Saturday afternoon began as an opportunity for Bethune-Cookman to keep its three-game winning streak alive. It was a chance to remain tied for first place in the East and show that the Wildcats’ rebuilding project was full steam ahead. Instead, it turned into a frustrating, head-scratching, and downright disappointing 31–23 loss to Grambling State.
Let’s be clear: Grambling is a good football team on the rise. Losing to the G-Men in The Hole isn’t a shameful thing. And to be fair, Bethune had won five of the previous six matchups, so the law of averages leaned toward Grambling’s favor.
But the disappointment isn’t in who they lost to — it’s in how they lost.
The Hard Truth
BCU fell to a team led by a 17-year-old, true freshman, walk-on quarterback — Hayden Benoit. Salute to the young man for playing a solid game, but as a Wildcat fan, it’s a gut punch to watch a kid who’s still legally… well, a kid, throw four touchdown passes and rack up 220 yards through the air.
Add to that the G-Men pounding the ball for 197 rushing yards on 4.8 yards per carry, and you’re left feeling — you guessed it — disappointed.
This Wildcat defense looked unprepared and uninspired against a Grambling offense that has struggled all year to find the end zone. Just a week ago, that same Grambling team managed only 13 points against Alabama A&M, a defense that’s been pedestrian at best. But against BCU? They looked like an offensive juggernaut. That’s disappointing.
And if that wasn’t enough to make you sigh, the Wildcats’ offense didn’t help themselves either. Senior quarterback Camron Ransom led five offensive possessions that totaled -18 yards, no first downs, and three turnovers. You read that right — negative 18 yards and three giveaways in five possessions.
Ransom’s had a good season overall, but Saturday? It just wasn’t his night. Again — disappointing.
Peaked, Plateaued, or Just a Poor Performance?
Sometimes a bye week comes at just the right time. And sometimes, you wish you could’ve just kept playing. For BCU, you wish they could have skipped the bye.
Through the first half of the season, we saw this team improve week by week. But since the bye, the Maroon and Gold haven’t looked quite as sharp. They slogged through wins against UAPB and Valley — games that masked deeper issues for those of us who follow this team closely.
Valley hung 34 points on this same BCU defense a week ago, yet they managed to score just three points against Jackson State on Saturday. UAPB only scored 14 versus BCU, but they missed three wide open touchdowns in the process.
On Saturday, Grambling did what neither Valley nor UAPB could — they made Bethune pay for its mistakes.
So here’s the question that has to be asked: has Bethune-Cookman peaked, plateaued, or was Saturday just a poor performance?
The numbers tell a story: Bethune is 4–0 against SWAC teams currently with losing records, but 0–2 against teams with winning records. That’s not an indictment for beating the teams you should or losing to good ones — it’s simply a reflection of where you are.
To borrow from Bill Parcells, “you are what your record says you are.” And right now, the record says BCU is better than last year; but still a .500 team who is not yet ready to compete for a SWAC title. That’s disappointing, yes, but it’s also okay. The rebuild is real but just not as far along as some in Daytona had hoped.
Worth Celebrating
There were bright spots. Timmy McClain entered the game for the struggling Ransom and delivered a spark, completing 15 of 18 passes (83%) for 224 yards and a touchdown.
Trailing 24–20 early in the fourth, McClain led the Wildcats down to Grambling’s 29-yard line with a chance to take the lead. But a nagging lower-body injury forced him to the medical tent, and Ransom re-entered the game. A few snaps later, Grambling recovered a Ransom sack-fumble; his third turnover of the afternoon. BCU’s comeback hopes were extinguished at that point.
Maleek Huggins continues to shine, hauling in six receptions for 122 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown. That’s his seventh score of the year, and he now sits just 223 yards away from the 1,000-yard mark.
Chaos Erupts
You’d like the primary storyline to be the 17-year-old quarterback leading Grambling to victory. Or maybe Grambling clinching its first winning season since 2019. Heck, choose any of the points made in this article as main takeaways. But instead, the headlines from Saturday will be dominated by the halftime brawl that erupted as both teams returned to the field.
Grambling head coach Mickey Joseph used part of his postgame presser to say, “Disrespect will be met with disrespect,” and “Disrespect will not be tolerated at Grambling.” He places the blame squarely on Bethune-Cookman — claiming the Wildcats’ slow return to the field caused the altercation.
My take? It’s football. It’s emotional, it’s physical, and sometimes things boil over. I don’t condone it, but I understand and I can live with it. What’s harder to stomach is Coach Joseph’s public stance — seemingly justifying a full-on melee that ended with nine players ejected (five from Grambling, four from BCU), at least one player swinging at an opposing coach, and administrators getting tangled up.
It was an ugly scene on an otherwise beautiful afternoon of football.
As of this writing, the SWAC has yet to issue an official statement or announce additional discipline or fines related to the incident. I am sure some are forthcoming.
Bottom line: This one hurt. Grambling was the better team on Saturday. Respect to them! But BCU didn’t play close to their best game even with first place one the line and that, Wildcats fans, is simply — disappointing.
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