JC Smith driven by confidence late in historic football season: ‘Uncharted territory’
Going undefeated wasn’t necessarily an expectation for the 8-1 Johnson C. Smith football team.
Loaded with Charlotte-area talent, the Golden Bulls won their first eight games. It marks the program’s best start to a season in school history and the historically Black university near uptown hadn’t posted an eight-win campaign in nearly 50 years.
Now unranked but still receiving 74 votes in the AFCA Division II coaches’ poll, J.C. Smith wraps up its regular season at Livingstone College in Salisbury at 2 p.m. Saturday. While no longer unbeaten, head coach Maurice Flowers doesn’t feel anyone’s confidence has been shaken.
“What do we know is: This is uncharted territory for JCSU football,” Flowers said. “Very uncharted territory to be ranked in the Top 25. To be undefeated at this point in the time in the season. To just have back-to-back winning seasons, yeah, it’s uncharted territory. But it’s not an excuse.
“Fayetteville State came in, they kicked our butts (Saturday). And we’re going to get better from it.”
Dominant JC Smith still has eyes on championship
J.C. Smith (8-1, 5-1 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association) remains in a strong position to win its conference.
Its dominance includes a 21-16 victory over Virginia Union, which has won six in a row since dropping that game in Charlotte. Virginia Union, which pulled out a 91-0 walloping of Bluefield State this past weekend, is tied with the Golden Bulls atop the CIAA standings.
The CIAA championship follows this week’s game at Livingstone from Alumni Memorial Stadium in Salisbury. J.C. Smith, which won the conference in 1969, will look to make an appearance in the CIAA title game — scheduled for Nov. 16, in Salem, Virginia — for the first time in 52 years.
“I’m used to other teams fighting, pointing fingers,” graduate student linebacker Jack Smith said. “We just tell each other: ‘Keep going.’ We’ve got each others’ backs, because we’ve always got what we need.”
Added linebacker Benari Black, a native Charlottean: “We stick together. Through wins and losses. We don’t let the highs get too high and the lows get too low. I feel like we’ve got a brotherhood that’s real tight and close-knit.”
‘A test of your character’
There were only a handful of times when J.C. Smith even found itself tied before Saturday.
The Golden Bulls never trailed in the eight victories prior to their 27-0 loss to Fayetteville State at home. They’ve outscored their opponents by a margin of 239 to 124 points, winning each game by an average margin of nearly 13 points.
A big part of the strong culture at J.C. Smith has stemmed from the players’ core values. As Smith and Black indicated, the Golden Bulls remind themselves every day that they win as a team and lose as a team.
They weren’t cracking bright smiles after wins, either. But they’re certainly not sulking, as their confidence is what drives them.
“We believe in each other, and we are confident,” Flowers said. “(Saturday’s) loss has not shaken us at all. It’s not going to shake us at all. This, right here, is a test of your character. The easy thing would be win, go 9-0, then have a chance to go 10-0 next. But that’s the easy way it could have been.
“But now some adversity has been thrown in, and your character is tested. That’s what life is.”
