By T. Scott Boatright
The trend continued Saturday inside Eddie G. Robinson Stadium as Grambling State somehow found a win to win with a true freshman quarterback — the fourth starting triggerman the Tigers have had to use this season because of injuries.
This time it was true freshman Hayden Benoit who made his first start and directed the Tigers to a hardfought 31-23 win over Bethune Cookman.
Hardfought completely describes this contest as the two teams got into a brawl heading out onto the field after halftime that took game officials at least 15 minutes to settle down and reset things for the second half after ejecting 10 players — five from each team — as a result of the incident.
Grambling State led 24-20 at halftime and got off to a strong start, taking advantage of a Wildcats fumble on the game’s opening drive and converting it into a 23-yard Theodore Cabarello field goal less than two minutes into the opening stanza.
And the Tigers took a 10-0 advantage at the 6:22 mark of the first quarter when Benoit connected with Andrew Frazier on a 38-yard touchdown pass.
But the Wildcats battled back in the second quarter, using a 30-yard field goal to cut the GSU lead to 10-3 at the 13:46 mark of the second quarter before tying things up on a 11-yard quarterback keeper for a score by Timmy McClain with 9:09 left in the first half.
Grambling countered on the ensuing drive using four plays to march 75 yards with Benoit hitting Nae’Saan Dickerson in midstride for a 59-yard scoring strike that put the Tigers back on top 17-10 midway through the second quarter.
Bethune Cookman struck back on the next play from scrimmage as McCalin hooked up with Maleek Huggins on a 61-yard touchdown pass to tie things back up with 7:02 left in the first half.
Grambling scored again on its next possession with Benoit hitting Patrick Williams on a 5-yard touchdown pass to move out in front 24-17 with 4;33 left in the period.
Bethune Cookman used a 39-yard field goal with 1:06 remaining in the second quarter to cut Grambling’s lead to 24-20 at the half.
The brawl before the second half began came as the Tigers were walking off the ramp onto the turf on their sideline and a group of Wildcats walked through the Grambling team and tempers immediately flared, ending up with four or five minutes of scuffling followed by another 10-15 minutes for the referees to regain control, figure out who was going to be ejected, and then start the second half.
“When you play here, you’ve got to make sure as a coach, as a support staff, anybody, that all of your players come down,” Joseph said. “If you’re going to walk down and take your time, and now it’s 3:30 on the clock (left in the halftime period) and we’re standing on the stairs and you’ve got four or five kids that’s just walking down, taking their time — at the end of the day, I think that they know what they’re doing. We were trying to give them respect.
“But it came to a point where we had to take the field. (Coaches) should never leave their players. Who leaves their players (in the locker room) knowing that we’ve got to come down? We’re not going to tolerate disrespect here at Grambling. You won’t disrespect us. We’re going to meet disrespect with disrespect. Be responsible, get your kids out of the locker room and make them get to the field.”
But that wasn’t the way it happened as some of the Wildcats walked through the huddled Tigers at the bottom of the ramp leading on the field, also known as “The Hole” and tempers quickly flared.
“They came down on the field and walked (through the Tigers) onto the field,” Joseph said. “That’s disrespecting the game. You can’t leave your kids up there.”
To Joseph and his staff’s credit, and it was all figured out, the Tigers stayed composed and ready to play clean football, or at least mostly clean, in the second half.
“I called them into a (full team group huddle) and told them, everybody’s got a personal foul,” Joseph said. “The coaches did a good job of regrouping them and settling them down. (Graduate defensive end) John Horton is one of our vocal leaders. And John Horton said, ‘OK, this is enough. We fought already. Let’s not fight. Let’s just play football.’
“So, John Horton helped me with this along with the coaches, because he’s someone who can tell the players, ‘Hey, stop the BS and let’s get going,’ and they’re going to stop the BS. The referees have to be there. They have to escort the team down. You’ve got to escort us down. You know friction is going to happen like that because you see all the little stuff during the game.
“(Bethune Cookman) put the little thing (social media post) up earlier in the week saying they’re coming in ‘The Hole’ and all that. C’mon now. As a referee, you’ve got to be on top of that knowing that there’s some bad blood in this thing. And one thing we’re not going to do here at Grambling, we’re not going to tolerate disrespect. That won’t happen.”
Grambling’s final score came with 4:23 remaining as Benoit hit Keith Jones, Jr. on an 8-yard strike before Bethune Cookman gave itself one last chance to tie thanks to a 44-yard field goal with 1:22 on the clock.
But the Tigers recovered the Wildcats’ onsides attempt and Andrew Crews chewed the clock with runs of 16 and 27 yards before Benoit knelt on the ball on the game’s final play.
“I take my hat off to my coaches and players for digging deep,” Joseph said. “We had some offense today. (Bethune Cookman) was a very explosive offense and our defense slowed them down when they had to slow them down. We’re going to take this win, we’re going to give it 24 hours and we’re going to move on to Alcorn (State).”
Joseph also had nothing but praise for his young quarterback.
“He was 12-of-20 today for 220 yards with four touchdowns and an interception where he got hit and the ball got out of his hand and was picked off,” Joseph said. “He’s a stud. He’s the fourth-string quarterback. I don’t know who in the country is playing with their fourth-string quarterback. (Bethune Cookman) had their top two quarterbacks today and couldn’t get it done. We’re playing with our fourth-string quarterback here at Grambling and you know what? We don’t care. We put 11 on the field and we fight like Tigers. We told all of our players, like I said in my press conference last week, that everybody was going to be called upon. Today Benoit did it.
“Hayden Benoit is a stud. How many people around the country are playing with a 17-year-old quarterback? Not many. He’s 17 and had enough poise and toughness to take the coaching (GSU quarterbacks coach Shyrone Carey) is going to give him and that I’m going to give him — two coaches that were on his neck. I take my hat off to Benoit. He doesn’t say much. He just says, ‘Yes sir’ and moves on, but he’s a stud.”
Joseph said he believes the reason his Tigers have won four straight to move to 7-3 on the season boils down to one key factor.
“We’re not turning the ball over,” Joseph said. “We turned the ball over against (Prairie View). We turned the ball over against Texas Southern. We were about to walk in for a score against Texas Southern and we dropped the ball.,
“If you take care of the football and get turnovers, you can win. You’ve always got to come out ahead in the turnover margin to win football games. And you’ve got to have ball control.I think we did that today.”
Next up for GSU will be a 2 p.m. contest next weekend at Alcorn State, which defeated Southern 35-17 on Saturday to move to 4-6 overall and 3-3 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s West Division.
