No. 12 Tennessee Tech Beats The Citadel 28-13 as MJ Flowers, Tre' Holloway Score Twice

The last time these two programs shared a field, it was the 1960 Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, and The Citadel won 27-0. It remains the only bowl game the Bulldogs have ever played. Sixty-six years later, the rematch finally came to Johnson Hagood Stadium, and this time the script flipped.

Tennessee Tech, No. 12 in the Stats Perform FCS poll, beat The Citadel 28-13 on Saturday in front of 8,527 fans. The Golden Eagles improved to 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Southern Conference with their third straight win. The Citadel fell to 2-6, is still looking for its first SoCon win and is now 0-4 at home.

The score says comfortable. The game did not always feel that way. Tennessee Tech lost two fumbles in the first half, one of which turned into a 78-yard Citadel touchdown, and found itself trailing a 20-point underdog midway through the second quarter. Then the Golden Eagles did what ranked teams do. They stopped making mistakes and let their best players take over.

A long kick and a long return

The Citadel struck first, and it did so in style. Evan Kiely capped a 12-play drive with a 53-yard field goal, the second-longest in program history, behind only Colby Kintner's 56-yarder against Samford in 2022. In a game where The Citadel's offense would finish with nine passing yards, the kicker made an early case for player of the game.

Tennessee Tech answered in the second quarter. Jax Leatherwood led a nine-play, 73-yard drive and finished it with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Tre' Holloway. Then came the swing.

Midway through the quarter, Khaleb Bridges knocked the ball loose from Tennessee Tech running back Qua Ashley at The Citadel's 22-yard line. JJ Fludd, a true sophomore and Charleston native, scooped it up and took off. Seventy-eight yards later, The Citadel led 10-7 with 6:40 left in the half, and the home crowd was in full voice.

"My eye lit up like a deer in headlights when I saw all of that green grass," Fludd said afterward. He was quick to share the credit. "I picked up a couple of great blocks from my teammates, and I wouldn't have scored without them getting those blocks."

The turning point: 52 yards, then 9

The lead did not last long. Tennessee Tech needed only three plays to go 63 yards, and the last one was the big one. Leatherwood found Holloway behind the defense for a 52-yard touchdown, and the Golden Eagles took a 14-10 lead into halftime.

Those numbers at the break told the real story. Tennessee Tech had outgained The Citadel 255-79 in the first half, and the Bulldogs had one passing yard. Without Fludd's return, it might have been ugly.

Whatever hope The Citadel carried into the locker room disappeared three snaps into the second half. The Citadel's Quentin Hayes fumbled, Kanstin Brooks recovered for Tennessee Tech and returned it 13 yards to the Citadel 9, and MJ Flowers scored on the very next play. It was 21-10, and the Golden Eagles had flipped the turnover story in a single snap.

The Citadel keeps swinging

Credit the Bulldogs for refusing to go away. Their ground game churned out yardage all afternoon, finishing with 181 rushing yards, and they controlled the clock for 30:40 overall. Early in the fourth quarter, an 11-play, 82-yard drive that ate 6:17 ended with Kiely's second field goal, a 33-yarder that made it 21-13 with 5:33 left.

That is when Tennessee Tech closed the door. The Golden Eagles went 73 yards in seven plays, and Flowers finished it with a 27-yard touchdown run with 2:12 remaining. That was the game.

Leatherwood, Holloway and Flowers

Leatherwood was sharp and efficient, completing 20 of 25 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns. His favorite target was Holloway, who caught five passes for 128 yards and both scores. That is 25.6 yards per catch, the kind of big-play threat that makes a defense that is already outmatched up front even more uncomfortable.

Flowers did the rest. The running back carried 19 times for 124 yards and two touchdowns, one set up by a turnover and one that ended the contest. Between them, Flowers and Holloway accounted for all four Tennessee Tech touchdowns.

For The Citadel, Fludd's touchdown will be on the highlight reel, and Kiely gave the program a kick it will remember. Linebacker Zyion Brown led the Bulldogs with 10 tackles. Quarterback Nick Billoups and the offense, though, simply could not throw the ball. The Citadel completed 5 of 12 passes for nine yards. Against a defense as good up front as Tennessee Tech's, that made every third down a guessing game the Bulldogs usually lost.

Billoups felt it too. "We want to put on a good show for our fans," he said. "It's frustrating not rewarding our fans with a win." The Citadel has now dropped all four of its home games this season, and the Johnson Hagood crowd has seen plenty of fight without the payoff.

The stats that matter

Total yards: Tennessee Tech 387, The Citadel 190. First downs: 19 to 10. Passing yards: 240 to 9. Those three lines explain why a team that won the time of possession battle still lost by 15.

The Citadel's game plan was clear, which was to run the ball, shorten the game and steal a few possessions. It worked for stretches. But when an offense cannot punish a defense through the air, it has to be perfect on the ground, and the Bulldogs were not. Tennessee Tech, meanwhile, overcame two first-half fumbles because it could produce chunk plays whenever it needed them. The full numbers are in the official box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Tennessee Tech, this was a business trip, and it handled the business. At 4-1 in league play, the Golden Eagles sit just behind unbeaten East Tennessee State, and next on the schedule was a game that could decide the SoCon: a Halloween trip to ETSU, with a chance to pull even at the top of the conference.

For The Citadel, the scoreboard read the same as most of this season. Next on the schedule was a Halloween trip to Mercer, a program that had beaten the Bulldogs six straight times. The effort was there against a ranked opponent. The results are not yet. You can read more in The Citadel's recap (opens in a new tab).

The last word

Citadel coach Maurice Drayton was not interested in moral victories.

"It's Merry Christmas because we are the gift that keeps on giving," Drayton said. "Until we do what we're supposed to do from start to finish, it'll always be a gritty effort and get a pat on the back."

He did not stop there. "It's not good enough," he said. "There was wasted effort and wasted talent because we didn't execute like we're supposed to."

He also put his finger on exactly where the game was lost. "They have a very good defensive front, so it was crucial that we stay on schedule on first and second downs," Drayton said, "and we didn't do that as consistently as we needed to." Once The Citadel fell behind the chains, he added, "They took advantage of that in clear passing situations."

That is an honest assessment from a coach who knows his team was competitive and knows that competitive is not the goal. Tennessee Tech, meanwhile, leaves Charleston at 7-1 with one very large game circled on the calendar. The Tangerine Bowl debt has been paid. The SoCon title chase is what matters now.

Sources: The Citadel Athletics recap and official box score, the Associated Press via ESPN and the Post and Courier. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Aaron Beswick / The Citadel Athletics.