CCU football in national spotlight after historic top 25 ranking. What’s next for Chants
It hasn’t been a normal week for Coastal Carolina head football coach Jamey Chadwell and his program.
The Chanticleers (4-0) are ranked for the first time as an FBS program at No. 24 in the Amway Coaches Poll and No. 25 in the AP Top 25 after defeating then 21st-ranked Louisiana 30-27 Wednesday night in Lafayette, La.
The historic milestone has brought with it added demands and responsibilities. On top of his normal interview schedule, Chadwell has done additional interviews with ESPN, SiriusXM, ESPNU Radio, Yahoo Sports, ESPN Coastal Radio, SouthernPigskin.com and The Athletic for two separate articles, according to CCU Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Kevin Davis.
In addition, former CCU coach and current football executive and athletics chairman Joe Moglia has had interviews with ESPN, Sportico, USA Today and The Athletic.
How will the team handle the rankings and newfound national attention?
The Chants will attempt to keep it in perspective and not let it impact their preparation for their game against Georgia Southern (3-1) on Saturday at Brooks Stadium.
“It is something that’s pretty special for our university and our program being the first time ever,” Chadwell said. “It’s a big deal, but also we’re realistic knowing if we slip up one time we’ll probably never see it again. So I told our guys if you want to stay there and continue to do something for this program, we have to continue to keep winning. We’ve got good leaders and I think we’ll do a good job of keeping it in perspective.”
The Chants of the Sun Belt Conference are one of four teams in Group of Five conferences that are ranked in the Coaches/AP polls. The others are Cincinnati (10/9) and SMU (16/16) of the American Athletic Conference, and Marshall (22/25) of Conference USA.
The top Group of Five team in the College Football Playoff ranking at the end of the season is invited to a New Year’s Six bowl game and earns several million dollars for its conference.
“It’s great to be ranked and all, but at the end of the day that’s not our end goal,” junior receiver Jaivon Heiligh said. “Our end goal is to win a [Sun Belt] championship, so that’s what we’re staying focused on.”
Coastal has been receiving votes in the coaches’ poll for several weeks and Chadwell, who is one of 48 voters in the poll, revealed this week that he has been voting for the Chants.
“I’ve been voting for the Sun Belt teams that I feel like deserve to be ranked, including Louisiana and the people we’ve been playing,” Chadwell said. “I don’t obviously get to watch tons of football, but I feel do I know good teams when I do see them, so I try to be fair and reasonable to where I think we are or Louisiana was or anybody in our league is that I think is playing at a high level.”
Super Safety 2.0
The Super Safety nearly had company.
The biggest gaffe in CCU football history in 2005 was nearly joined by another damaging snafu last Wednesday. CCU”s big win over Louisiana that resulted in the ranking was nearly derailed by a bizarre fourth-quarter penalty.
The Chants forced a punt on fourth-and-5 with the game tied at 27 and 7 minutes remaining, but returner Heiligh and freshman Manny Stokes Jr. were wearing the same uniform number, No. 6, on the punt return team. The 5-yard penalty gave the Ragin’ Cajuns a first down.
Luckily for the Chants, the CCU defense forced another punt three plays later to allow the offense to embark on its game-winning drive that culminated in Massimo Biscardi’s 40-yard field goal with 4 seconds remaining.
Because teams have more than 100 players, some share the same number, but one player is usually offense and one is defense.
Chadwell said Stokes was replacing an injured member of the punt team and the matching numbers were overlooked in the haste of the situation. He also said numbers have been changed this week to eliminate the possibility of having the same number on offense, defense or special teams.
“When somebody gets hurt like that in the heat of the moment you say, ‘Oh we’ve got to put him in,’ and you don’t stop to think there about having double numbers,” Chadwell said. “It cost us. It could have cost us huge. Thankfully it didn’t.”
What is Super Safety? Too many Chants fans remember it all too well. In just the third year of the program, CCU and Charleston Southern met with the Big South Conference championship and an automatic FCS playoff berth on the line.
