Who’s next?: Injuries affording Chants’ younger players valuable experience

“What happens next?”

Such has been a frequent question asked by the Coastal Carolina football program this season, but the No. 15 Chanticleers (7-2) haven’t worried or lost focus, instead choosing to continue moving forward.

“I feel confident with where we’re at. The main thing is, when things go wrong, whether it be a bad play, bad game, an injury, whatever, is to just adapt and move on,” Coastal Carolina head coach Joe Moglia said. “And especially with what this team has been through, our guys have done a good job of that.”

That’s an understatement.

While dealing with a bizarre number of injuries at key positions, the Chants have lost just two games – to No. 2 Jacksonville State and No. 14 Charleston Southern – that went down to the wire, each being decided by a single point.

One-by-one, four quarterbacks went down with injuries – three of which were season-ending. The same fate followed for two of the team’s standout running backs, including the program’s all-time leading scorer De’Angelo Henderson, who has been dealing with serious injuries and has been held out the past few weeks.

In the meanwhile, other Chanticleer football players have also dealt with the usual mix of minor injuries to occur during a grueling football season.

“When all that first happened – us losing football games was never going to be an alternative. We were never going to use that as a crutch for not doing well,” offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Dave Patenaude said. “There’s been some times that we sputtered, some times that we struggled and made some mistakes. But if you look at the play of the quarterbacks overall over the season, it’s been really good. Guys have played really well, made good decisions, and their pass percentages are good and they run the team. I’m really happy with the way they’ve performed.”

The injury problems began when redshirt freshman Chance Thrasher – the team’s projected backup quarterback – was ruled out for the season after a shoulder injury he suffered during the preseason.

Then, sophomore starting quarterback Josh Stilley – who had just started getting comfortable leading the Chants’ high-powered offense – suffered a season-ending leg injury against FCS powerhouse Jacksonville State. In that same game, freshman signal caller Avery McCall injured his hand and, weeks later, ruled out for the year.

Junior Tyler Keane – fifth on the depth chart to begin the preseason – took over the quarterback duties and succeeded in the role after his first career start in a 41-21 victory over Furman on Sept. 24. Keane now has a 5-1 record as a starter and leads the team with 803 passing yards, 10 touchdowns, two interceptions and has completed 64.1 percent of his throws this season.

“Tyler has done a hell of a job leading this program after all the [injuries],” Moglia said. “We feel comfortable with him leading our offense.”

But for now, that may not be an option as Keane – a Myrtle Beach High School product – injured his ankle in the first quarter of last week’s 38-17 win over Monmouth and is doubtful for Saturday’s home game against Bryant (4-5).

After Keane left the game, redshirt freshman Austin Bradley and true freshman Ryan Lee – who was recruited as a wide receiver – split time under center and helped lead a comeback effort as the pair combined to score four of the team’s five touchdowns.

Bradley said he felt his teammates rallying around him.

“When Keane went down, Ryan and I knew we had to step up,” Bradley said. “I was just so blessed that [Patenaude] and coach Moglia believed in me and put me back out there. I got off to a rough start, but they were never negative. They kept saying, ‘Austin, you can do this.’ And I started believing that and I started playing better.”

Bradley and Lee are both motivated to keep leading the team if called on, and its likely the two will split time again Saturday with Keane is doubtful to play. Also available is Tyler Chadwick – a member of the Chanticleers baseball team the last four seasons – and freshman Jordan McRae, a linebacker that played quarterback in high school.

“I believe in myself, and I believe that no matter what, no matter who is playing, we can all contribute to this team,” Bradley said. “Ryan and I are just taking it play-by-play and game-by-game.”

Moglia gives his coaching staff a lot of credit for helping prepare each player to step up and use them to the best of their abilities.

“It’s been an opportunity for the coaches to demonstrate that they really can coach, and you don’t just do a good job when you have All-Americans,” he said. “You can do a good job when you’ve got solid kids that want to play and want to go after it. Then you adapt and adjust our system to them.”

Patenaude said when former quarterback Alex Ross – a 2015 FCS All-American and the program’s all-time passing leader – was in his final years that there wasn’t much the coaches could do to help the team succeed as Ross was a field general.

But this year has been totally different.

“There’s nothing you can do about it. In a lot of cases, you lose a quarterback for a couple of weeks, he sprains his ankle or something and he comes back and he plays again. Never have we lost our top four or five guys to season-ending injuries,” Patenaude said. “So, that’s been a big challenge. But it’s also livened things up for us a little bit. When we had Alex Ross in there, there wasn’t a lot of coaching going on because he was a fifth-year senior, he knew the offense, he studied intensely and was really a coach on the field. So his last couple of years, there wasn’t a lot of different stuff that was going on. Now it’s kind of fun being in there, trying to figure out how people are going to defend us and try to figure out how best to use the guys that we have.”

With all the quarterback injuries, the Chants have utilized their rushing ability more and have gained 200-plus yards in eight of their nine games, including 300-plus rushing yards in the past two games.

Also, 17 different players have taken a handoff this season, while seven have completed a pass.

“[Injuries] may limit certain throws where on quarterback may be better than the other one, but as far as wide receivers – we just need to go out there and play every day. Now, the strategy may be a little different,” senior wideout Bruce Mapp said. “We do more blocking, because our run game is really working. We have to [make sacrifices] for the team, and make plays.”

Between the seven players that have thrown a pass this season (Stilley, Keane, McCall, Bradley, Lee, Ky’Jon Tyler, Chris Jones), Coastal Carolina has 1,421 passing yards, 15 touchdowns, three interceptions and has averaged 157.9 yards per game through the air.

But, again, the Chants are finding most of their success on the ground as they have 2,189 rushing yards (243.2 per game), 21 touchdowns and average 5.4 yards per carry.

“Our base philosophy over last four seasons was to be as close to 50-50 as far as run and pass plays. If you look at us at our best, we’re always going to be balanced, throw play action, run a little bit of quarterback read and throw the ball,” Patenaude said. “But the great thing has been that we have an All-American running back who carried us for a while, and we have our wildcat package that people have to defense. … We’re not afraid to throw the ball at all.”

No the Chants aren’t, and their passing attack will survive regardless of the signal caller. As for next year, the team will have tons of experience at the quarterback position – something Coastal Carolina was lacking to open the year.

“They’ll all be back. The good thing about it is they’ve all got a lot of experience. Josh Stilley will be back, Chance Thrasher, McCall, Keane, Austin and Ryan. So the great thing is they’ve all got playing time under their belt, and going into the season we didn’t have a lot of guys with experience and now we have a bunch of guys with experience,” Patenaude said. “The biggest thing for Josh, Chance and Avery is they need to stay healthy; that’s been a big concern for them. That’s going to be fun; I think we got really good players and we were excited when we recruited those guys. Now we’re realizing why. I think the future is bright; we just need to get some guys healthy and get some guys more experience.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2016 at 10:44 AM with the headline "Who’s next?: Injuries affording Chants’ younger players valuable experience."