SAmford hosts vmi after two week layoff
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - October 4, 2024
Samford will be the country’s most rested college football team when the Bulldogs host VMI on Saturday.
A 21-day break between games will end when the ball is kicked off at Pete Hanna Stadium at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The first seven days of the break were planned. Samford had a regularly scheduled bye week following a 12-7 win over Alabama State on Sept. 14. The Bulldogs then spent six days preparing to play at Furman in a game that featured the past two Southern Conference football champions. That game never got underway because of effects of Hurricane Helene.
“It’s almost like we’re getting ready to start a brand new season,” said Samford coach Chris Hatcher whose team is 1-3 and will now officially begin Southern Conference play against VMI. “We've been off two weeks and we'll have three weeks of practice before we play this week, but we're excited to have the opportunity to play the game. We talked in depth at our Monday team meeting after the cancellation of our Furman game that we better be very grateful for the opportunities that we have. We talk about that each and every week, but more so when you get one taken away from you. Our first day's practice was probably the most enthusiastic practice that we've had during the course of this early season or early part of the season. The guys are excited about playing.”
Hatcher and Samford officials spent last week monitoring the scheduled path of Hurricane Helene. They understood the possibility of a weather postponement.
“I don't think anybody knew it was gonna do that,” Hatcher said.
The Samford traveling party was on the buses on Friday, getting to ready to begin the 300-mile journey to Greenville, South Carolina. Hatcher moved the departure time to give them a chance to assess what was happening with the weather. Hatcher said he got a call from representatives of the hotel they were booked at to inform them power was out. That began a series of calls between Hatcher, Samford athletic director Martin Newton and members of Furman’s athletic department. He eventually got the players off the bus and let them know in a meeting inside the Samford football building that the game had been postponed.
Originally, both teams were hopeful they could play on Sunday. Samford’s traveling party went through the same routine on Saturday morning before they found out the game was canceled.
“We're gonna do everything we can to ensure the student athletes here at Samford will be safe and be put in the best possible situations,” Hatcher said. “It's unfortunate we get did get to play the game, I know they're very important. But, again, you got to keep in mind, at the end of the day it's a football game There's a lot of other factors there that are that are going on up in that that area of the Carolinas and into the Tennessee area up there, that are a lot more important than a football game.”
When it comes to football, Hatcher said it’s fortunate that Samford has 12 games on the schedule this season, which is one more that the custom. For now, though, the focus is on the next one, which is VMI.
“Well, I'm confident that we're going to go out there and play well,” Hatcher said. “It's been a strange year. You know, we talk all the time about knowing what type of team that you have. You know, we're headed into week four and I’m really not sure, you know, what are we going to be really good at offensively. So the past couple weeks we've been able to work a little bit more fundamentals. I'm confident we've got some playmakers. We've got to find a way to get those guys the ball. We've got to get rhythm. We've got to get back to playing with some good tempo, which we struggled at. Now you've got to get first downs in order to do that. I'm confident. And again, I think we've got to – we'll have a good plan when the time comes.”