Pat Sullivan

Sitting in his office last Monday morning, surrounded by photos and mementos from his nearly 40 years in college football, Pat Sullivan appears comfortable and confident as he talks about the difficult road ahead.

In a career as long as his there’s not much he hasn’t seen before, few challenges he hasn’t already faced.

The second-year Samford football coach, and 1971 Heisman Trophy winner, is in the midst of a difficult rebuilding project, one that isn’t made any easier by the Bulldogs’ move to the Southern Conference.

“Are we ready to come there yet? I won’t know until the fall, but probably not,” the former Auburn quarterback said. “We’re a young football team ... and if you look at all the success the conference has had, with all the national championships, I know it’s going to be a heck of a challenge each week and that’s what we’ve got to gear ourselves up for to be able to compete.”

In his first season at Samford, after coming over from UAB, Sullivan’s squad went 4-7. It was the Bulldogs’ fourth straight losing season and seventh in the past eight years. Samford has 18 starters back from last season and senior linebacker Rodney Shepherd, who led the Bulldogs with 88 tackles last season, said the wins might not have come during Sullivan’s first season, but a winning attitude has taken root.

“The guys have bought into this program,” Shepherd said. “Coach Sullivan has already made a very big difference around here. He has us believing we can compete against anybody, and we’re anxious to see what we can do in the Southern Conference.”

Samford opens its season with home games against Division II West Georgia and NAIA Faulkner before playing at Ole Miss. The Bulldogs will get their first taste of SoCon football on Sept. 27, at Elon.

Elon joined the conference in 2003 and won a total of five conference games in its first four seasons before making a big jump in 2007. Last season, the Phoenix went 4-3 in the SoCon, 7-4 overall and had one of the top quarterbacks in the Football Championship Subdivision in freshman Scott Riddle, who averaged 347.0 yards per game.

Sullivan said he doesn’t have a particular timetable for when he expects the Bulldogs to develop into a conference title contender. At this point, he said, there are simply too many unknowns to gauge when that could happen.

“Right now, I don’t know this league, so my focus is our football team and trying to get it to be the best it can be,” he said. “After we go through the first year we’ll have a barometer of where we are and where we need to be. Our guys have worked hard and I know they’re excited about joining the conference.”

More than likely, Samford will be near the bottom of the SoCon standings for a while, a spot that has been the domain of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Western Carolina for most of the past 10 years.

Samford and UTC opened up their seasons against one another five times in six years, from 1998-2003, with the Mocs winning the first four meetings before the Bulldogs won the 2003 matchup, spoiling the debut of UTC coach Rodney Allison.

For Allison, who is in the final year of his contract, prevailing in every winnable game is going to be important, and that includes UTC’s season finale at home against Samford on Nov. 22.

“We’ve got to be very, very competitive in this conference,” he said. “That to me is the gauge that we’ve got to set.”

For Samford, this year will set the tone for its place in the SoCon. Wins over UTC and Western Carolina, along with an upset of one of the teams in the middle of the pack, would show that the Bulldogs don’t plan on being near the bottom for very long.

“In the ‘marquee’ sports, that’s what people will judge us on first,” Samford athletic director Bob Roller said. “Everybody looks at football first. Pat’s loading up, but he’s halfway there (with two recruiting classes).

“It’s going to take a little time, but I do believe we’ll get there.”

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