that."

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

A couple pre-game injury updates from Brooks Stadium

Sophomore center Pat Williams, who missed Coastal Carolina's game last weekend with an injured ankle, is expected to start tonight against Stony Brook.

And sophomore defensive end Jamel Davis (concussion) -- who earned Big South defensive player of the week honors after an impressive first half against Presbyterian last week -- is expected to play tonight, but he will not start.

Instead, junior defensive end Corey Hawkins will make his first career start tonight. Hawkins has played in only three games this season, logging six tackles and one sack. He saw limited action in 21 games over the last two seasons as a reserve.

Meanwhile, sophomore defensive end Chris Thomas, who was held out for disciplinary reasons last week, is expected to play tonight. Thomas had started the first five games of the season and is third on the team with 4.5 tackles for loss.

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

Big South surprises

The Big South football race looked relatively wide open coming into today's action. And now?

Excluding Liberty, which has backed up its status as preseason league favorite, the conference picture has only gotten more jumbled since the day began.

Presbyterian -- the same Presbyterian that had lost 20 straight games dating back to 2008 and lost by four touchdowns to Coastal Carolina at home last week -- snapped its losing streak Saturday with a 26-24 upset on the road at Gardner-Webb.

Meanwhile, VMI -- the same VMI that had lost handily in four of its last five games (sandwiched around a win over none other than Presbyterian) -- pulled off the upset on the road at Charleston Southern with a convincing 34-16 win.

What's that mean?

That means the winner of Coastal Carolina's Homecoming game with Stony Brook tonight will be tied atop the Big South standings with Liberty (on a bye this week) at 2-0 in league play.

After their 1-4 start to the season, the Chanticleer players and coach David Bennett seemed undeterred that the conference championship -- and corresponding automatic bid to the FCS playoffs -- was within their reach. And, well ...

They handled business last week at Presbyterian and if they can defeat Stony Brook (2-4, 1-0), the final four games would certainly become even more interesting. Let's leave it at that for now until the Chants show whether or not they can remain disciplined and effective for a second straight week.

But the opportunity is there for the Chants -- especially with Liberty and Charleston Southern coming to Brooks Stadium to close the season -- to assert themselves in that quest.

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

Big South standings (as of 6:30 p.m. Saturday night)

Team ... Big South record ... Overall record ... This week

1. Liberty ... 2-0 ... 5-2 ... Idle

T2. Coastal Carolina ... 1-0 ... 2-4 ... vs. Stony Brook at 7:30 p.m.

T2. Stony Brook ... 1-0 ... 2-4 ... at Coastal Carolina at 7:30 p.m.

4. VMI ... 2-2 ... 3-4 ... W, 34-16 at Charleston Southern

5. Gardner-Webb ... 1-1 ... 3-4 ... L, 26-24 vs. Presbyterian

6. Presbyterian ... 1-2 ... 1-6 ... W, 26-24 at Gardner-Webb

7. Charleston Southern ... 0-3 ... 2-5 ... L, 34-16 vs. VMI

MacDowall and Davis honored by conference

Well, Coastal Carolina certainly made the most of its trip to Presbyterian on Saturday.

Not only did the Chants open conference play with a 35-7 win and snap a nine-game road losing streak, but they also claimed two Big South honors, as announced Monday.

Senior quarterback Zach MacDowall was named the league's offensive player of the week, while sophomore defensive end Jamel Davis was chosen as the defensive player of the week.

MacDowall rushed for a career-high 97 yards and a touchdown in 11 attempts and passed for 204 yards and three touchdowns while completing nine of his final 12 passes. He also committed no turnovers after struggling with interceptions the first half of the season.

Davis, meanwhile, had five tackles, 1.5 sacks and a pass break-up in his first start of the season. He was limited to one half due to what he termed a "slight concussion." But he made a significant impact while he was on the field. His biggest contribution came as Presbyterian faced a third-and-one from the CCU 14 in the second quarter. After recording a tackle at the line of scrimmage to stuff the Blue Hose on third down, he followed up with a four-yard sack on fourth down to end the scoring threat as the Chants protected a 7-0 lead at the time.

This is the first time this season a Coastal Carolina player has received either of those honors. Senior cornerback Tarvorris Jolly was previously recognized as the league's special teams player of the week.

