Week #2 Georgia State Breakdown
So to review, Cajuns coming off the best win ever in school history, but they have to (as we say in tennis), consolidate the break. Meaning after you break your opponents serve, you better hold your service game. It's time to breakdown the Georgia State Panthers.
Georgia State comes into the game coming off a 7-6 record in 2019, they had an up and down season in 2019 where they went 7-5 in the regular season with a bowl game loss in the Arizona Bowl to Wyoming 38-17. The Panthers started the year in amazing fashion defeating SEC Tennessee 38-30 and following that up with a 48-42 win over Furman to move to 2-0. They then went on to lose two straight really dissappointing games to Western Michigan 57-10 and lowly Texas State 37-34 in Overtime. But then they got hot again, with wins over Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Army and Troy. At that point in the season they were 6-2 overall and 3-1 in conference and the wheels fell off. They then lost to ULM 45-31, and App 56-27, they did get a late season win vs USA, but finished the season with a 38-10 loss to Georgia Southern as well as the loss in the bowl game. Finishing the year losing 4 of their last 5 games. 4th year head coach Shawn Elliot brings back some decent talent at certain positions, but will have to replace a couple of really good players.
OFFENSE
QB--The starter week 1 will be Cornellius "Quad" Brown a redshirt Freshman from Alabama that played in 4 games last year. It was a pretty good offseason battle for the starting job between himself and a handful of other freshman, including a transfer from Vandy. Brown is a tall fellow at 6'5" but pretty lanky at or about 200 lbs. They are very inexperienced at the QB position, but again their is talent there. They are coming off replacing the 3 leading passer in school history in Dan Ellington who was pretty good. Ellington played part of last year with a torn ACL and no you are not reading that wrong, Ellington played with a torn ACL last year in a number of games late in the year.
RB--Another spot where GSU losses allot is their very talented RB Tra Barnett, Barnett ran for 1480 yards and 12 TD's last year and he is gone. Moving into the starting roll will be his backup from last year Destin Coates. Coates played quite a bit last year, racking up 560 yards on 82 carries and 7 TD's. Seth Paige will see allot of action as well, he finished 2019 with 413 yards on 61 carries and 4 TD's. So the running game is in capable hands even if the all time leading rusher in GSU history is gone. Both Paige Coates will get the lion share of the duty as they are very experienced Juniors. This team, very similar to last year will be run heavy. They finished 2019 with almost 1000 more yards rushing than receiving.
WR/TE--This is a position that they get plenty back, in fact, they return their top 3 receivers from 2019 and 7 of their top 8 guys in total. #1 option will be Cornellius McCoy, he finished last year with 70 receptions for 757 yards and 5 TD's, behind him is/was Sam Pinckney with 36 catches for 460 yards and 5 TD's. and then their #3 option was TE Roger Carter a senior and while not as big as the guys Iowa State had on their roster he is plenty talented. He caught 28 balls last year for 334 yards and 3 TD's. He is 6'2 and 250 lbs, they had pretty good production from another TE that returns in Aubry Payne who only had 13 catches but 6 of them for TD's. They also were heavy in WR recruiting this year as they brought in 4 true freshman receivers including Jacob Freeman one of their top recruits in 2020.
OL--They are not big on the OL, but they do have experience and they are very athletic there. It all starts with their All SBC caliber Center Malik Sumter, Sumter is a Junior who started all 13 games last year. They also return Pat Bartlett who started all 13 games last year at RG. Shamarious Gilmore started 12 games last yaer at LG and RT and Travis Glover started 13 games last year at LT. The only new comer to the line is Despelado Alexandre, who played in 3 games last year. They only have 1 projected starter on the OL over 300 lbs, but he is a big one. Travis Glover at LT is 6'6 330 lbs. Interestingly enough they have Mario Christobal's nephew on the roster at OL as a Redshirt Freshman he is the son of former Miami Hurricane OL Luis Christobal. So while they do return 4 of 5 starters, the one loss is a pretty significant one, they lose LT Hunter Atkinson who started 13 games last year who was a 1st team All SBC perfromer last year.
Offensively in 2019 they rushed for 3401 yards per game while passing for 2577 yards. They had 596 rushing attempts while only throwing the ball 385 times, so they definitely are a team that likes to run the ball and control the clock. They averaged 31.2 points per game last year, so they know how to score, while averaging 440 yards per game overall.
DEFENSE
DL--They lose 1 starter off of the DL from last year. DE Terry Willis departs from 2019, other than that they get everyone back. Dontae Wilson is a good one of the DL, he is a NG who finished with 49 stops and 3 sacks from the NG position. DE Hardrick Willis had 4 sacks for them and returns. They play a hybrid 3/4 4/3 defense as they have a couple of players that can play in a stance or rush the passer from an upright position. That "Dawg" position will be filled by either Jontrey Hunter or Victor Heyward.
LB--They return 2 of their 3 LB's from last year and the best one is clearly Trajan Stephens McQueen. McQueen finished the year with 110 tackles with 6 TFL. Jhi'shawn Taylor added 40 tackles, the newcomer to this group is a UNC transfer by the name of Kyle Wright. Wright played in 4 games at Chapel Hill in 2018 and redshirted to become eligible at Georgia State in 2019.
DB--The DB's are very experienced as well. They return 2 of 4 starters there. Both CB's return in Quavian White and Jaylon Jones and they add a huge Grad Transfer at FS in Jamyest Williams. Williams had 13 starts at South Carolina last year where he finished with 86 tackles. He is a good one. Another newcomer to the DB's will be another transfer in Chris Moore who had 12 starts at UVA last year with 97 tackles in 4 years at UVA. Both Moore and Williams are Grad transfers.
GSU will try to sure up a defense that was by far much weaker then their offense. They gave up 36.2 points per game last year while allowing 217 yards per game on the ground and 238 yards per game in the air. For a total of 455 yards a game on defense. The two transfers from P5 schools will help sure that up. They gave up 33 TD's on the ground and 27 TD's through the air. Teams averaged 5.4 yards per play on the ground and 8.5 yards per play per pass and an amazing 13.4 per completion. This is a team that only produced 21 sacks all of last year, 9 INT's and 8 fumbles.
SPECIAL TEAMS--All new at both Punter and Kicker. Noel Ruiz is a grad transfer from FCS NC A&T, where he finished 35-48, but was really good last year as he finished 23-27 in FG and 131-147 in XP. So he is experienced kicking the ball. The new punter will be Michael Hayes a redshirt Freshman. Both returners come back this year as Quavian White did most of the punt returns with a 3.9 yard average and Cornellius McCoy returns kickoffs and only had a 16 yard per return average. They will have to improve on that this year as they were pretty miserable at both.
My personal opinion is that this team will go as far as their QB will take them. If we can pressure a young QB and get him in trouble then we will be fine. We can not let him settle in and get comfortable. Like I said he is very limited on experience and their is not much experience behind him either. If we can play defense like we did vs Iowa State we will be fine.
We can not look past this team, they have some talent all over the field, specifically at some of the skilled positions, like WR, DB, RB and a solid OL and LB corp. We can not let them hang around with us, if we can get an early lead and pull away I think we will be fine. We should be deeper and more experienced.
Geaux Cajuns!!!!!!!!!!
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Originally Posted by Grantvb
