CCU Football Notebook: Chants in time crunch to prepare for finale with Flames

Instead of celebrating a 45-13 win over Kennesaw State on Saturday night, some of the Coastal Carolina football coaches were already back in their offices working on the gameplan for the regular-season finale at Liberty.

The Chanticleers face a quick turnaround before traveling to take on the rival Flames on Thursday night in Lynchburg, Va., in a game that will be televised on ESPNEWS.

And so the team was back in the stadium for a full practice Sunday evening, there will be no regular off day Monday for the players and no time wasted in general as the Chants (9-1, 4-1 Big South) hope to lock up a top-eight national seed for the NCAA FCS playoffs if they can close out the schedule with a win at Liberty (5-5, 2-3).

“The coaches actually worked overtime. They had discretion as to when they wanted to work. Some guys came in last night, some came in early this morning. The coaches normally have Friday off; some came in Friday morning,” head coach Joe Moglia said before practice Sunday evening.

“Normally the kids have Monday off, but that’s a full day for the coaches – we come in around 8 a.m. and we work until about 10 at night. So they’ve [already] put in that type of time. We’re going to be ready to go with our gameplan this afternoon.”

The Chants will go through full practices Monday and Tuesday and leave for Lynchburg on Wednesday night.

Coastal Carolina, which has won its last two games by a combined margin of 91-13 while bouncing back from its lone loss, was ranked No. 4 in the FCS national polls last week and should be positioned to claim one of the eight first-round byes in the playoffs if they win Thursday night.

Moglia said he saw the value in moving the Liberty game to a Thursday night back when the idea was first broached, with Big South commisioner Kyle Kallander encouraging the Chants to take the national TV opportunity.

In return, Coastal Carolina got an agreement that Liberty would play the Chants in Conway next season regardless of any potential conference change, which of course happened when the university accepted an invite into the Sun Belt Conference.

“They had a lot of good reasons. Kyle Kallander approached us first about it, and then I was in contact with the people from ESPN,” Moglia said. “... This was last year so you just assumed you were going to have two nationally-ranked teams, it’s a big rivalry, Thursday night, that’s a great environment for a game up there. They really wanted us to be able to do it, so eventually we said, ‘OK, as long as we play back down here the following [year] and ESPNU reciprocrates.’ Now ESPN said they can’t gaurantee that, but they’d like to be able to do that.”

Billings likely out, Israel iffy

There was a scary moment in the win Saturday as freshman safety Michael Billings remained down on the turf for several minutes late in the second quarter before being carted off the field.

Chants defensive coordinator Clayton Carlin said Sunday that Billings, a former Georgetown High School standout, had sustained a concussion and will almost certainly be out this week.

It’s unclear yet if Billings, who had taken over as a starter the last two games, would be able to return for a potential FCS playoff game.

“I’d be shocked if he plays [Thursday]. Your heart breaks for the kid. He’s playing well,” Carlin said. “But that’s where your thoughts went first, you see a kid laying down like that for a while and then you see him move, thank God.”

Senior safety Kelvin Deveaux, who started most of the season before moving to a reserve role the last two games, is considered doubtful this week.

The Chants are expected to rotate junior Austin Murillo (a starter the last two games), sophomore Kerron Johnson (eight starts this fall), senior Tyrell Brown and junior Zach Kelley between the two safety spots.

Meanwhile, senior wide receiver John Israel has a chance to play this week after missing the last three games with a knee injury, offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude said Sunday.

“John ran around in pregame yesterday and was probably capable of going, but didn’t look great. But he’ll be running around today and we’ll have a better idea,” he said. “... He’s coming along, but once we saw him in pregame, we said we probably should get him a few more days rest and try to get him ready for this week.”

McBride takes over at center

True freshman Jamarion McBride took over as the Chants’ full-time center Saturday with junior Dom DiGalbo sidelined by injury.

McBride, a 6-foot-1, 290-pound rookie from Simpsonville, has come on quickly in his debut season and projects as a key cog up front for the Chants for years to come.

“Dom was banged up this week. He’ll be questionable for this coming week,” Patenaude said. “Jamarion played the whole game and Rodney Mitchell was backing him up so we’re still in pretty good shape. Mitchell’s a good player. But Jamarion played the whole way. [He and DiGalbo] have split time the whole year and he’s pretty much a 1 and 1a starter. I thought he did a good job for a freshman. He hung in there.”

Hop keeps streak going

Junior running back De’Angelo Henderson kept his FCS-record streak going Saturday and now has a touchdown in 24 straight games.

But this latest score didn’t come until early in the fourth quarter as he punched it in from 1 yard out to cap the scoring in the lopsided win.

With senior quarterback Alex Ross tying a program record with five touchdown passes, there were not many chances close to the goal line at all in the game. Patenaude said he wanted to try to give Henderson a chance at it if possible, but that wasn’t the only motivation for keeping him in the game there.

“Most of all we wanted to get him back in there after he fumbled. He was pretty hard on himself once that happened,” Patenaude said. “We wanted to get Osharmar [Abercrombie] some runs starting that series and then Osh got gassed a little bit after a couple big runs so we put Hop in to finish it out. In the back of our mind we were trying to get him the score, but we weren’t going to do it just to put him out there.

“Had it come [later] in the fourth quarter we probably wouldn’t have put him out there to risk him for this week. It was a timely drive and we were happy that he was able to get that done.”

Etc.

For the first time in Moglia’s four seasons, Coastal Carolina will not earn at least a share of the Big South regular-season championship. Charleston Southern, which handed the Chants their only loss, finished unbeaten in the conference after its 31-24 win over Liberty on Saturday. ...

Junior kicker Ryan Granger tied a program single-season record with his 15th field goal Saturday. He’s 15-of-19 on field goals this season (78.9 percent), including a run of 10 straight at one point, and is on pace to break the Chants’ single-season record for field goal percentage. He ranks seventh in the FCS in averaging 1.5 per game. ...

Junior defensive tackle Jabarai Bothwell was chosen by the coaches as the team’s defensive MVP for the sixth time this season. And after a stat correction was made after the game, he ended up with nine total tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and a blocked PAT.

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 8:52 PM with the headline "CCU Football Notebook: Chants in time crunch to prepare for finale with Flames."