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

Bennett on donors/fans comment

There has been quite a bit of response to one of coach David Bennett's comments Wednesday in his weekly press conference that some people have taken as a slight to the fans.

The discussion had turned to a story the Sun News published Tuesday about the program's struggles, the growing frustration within the fan base and athletic director Hunter Yurachek's endorsement of Bennett's leadership.

In the middle of a long response, Bennett said, "You go talk to donors that donate hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars, see what they say rather than what some fan says."

In printing highlights from the press conference on this blog last night, I had abridged that quote, leaving off the end -- which drew criticism from at least one blog reader. And that's fine.

To clarify my intent there, my immediate impression while sitting at the press conference was that the comment was not meant to be belittling of the fans and when typed out in its entirety -- as it is above -- would read much more inflammatory than it actually was and would misrepresent what Bennett was trying to say. If I had thought he was making a statement on the fan base, surely, I would have seen fit to address that on here. That's not how I took it, though. I took it as him making yet another comment about the message board criticisms.

The comment came immediately after he said, "You can't get caught up in message boards and blogs where people won't even put their real name."

That was my interpretation, at least. But many others, apparently, perceived the comment much differently. Much more harshly.

So I asked Bennett after practice today to clarify what he meant by that statement. Here is his response:

"The people that we want to please are people that donate money to the university, buy season tickets. I'm not worried about people that go on a message board and won't put their real name. The people we want to please are the people that donate money, have season tickets, have been with us from the very beginning. Those are the people we want to please. I'm not worried about message boards and blogs."

I then mentioned that some people have taken the comment as a statement on the fans in general.

"Heck no," Bennett said. "We need them. We need them. We love them. I know a lot of people that have been season ticket holders from the very beginning. We greatly appreciate them. We're talking about those are the people -- season-ticket holders, donors, people that buy tickets -- that's the people we want to please. Again, not worried or concerned about people that go on blogs and message boards and won't even put their name. ...

"People that have invested in Coastal, have been here from the beginning and been here their lives and teach here and [are] fans here, those are the ones that we are concerned about. Not message board folks and blogs.

"If you're a season-ticket holder, you are a donor."

Bennett's comments about message boards and blogs and people who "won't put their real name" are nothing new to readers here or followers of the program. I think his inability to separate the fans behind the comments from their message board anonymity leads to quotes like the one that has gotten a lot of people fired up today. Ultimately, I would say it's simply a poorly communicated thought.

But again, that's just my interpretation.

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

Baseball commitment from Virginia

Luke Willis, a center fielder from Oakton HS in Vienna, Va., is committed to play baseball at Coastal Carolina.

The commitment actually came over the summer, it seems, and The Roost caught up with Oakton baseball coach Justin Janis on Thursday to talk about what kind of player the Chanticleers will be getting.

"He's probably one of the hardest workers I've ever coached," Janis said. "He's constantly in the batting cage or the weight room or doing something to make himself better."

Willis' best attribute is his speed. Janis said he led the region with 29 stolen bases last season and has the range to track down balls in the outfield that most high school center fielders wouldn't reach.

Offensively, Janis said Willis will be "more of a doubles hitter in college - not to say that he won't pop the ball out."

A senior this year, Willis is expected to enroll at Coastal Carolina in the fall. And according to his coach, Willis had CCU on his radar well before the Chants had him on theirs.

"He was so fired up [about getting to play at CCU]," Janis said. "... I think he's almost ready to leave now."

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

 

Bennett, blogs and looking beyond the record

In his weekly news conference Wednesday, Coastal Carolina coach David Bennett was asked about the story the Sun News published Tuesday looking at his and athletic director Hunter Yurachek's thoughts on the state of the football program amid its recent struggles.

The story mentioned the growing frustration of fans over the team's 1-4 start on the heels of three straight non-winning seasons, and also included a strong endorsement for Bennett by Yurachek.

When prompted Wednesday, Bennett took the opportunity to address the matter -- and his future -- again.

And here's just about everything he had to say:

"My job is to grow these guys into fantastic men. Graduating students. Men of character one day to be good husbands, to be good fathers. And along the way, we want to win football games, you understand? Now, if I was to say let's win football games and I don't care what type of men we bring in here, that's a whole 'nother bag of tricks. I want to recruit great young men in here, build them up, let them become great men and win championships. That's what we want to do.

