BUIES CREEK, N.C. – On a day of first times in what will surely be a season of firsts, Campbell's football team (0-1) experienced one they were not looking for in the first game in 58 years by falling to Birmingham-Southern (1-0), 12-6 on Saturday at the newly named Barker-Lane Stadium.

The game had a little of everything with the Camels defense starting it off on the right foot with a three and out to begin the contest, highlighted by a combined sack by Charles Fiore and Stephen Goldsmith on the first play of the series for the defense.

After a three and out by the Campbell offense, the Birmingham-Southern offense marched down the field to Campbell's seven-yard line. At the seven, Campbell's Brandon Chandler turned in the first turning play of the season by forcing Michael Franklin to fumble out of the back of the end zone to keep the game scoreless.

The Campbell offense took over on their own 20-yard line and promptly marched down the field with a 14 play 67-yard drive that chewed up 7:17 of game time to take the early 3-0 lead on an Adam Willets 30-yard field goal. Carl Smith carried the load on the drive with six carries for 37 yards.

The Campbell defense nursed the 3-0 margin for the entire second and third quarter before the Panthers began to wear down the CU defense and took the lead on a 1-yard touchdown run from sophomore Joe Thigpen. Thigpen's run capped off an 11 play 82-yard drive that chewed up 3:59 on the clock. The extra point was missed, but the Panthers still had taken their first lead at 6-3.

CU's offense on the ensuing drive marched down the field and had a first and goal from the BSC seven before having to settled for a game-tying 25-yard field goal from Willets to finish off a 14 play 67-yard drive with just 6:40 to play.

BSC would answer on their next drive when Thigpen, who proved to be an elusive runner for most of the afternoon, began to run around in the backfield and looked to be about to take off only to find receiver Luke Chapman had gotten behind the coverage. Thigpen completed the 48-yard pass to Chapman to give BSC a lead they would not relinquish. The extra point was again missed but the damaged had been done with Birmingham-Southern taking a 12-6 lead with just over four minutes left in the game (4:06).

The CU offense had their opportunity, but could only muster a 10-yard first down completion from Matt Vollono to Kelvin Murphy before Vollono was intercepted by Brad Stockdale while facing a third and long from his own 48.

BSC outgained the Camel offense 299 to 224, including 194 to 80 on the ground. Sophomore David Langston led the BSC ground game with 70 yards on nine carries. The Camels' Carl Smith had a game-high 109 yards rushing in defeat. Campbell had 16 first downs to the Panthers' 15. Thigpen completed 7-of-11 passes for 105 yards and also ran for 53 yards for BSC. CU's Kelvin Murphy lead both teams with a game-high seven catches for 68 yards. Each team had one turnover. Campbell held a slight edge in time of possession 31:17 to 28:43, but were also sacked five times.

Campbell will next travel just down the road to take on Methodist on Saturday, Sept. 6 at Monarch Stadium at 1 p.m.

Head Coach Dale Steele's Quote:

"I thought our effort was tremendous today. We played hard through the entire football game. The errors that I saw today are correctable. We will get them corrected and looking forward to our contest against Methodist next weekend."

Notes: Campbell held a ceremony at halftime to officially name their football field the Barker-Lane Stadium, which is named for Fuquay-Varina entrepreneurs Bob Barker and Dr. Don Lane, who pledged over 4 million to the building of the football facility for Campbell...the overflow crowd of 5,845 is the largest home crowd Campbell has ever totaled at any home sporting event.