Livingstone coach Greg Richardson is taking a young team to sunny Florida this weekend, but Raines High School will be the only tourist stop for the Blue Bears.
Livingstone, coming off a 55-0 defeat to Catawba last Saturday, isn’t making the seven-hour trip to Jacksonville to enjoy any sandy beaches.
The Blue Bears will be focused solely on the task that lies ahead on the worn turf at Raines, where Edward Waters College will be playing its first home game in 34 years on Saturday at 7 p.m.
“We’re trying to instill in our young men that this is a business trip,” Richardson said. “We’re going down to try to defeat Edward Waters, and we’re going down there under adverse conditions.
“The whole stadium is going to be excited about them playing their first college football game in 30 years.”
Richardson and the Blue Bears will depart from Salisbury after practice on Friday and hope to arrive at their destination in Florida by 1 a.m. on Saturday.
Livingstone’s late arrival will give the players enough time to rest and mentally prepare for the game — but not much else.
Richardson has remained positive throughout practice this week. His staff evaluated its players and got them to critique their own performances. He said the Catawba loss is out of the Blue Bears’ minds.
“That game is behind us,” Richardson said. “We can’t be concerned with what happened there except for trying to make corrections. Our approach right now is on Edward Waters.”
The Blue Bears will go into the game with a new starting quarterback. Richardson said Wednesday that Malcolm Weed would replace Joel Ward in the starting lineup.
Ward started against Catawba and completed 5-of-13 passes for 57 yards, but he was intercepted three times.
Weed entered the game in the second quarter and did not attempt a pass. He was sacked three times and rushed five times for minus-18 yards.
“We’ll probably go with Malcolm as long as he is producing, making good decisions,” Richardson said.
Richardson didn’t put them blame on the quarterbacks for Livingstone’s poor offensive showing. He said the offensive line, which gave up five sacks to Catawba, needs to play better to give the quarterbacks a better chance to be successful.
“Our quarterbacks can only do things if there is good offensive line play and we are allowed to execute our offense,” Richardson said. “We just did not get the kind of offensive line play that we needed to help our quarterbacks make good decisions.”
Edward Waters, an NAIA school, lost to Newberry 45-3 last Saturday night. Richardson pointed out that the Tigers trailed by only 14 points at halftime, and they fought hard for the entire game.
Richardson expects nothing less from a team playing in front of its home crowd on Saturday.
“We’ve had a chance to look at them on film and I had a chance to also look at them in person, and one thing I can say about this program is they are very excited,” Richardson said.
“Their city is going to be excited, their campus. We’re going down into a snake pit.”
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Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com
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