Beyond the Barracks with The Citadel Head Football Coach Maurice Drayton - 9.7.2026

Yeah, it didn't affect us at all, the reason being we actually practice rain delays.

We're a big, big unit on situational football.

Anything that could arise in a game, we try to cover it at one time or another.

So we just went in to the guys and said, hey, we've been through this before.

We've practiced this situation.

Everybody relax.

And they put on smooth play.

music, easy listening music, and the guys got in their got in their framework of of of their mental space.

Well, it sounds almost Zen like in your game day preparation.

It really was.

But.

Obviously, in a big crowd, it was their opener.

They were into it.

In this day and age of football, you throw out the window what they did last year.

There were a lot of talented guys on that team.

It's an FBS program, after all.

You were outsized in a lot of areas and other things like that.

But the one thing that stood out for both of us, and Robbie and I were talking about this throughout the game, there was never a moment in that game where you guys looked like the FCS against the FBS opponent.

You just looked like, you know, hey, they put their unis on the same way we do.

Absolutely.

Coach Joe Varga does a great job in our weight room.

He and Russell Hubs and Seth Summers, these guys, we use the term eating weights.

We eat weights, even during season, even during camp.

And that's why I felt so good about our process and our formula as to what we were doing going into the season.

That's why we didn't waver from it.