South Carolina State vs Virginia State ended with a final score nobody outside Orangeburg fully saw coming. The defending HBCU national champions blanked Virginia State 66-0 on Saturday night. Virginia State had walked in unbeaten at 2-0, ranked second nationally in Division II. By the final whistle, there was no debate left to have.
South Carolina State vs Virginia State: A Ranked Opponent, No Contest
Notably, head coach Chennis Berry didn’t undersell Virginia State beforehand. He called the Trojans the toughest opponent his team had faced all season. That’s a fair label for a squad the Black College Football Poll had rated second in Division II. Then his defense delivered a shutout anyway, forcing five turnovers along the way. South Carolina State scored in every quarter, building a 31-0 halftime lead before adding three more touchdowns in the third. Virginia State, meanwhile, never found a rhythm on either side of the ball. The Bulldogs finished with 480 total yards, including 282 on the ground, while holding the Trojans off the scoreboard entirely.
The Bulldogs Are Building Something Real
This wasn’t an isolated performance, either. Mason Pickett-Hicks led the way with 112 rushing yards and caught a touchdown pass from Ronnie Robinson, who also connected with Malik Brightwell for a 30-yard score through the air. Quarterback Keely Watson chipped in too, completing 14 of 19 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown. Even the defense got in on the scoring, with Marquis Lane-Owens returning a fumble for a touchdown and the Bulldogs closing the game with a pick-six. South Carolina State improves to 3-0 on the season. The Bulldogs have now outscored three opponents by a combined 184-13. That run started in Week 0 with an 87-0 record-breaking win over Savannah State, and it now includes this signature win over a ranked Division II program. Consequently, South Carolina State isn’t just winning games. It’s winning them in a way that makes a repeat HBCU national championship feel less like a hope and more like an expectation.
What the Defense Is Doing Right
Two shutouts in three games says as much about the defense as the offensive scoring totals do. South Carolina State’s front seven has consistently disrupted opposing backfields all season. The secondary, for its part, hasn’t allowed a big-play touchdown through three games. Virginia State entered the matchup averaging solid offensive production against its first two opponents. Against the Bulldogs, however, that production simply disappeared, and five turnovers only made things worse. Whatever adjustments came out of practice this week, they clearly worked. As a result, the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 committee took notice, slotting South Carolina State in at No. 22 nationally the following morning. That’s the program’s first national ranking of the season, and it likely won’t be the last if this defense keeps performing the way it has.
Context Around the Result
South Carolina State’s win came during a weekend that otherwise leaned rough for HBCU football. Eight programs lost money games against FBS opponents by an average of nearly 51 points. Southern’s 77-6 defeat at Houston headlined that list. Against that backdrop, South Carolina State’s win stood out even more. It was the one Division I result all weekend that looked genuinely dominant on both sides of the ball. And it came against a team many expected to at least be competitive into the second half, not one that would leave Orangeburg without a single point.
Where the Bulldogs Go From Here
At 3-0, South Carolina State now shifts its attention toward conference play. That’s where the level of competition rises and the margin for error narrows fast. Still, a team that has outscored opponents by 171 points through three games enters that stretch with real momentum behind it. If the Bulldogs keep playing defense at this level, teams across the MEAC and beyond will have a hard time finding an answer. For now, South Carolina State remains the program every other HBCU team is chasing. Saturday’s result only reinforced that gap between the Bulldogs and everyone else on the schedule.
Taken together, the South Carolina State vs Virginia State result says less about one Saturday and more about where this program sits three weeks into the season. Likewise, it says plenty about how far Virginia State still has to climb before it belongs in that same conversation. The Bulldogs have been the most complete team in HBCU football, full stop, and nobody left Orangeburg thinking otherwise.
