How JC Smith QB Darius Ocean’s homecoming helped lead the HBCU team to national acclaim
So why is Johnson C. Smith football 5-0 for the first time since 1969?
Well, it may have to do with the fact that Smith, an historically Black college near uptown Charlotte, has one of the nation’s best Division II quarterbacks — former Hough High star Darius Ocean — and the fact that coach Maurice Flowers had to play much of last season with one hand almost literally tied behind his back.
A year ago, starting quarterback Tyrell Jackson suffered a concussion after the second game of the season, the same injury that ended his year in 2022 after Game 5.
Flowers, who says he wants to pass 70 percent of the time, was forced to change up his offense.
JC Smith won seven games and made its first bowl game appearance in 12 years. The Golden Bulls ran the ball and played good defense, allowing 16 points per game.
Practices were kind of brutal, Flowers said, with everybody bunched up near the line of scrimmage all the time.
“We invested in our defense,” Flowers said, “and instead of throwing the ball all over the yard, we were playing that good defense and running the ball to protect our QBs. It helped our toughness overall. Our practices became more physical and our defense became more physical, and now we’re seeing the fruits of that labor.”
A year ago, JC Smith had five quarterbacks throw for about 1,400 yards in 11 games. Ocean, the former local high school star, leads the CIAA conference and ranks 11th nationally in Division II with 1,226 yards in five games, nearly 300 yards clear of second place in conference. Ocean has completed 80 of 135 passes, with 10 touchdowns and no interceptions.
His top target, former Ardrey Kell star Brevin Caldwell, leads the CIAA in receiving yards (561) and touchdowns (6). He averages 15 yards per catch.
And JC Smith’s defense has carried over from a year ago, allowing the fewest passing yards per game in the CIAA (146) and the fewest points per game (10.2).
All of that is why the team is ranked No. 24 in the American Football Coaches Division II national poll, the first time any Golden Bulls team has been ranked in that poll. The Bulls are also No. 23 n the D2football.com national rankings.
And it’s why JC Smith (5-0, 2-0) sits on top of the CIAA standings heading into Saturday’s 2 p.m. home game with Virginia State (2-2, 1-0).
“Our philosophy has always been, ‘Let’s get first downs and not touchdowns,’” Flowers said. “It helped our toughness overall. Now we’re able to throw the football better. Now we have Darius Ocean. And he was at Western Carolina playing behind two guys (who are now) in the NFL. Then he was at Valdosta State, which is top 10 in the country with a top 10 QB in Division II. All Darius Ocean needed was an opportunity, and we gave him that, but our team certainly grew up playing football the way we had to last year.”
From Raleigh to Charlotte to hope
Darius Ocean’s father, Jason, was an All-America linebacker at Livingstone who was added to the school’s Hall of Fame six years ago. As a freshman at the Salisbury, N.C., HBCU, Jason Ocean was named CIAA Rookie of the year.
Darius Ocean was a star quarterback at Cleveland High School, near Raleigh, and played with UNC star running back Omarion Hampton, before his father got a job opportunity and moved the family to Charlotte.
Ocean played his senior year at state power Hough High School, in Cornelius, where he threw for 1,858 yards and 21 touchdowns, against four interceptions.
“There’s a big microscope on high school football in Charlotte,” Ocean said. “(Back home), you just don’t get the notoriety that you get here. I think that’s the biggest difference.”
After high school, Ocean enrolled at Division I Western Kentucky, but found himself behind two future NFL quarterbacks — Bailey Zappe (Chiefs) and Austin Reed (Bears) — and never really saw the field. He transferred to Division II Valdosta State, but found himself again mostly sitting.
So he hit the transfer portal again, and got a direct message over Twitter from Flowers during the 2023 Christmas break.
“I didn’t know much about Smith,” Ocean, now 22, said this week, “except people who would you say, ‘You don’t really want to go there.’”
Flowers was open with Ocean during his recruiting pitch, not hiding the fact that JC Smith had barely averaged two wins a season over four decades, or that it had basically long been the butt of jokes about bad Black college football.
But Flowers also told Ocean that making JC Smith win was personal for him, that he had played football there in the ‘90s. And Flowers showed Ocean how the Bulls were coming off a 7-win bowl season, and the thing he needed most was a quarterback to run his pass-heavy offensive system that had helped him find success at several HBCU and high school stops before he coached at his alma mater.
“I thought I had the capability to start somewhere,” Ocean said. “I left Western (Kentucky) and went to Valdosta State and I never started there. I got in a couple times and I was pretty frustrated. Truthfully, after the first game (at Valdosta), I knew I was going to transfer at the end of the season. With coach Flowers, I could see the growth of the program.”
Chasing a title, chasing a dream
Ocean said his junior season couldn’t have started any better. He said he and Caldwell have a great chemistry that was developed in the early part of this year and over the summer, when the two spent time just working together, learning habits.
“Me and Brevin are both Charlotte kids and we’ve been throwing a lot, almost every day since spring,” Ocean said. “Like no days off.”
Ocean said the JC Smith experience is a lot better than he ever could’ve imagined.
“My dad comes from a CIAA school,” Ocean said, “and he told me it’ll be a little bit different than a D1 school or even at Valdosta, but it’s truthfully been better than anything I expected.”
Ocean said people see his mom in JC Smith gear and stop her to talk. He said when he goes into the barber shop, or to stores around the school, people will see him and start a well-known Golden Bulls’ call and response cheer.
“They say, ‘J.C.,’” Ocean said with a grin. “And I say, ‘S.U.’”
With the strong defense and improved offense, led by Ocean, the Bulls have injected hope into a fan base that has had so little of it.
JC Smith has been to two bowl games in 84 years. It has not won a CIAA league title in 55.
This is Flowers’ third year as head coach. In the six seasons prior, Smith was 16-42.
But that’s all changing, partially because Smith didn’t have a quarterback like Ocean last season — and mainly because it has him now.
“You know it feels good,” Flowers said, “but I can’t really appreciate it right now. I had members of the ‘69 championship team reach out and say how proud they are, but I can’t take it in yet. We can’t say we’re ranked No. 23 in one poll and No. 24 in another. We’re in the midst of getting ready for a very good football team. We want to go 3-0 in the CIAA and 6-0 overall. I mean, all this feels good, but it’s not the end of the journey.
“We’re just getting started.”
CIAA Standings
| Team | Overall | Conf |
| JC Smith | 5-0 | 2-0 |
| Winston-Salem State | 4-1 | 2-0 |
| Virginia State | 2-2 | 1-0 |
| Virginia Union | 2-2 | 1-0 |
| Livingstone | 3-2 | 1-1 |
| Shaw | 3-2 | 1-1 |
| Fayetteville State | 2-2 | 1-1 |
| Elizabeth City State | 2-2 | 0-1 |
| Bluefield State | 1-3 | 0-1 |
| Bowie State | 1-3 | 0-1 |
| Lincoln (PA) | 0-4 | 0-2 |