The Chants led by seven points and faced a fourth down with 10 seconds to play and the ball around their own 30. Wide receiver Jerome Simpson, who went on to play for several years in the NFL, was asked to execute a play called Super Safety. He was supposed to run around to kill time before running through the end zone for a safety if defenders approached.
He instead ran out of bounds at the CCU 4 with 1.5 seconds left on the clock, the Buccaneers scored on the final play and won in double overtime to deny the Chants a conference title and playoff berth.
Silent assassin
Grayson McCall has performed many of the duties expected of an FBS starting quarterback.
Through four games, he has completed 59 of 87 passes for 930 yards and 11 touchdowns with one interception, and is second on the team in rushing with 184 yards and three scores on 42 carries.
What the redshirt freshman hasn’t done is speak to the media.
Chadwell said he has a policy prohibiting freshmen and redshirt freshmen from speaking to the media, and explained the policy as it pertains to McCall.
“He’s a young kid with a lot of expectations on his shoulders and I felt like he had a chance to do some good things and wanted to try eliminate just as many distractions for him so he could focus on being a student during the day and being a high level quarterback for us during the afternoon and night,” Chadwell said.
“. . . There will be a point in time when I think he’s ready to speak, but that’s a freshmen policy it’s not just a quarterback policy. I do that with all my freshmen just because from a maturity standpoint and opportunity to be allowed to grow in their position, then once they’re ready we’ll wrap it off on all our freshmen. But no freshman has spoken since I’ve been the head coach.”
Different college coaches have different policies regarding media availability, but Chadwell’s on freshmen not doing interviews, even redshirt freshmen, isn’t unique.
When Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy in 2012 – as a nearly 20-year-old redshirt freshman – then first-year Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin had a gag order on Manziel until two days after the regular season concluded. His first interview was a conference call involving national media.
CCU at full strength?
Coastal was without one of its primary offensive weapons last week when junior tight end Isaiah Likely missed the Louisiana game with a lower body injury. Chadwell said he is practicing this week and “has a good chance” to play Saturday.
Chadwell said some players were “banged up” against Louisiana and are nursing injuries that aren’t expected to prohibit them from playing, so the Chants could essentially be full strength.
Positive coronavirus cases and the subsequent isolation and quarantine of players could still impact the team. The Chants had COVID-19 testing Wednesday morning and test results are expected Thursday.
“To be honest I’m nervous this week about it because of the trip plan at Louisiana, them coming off a hurricane and some different things there up in that area, playing the game and getting back and having a weekend,” Chadwell said. “You just never know. Our guys have done a phenomenal job all year long, really. But every week I get nervous about it.”
Because the Chants had an off week followed by a midweek game, the players have had two consecutive weekends when they didn’t play a game.
“I’m a little nervous about the open weeks,” Chadwell said. “Normally you love them, but because of the covid and the pandemic that’s more free time your players have. So yeah it can be a benefit from a preparation standpoint, but that’s also a Friday night and Saturday night you don’t know where they’re at. So I’m a little more nervous and anxious on it than I normally would be.”
Remix rematch?
In last year’s meeting between Georgia Southern and CCU, won by the Eagles in triple overtime, every player on both teams was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct between the third and fourth quarters for having a bouncing, towel-waving dance-off on the field to Sheck Wes’ Mo Bamba, which the CCU staff also plays during games.
Might there be a rematch?
“For us that was the highlight of the day, unfortunately,” Chadwell said. “. . . Not this year. We’re going to be doing a lot of dancing, hopefully, in the locker room afterwards.”
Saturday’s Game
What: Georgia Southern (3-1, 1-1 Sun Belt Conference) at No. 24/25 Coastal Carolina (4-0, 2-0)
When: Noon
Where: Brooks Stadium, Conway
TV: ESPNews
Radio: WRNN 99.5 FM
Online: www.goccusports.com
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 4:32 PM.
