Livingstone Suffers Second Straight Pioneer Loss

BY ED DUPREE
SALISBURY POST

ATLANTA - Livingstone College's Pioneer Bowl trip ended in disappointment for the second straight football season here Saturday when Tuskegee University downed the Blue Bears 23-9.

Tuskegee, the winningest historically-Black institution in the nation, with 510 all-time victories, showed why it won the Southern Intercollegiate Conference championship with a 6-0 mark by stopping Livingstone's powerful ground game. The Golden Tigers ended the season with a 10-2 record, losing only to Morris Brown early in the season and Alabama State in the season finale.

Coach Rudy Abrams' Bears, champions of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (5-2 record), wound up 7-4 overall. The Bears were 8-3 a year ago, when they lost to Kentucky State 30-26 in the inaugural Pioneer Bowl at Herndon Olympic Stadium on the Morris Brown campus.

Led by freshman running back Carl Jones, the CIAA leader with 1,220 yards rushing, Livingstone had averaged 291.3 yards on the ground during the regular season. Tuskegee held the Bears to 114 yards on the ground, forcing Livingstone to go to the air more than it had all season.

Quarterback D'andre Hopper, playing for the first time since injuring his knee on October 27, completed nine of 23 passes for 185 yards and one touchdown as the Bears went to a shotgun formation most of the cold and rainy afternoon before a damp crowd of 5,300. Hopper also ran for 34 yards for a net of 219 and was voted Livingstone's player of the game.

Opposing QB Aaron James, voted the Tigers' player of the game, threw for 204 yards on 6-for-14 and two touchdowns. His two long first-half TD passes to Michael Scott (52 yards) and Juan Draine (97) put Livingstone in a 16-0 hole early in the second quarter.

"We couldn't score, and we gave up two real easy scores to them. Defensively, we gave up big plays, and offensively, we didn't make them. It's really just that simple," said Abrams, who has coached Livingstone to its only two CIAA titles and bowl appearances in its history.

"They've got a very good football team, and I knew they had a good football team, but you can't give up a 90-yard TD pass and (the 52-yarder). You just can't do that," said Abrams.

livingstone tried to bounce back from that early 16-0 deficit, finally getting on the scoreboard with 45 seconds left in the half on a 10-yard TD pass from Hopper to freshman tight end Julian Brooks, who was starting for the first time.

Tuskegee's All-America defensive back, Che' Bryant, deflected Hopper's pass in the end zone, but the alert Brooks still caught it for the TD, his second reception of the game and career. It was 16-7 after the Bears' All-America center Charles Cooley kicked the extra point. Cooley replaced the injured Keith Roberts, Livingstone's place kicker.

Early in the second half, a Tornell Jones pass interception gave Livingstone the ball at its own 31. On the next play, the Bears almost went the distance. Hopper threw to wide receiver Theron Wigfall on a slant pattern over the middle. Wigfall made the catch and broke into the clear. One Tuskegee defender, Bryant, chased him from behind and grabbed Wigfall's jersey. When Wigfall tried to jerk loose from the All-American at the Tuskegee 10, Bryant reached out with his left hand and knocked the ball out of the receiver's grasp toward the end zone.

The ball was picked up in the end zone by defensive back Ralph Gaines of the Tigers, who could have downed it for a touchback. However, he tried to run it out, then finally downed it, giving Livingstone a safety and two points. That pulled the Bears within 16-9 with 10:49 to go in the third period.

Livingstone had three other scoring opportunities after that. The Bears went to their normal option offense, keeping the ball on the ground most of the time and got to the Tiger 13 before a fourth-down pass to wide receiver Justin Brown was incomplete: he caught a 14-yard pass from Hopper but was out of bounds.

Then there were three pass interceptions in three consecutive plays - two by the Bears' secondary.

Defensive back Shavarez Thompson picked off the first one at the Tuskegee 28. Gaines, on the next play, intercepted a Hopper pass. Finally, defensive back, Denotric Nash intercepted James at the Tuskegee 30.

Livingstone got the ball to the Tiger 13, but a fourth-down pass fell incomplete.

The Tigers expanded their lead to 23-9 with 10:47 left in the game and did it with their starting quarterback, James, on the sideline. He was helped off the field after being tackled by Thompson and linebacker Marcus Bankhead at the Livingstone 10. His replacement, Antonio Knight, listed as a second-team linebacker, ran for a TD on the next play.

When Thompson and Nash made their interceptions, Abrams knew the Bears needed to cash in on the opportunities.

"We caught one ball that we thought was a touchdown, and it was out of bounds. They just turned it up defensively. They just played better defense than we played offense," said Abrams.

Livingstone's ground game, led by Jones and Ray Chambers, with 46 and 39 yards, respectively, was at its best early in the third quarter when the Bears abandoned the shotgun and went back to the option attack.

"We weren't catching the ball and that's just not our offense," said Abrams of the wishbone. "We can do it for awhile, but we don't have a whole lot of things we can do out of that. Unless you're strictly a passing team, it gets to a point where you've got to go back and do the things you know you do well. We got back in that and moved the ball downfield. There were just a lot of things that we normally do well that we just didn't do well today. I'll have to look at the film and see if we just didn't block them, or maybe they were just better than we were up front."