...

"We plan on being here. This is our university. We love it at Coastal Carolina. You ask our two children, they don't want to go nowhere. Years ago they were worried about somebody taking us up out of here. Now, [people] are talking about, 'Oh, they're going to let you go, coach?' I don't plan on that at all. If you're caught up in the flesh, you worry about that stuff. And you've got to constantly stay connected with the spirit to realize there's a big plan, there's a big goal. You can't get caught up in message boards and blogs where people won't even put their real name.

"You go talk to donors that donate hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars, see what they say ... So we feel like we're working harder than ever as a football staff, and we've got some great young men. It is a shame, but with the profession we're in, most all you all judge is wins and losses. That's what you're judging."

A reporter later asked the two players present at the news conference if they read the comments and criticism posted on internet forums.

"They tell us to stay away from the blog sites," running back Eric O'Neal said. "We don't really care about the blogs. We just try to play football."

Receiver Marquel Willis had a different response, though.

"I've been on there a couple of times. You see what the fans are saying, and you kind of wish that they kind of stayed behind you, but it is somewhat of a motivator," Willis said. "You have these people doubting you and doubting what you can do, and our goal is obviously we want our fans to come back and watch football games and enjoy coming out and watching us. It's motivation for us to go play harder and try to prove them wrong and show them we are a good football team."

| Ryan Young, ryoung@thesunnews.com

Former CCU linebacker Simpkins joins Packers

The Green Bay Packers signed former Coastal Carolina standout Maurice Simpkins off their practice squad, several outlets reported Thursday.

Simpkins has had an interesting path to the NFL, making a mark with the Green Bay Blizzard in the Indoor Football League before getting a shot with the Packers in the preseason.

http://www.totalpackers.com/2010/10/07/simpkins-signed-burnett-to-ir/

The Sports Network/Fathead.com FCS Top-25 Poll

The Big South continues to keep its foot barely in the door of the latest FCS rankings with No. 24 Liberty serving as the league's lone representative in the top-25 (while Gardner-Webb also received a few votes).

Two other Coastal Carolina opponents are ranked, as Richmond remains at No. 11 and Georgia Southern moves up to No. 16.

And, apparently, some voters still do not know the difference between undefeated Delaware and winless Delaware State. The Hornets -- the only team CCU has beaten all season -- continues to receive votes in the poll.

On to the rankings ...

Team (First-place votes) ... Record ... Points ... Previous Rank

1. Appalachian State (101) ... 4-0 ... 3,509 ... 2

2. Delaware (29) ... 5-0 ... 3,353 ... 5

3. Jacksonville State (12) ... 5-0 ... 3,222 ... 4

4. William & Mary ... 4-1 ... 3,034 ... 7

5. Stephen F. Austin (1) ... 3-1 ... 2,930 ... 6

6. Villanova ... 3-2 ... 2,718 ... 1

7. James Madison ... 3-1 ... 2,626 ... 3

8. Massachusetts ... 4-1 ... 2,603 ... 8

9. South Carolina State ... 3-1 ... 2,323 ... 9

10. Montana State ... 4-1 ... 2,314 ... 10

11. Richmond ... 2-2 ... 1,970 ... 11

12. Montana ... 3-2 ... 1,826 ... 12

13. Eastern Washington ... 3-2 ... 1,660 ... 13

14. Cal Poly ... 3-2 ... 1,362 ... 15

15. Northern Iowa ... 2-2 ... 1,330 ... 17

16. Georgia Southern ... 3-1 ... 1,280 ... 19

17. Texas State ... 3-1 ... 1,149 ... 20

18. North Dakota State ... 3-2 ... 814 ... 13

19. Elon ... 2-3 ... 756 ... 21

20. Western Illinois ... 4-1 ... 734 ... NR

21. Wofford ... 3-1 ... 653 ... NR

22. New Hampshire ... 2-3 ... 567 ... 14

23. Southern Illinois ... 2-3 ... 565 ... 24

24. Liberty ... 3-2 ... 486 ... 25

25. Southeast Missouri State ... 4-1 ... 479 ... 24