Published On: 02.18.21 | 

By: Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Football preview: Birmingham-Southern looks to rebound from last-minute loss; Samford, Huntingdon begin spring seasons

Birmingham-Southern is 1-1 and recovering from a tough 26-23 loss to Berry College, which scored the go-ahead touchdown with 11 seconds left in the game. This week's opponent is Centre College. (Birmingham-Southern College Athletics)

Painful. Excruciating. Heart-wrenching.

These words describe how the Birmingham-Southern football team felt last week when visiting Berry College concluded a 16-play, 66-yard, game-winning drive with a 2-yard touchdown pass to escape with a 26-23 victory with just 11 ticks left on the General Krulak Stadium clock.

Birmingham-Southern head football coach Tony Joe White calls a timeout in last week’s game vs. Berry College. BSC’s narrow loss in that game leaves the team needing help to make it to the conference championship game in a short spring season. (Birmingham-Southern College Athletics)

“It was not easy to bear,” coach Tony Joe White said. “Losing is never easy, but with that magnitude of a game and everything that was on the line with that for this season, yeah, it was a tough pill to swallow.

“At the end of the day, you compete, you work hard, you prep and you do everything you can to win a football game,” the Panthers coach said. “To lose it on the last second, that’s never an enjoyable experience. But I like to think of our team as resilient. I know our guys are going to bounce back strong and be ready to compete with the next opponent.”

That next opponent is Centre College and the stakes are again high when the teams face one another at 5 p.m. Central on Saturday in Danville, Kentucky.

Birmingham-Southern is 1-1 in this spring season in which it faces only Southern Athletic Association foes. Before the season, White figured Berry – the four-time defending conference champions – would be the key game if a conference title was to be won.

Now White knows his Panthers will need help to make it to the SAA Championship Game on March 13.

“We probably need to beat Centre and Rhodes (Feb. 27), and then Centre would have to beat Berry twice,” said the coach, whose team opened with a 52-0 win over Rhodes.

Of course, a tie at the top is possible.

“If Centre, us and Berry all have one loss, to be honest with you, I don’t know what the tiebreaker scenario is,” White said. “I think we were just kind of glad to get a season put together and a schedule that was doable. I don’t know if tiebreakers have really been thought through thoroughly.”

In other action:

Samford at East Tennessee State: The Bulldogs travel to William B. Greene Stadium in Johnson City, Tennessee, for a noon meeting with the Bucs.

Samford and ETSU are meeting for the seventh time on the gridiron, with the Bulldogs owning a 6-1 edge. The Bucs are coming off a 3-9 season in 2019 that saw them post a 1-7 mark in the Southern Conference.

Samford enters the spring 2021 season picked to finish fifth in SoCon play in both the preseason coaches and media polls.

Brevard at Huntingdon: The Hawks host the Tornados at noon Saturday. The home team was 8-4 overall and 6-1 in the USA South Athletic Conference in 2019.

Jacksonville State at Tennessee State (postponed): The Gamecocks and Tigers were to have opened their spring seasons this Sunday. That was before a winter storm altered those plans. Now the Ohio Valley Conference foes will square off Sunday, March 7.

Read spring season football previews for Birmingham-Southern College, Huntingdon College, Samford University and Jacksonville State University.

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