Ragin' Dave Georgia Southern Breakdown
Okay on paper looking at everything that is lined up vs Georgia Southern you would think that this would be a no brainer, specifically for someone from the outside looking in. We are 13.5 point favorites, playing at home in front of a limited but still home crowd. We have defeated a Big 12 opponent on the road and Georgia Southern barely defeated a so so FCS opponent at home. We beat this team 37-24 last year on the road, while rushing for 275 yards and a 6.7 yard average. We also racked up a total of 440 yards vs only 252 for Georgia Southern in that game. But as Lee Corso would say...."not so fast my friend". This is why the games are not played on paper, their were allot of factors to everything I listed above. First an foremost Georgia Southern played that game vs Campbell missing 33 players including but not limited to their #1 running back William Kennedy III. Last years game vs GSU they also played without WK3 and Shai Werts was not 100% healthy inthat game, he still rushed for 93 yards vs us, but we did keep him in check. 2020 will be different and I am expecting us to have a challenge on our hands when we face them at 11:00 AM CST in Cajun Field this weekend.
Georgia Southern finished last year with a 7-6 overall record and was 5-3 in conference play last year. They started last year getting demolished by LSU 55-3, but that is not surprising as many teams had that problem last year. They lost 3 of their first 4 games including losses to Minnesota (a really close game) and UL. Their only win in the first 4 was vs Maine. They then went on a run, defeating USA, Coastal, NMSU and a huge upset in a rain soaked game vs their arch rival App State. They followed that up with a loss vs Troy, they beat ULM in a route, lost to Arkansas State and defeated Georgia State handely. They finished the season with a loss in the Cure Bowl to Liberty 16-23. This team returns quite a few offensive starters and about half of their defensive starters. But as you will soon see, this team revolves around their running game, specifically on offense. It is really good and it is like nothing we face all season. They run a triple option and they run it really well and it all starts with a super talented QB and a couple of really good RB's, all who are extremely experienced.
QB--Shai Werts, a Senior and a kid who seems like he has been there forever is the engine that gets it all going. Werts is backed up a pretty good backup in Justin Tomlin with tons of experience, but I am not sure if he will be available for this game. He was one of the 33 Covid 19 players that did not participate in the Campbell game. But as long as Werts is healthy it won't matter who the back up is, Werts will get 100% of the playing time. Werts is capable of throwing the ball as he threw for 799 yards 10 's and no INT last year even missing half of the LSU game and all of the Maine and Minnesota games. But where Werts is the best is running the ball, he finished 2019 733 yards rushing on 171 carries and 5 TD's. Oh by the way, that was 3rd on the team. As mentioned before this team loves to run the ball.
RB--They are really good at running back as well. They should get William Kennedy III back this week and he is a good one. He led the team in rushing in 2019 with 848 yards and 11 TD's and was followed up by JD King who had 820 yards and 8 TD's. So their top 3 rushers including QB had over 2300 yards and 24 TD's. JD King is a transfer from Oklahoma State and transferred to GSU in 2018 season. Kennedy has been on the team since his freshman year and has played a ton since then including 6 starts as a Freshman. They have talent behind these two as well. Logan Wright has seen quite a bit of playing time due to injuries in the past as has Matt LaRoche, both totaled over 290 yards respectively last year and both are Juniors. They are good at QB and RB. We will have to stop the option to stop them.
WR/TE--Not a position of too much concern, but as stated before they can throw it when they want to. Werts threw for 53 yards and 1 TD while only completing 7 of his 14 passes vs Campbell earlier in the season. They lose one of their top receivers from last year in Mark Michaud, but they return most of their other guys, again not a position of fear for us as they don't throw much but we need to be concerned about a couple of guys. Malik Murray is their top returner he caught 2 passes vs Campbell and had a total of 20 receptions last year. Khaleb Hood is their other guy, he had 8 catches last year. Their top reciever from the Campbell game was a TE named DJ Butler with 3 catches for 22 yards and a TD. Passing game should not be a concern unless they get down by a lot early and if that is the case I love our chances.
OL--Interestingly enough on all of the message boards and reading I can see, most of their fans are very dissappointed with their OL, not sure if this is talent or scheme, they seem to be mixed on the reviews. Many fans blame their staff because they say their blocking schemes are terrible. They do return 3 starters from last years team, LG Aaron Dowdell a Senior He started in 18, but was out for the year last year, he did not play against Campbell in game 1 and I don't think it was covid related, so not sure what is up there. Junior RT Brian Miller who also missed all of last year with a hip injury and Jarrod Leeds at LT, Leeds is a Junior who started 9 games last year, he did miss two games last year with injury. I am not sure of any of these guys status for Saturday, but again much of what I read from last year to this year is they are not happy with how the OL blocks, nor are the happy with the way their WR block either and in this type of offense you need your WR to block well.
As a team these guys scored and gave up the exact same amount of points 28.15 per game. As expected they were run heavy as they averaged 252 yards per game on the ground and only gave up 136 yards per game on the ground. They only averaged 74 yards per game through the air, while giving up 243 yards per game through the air, so unless they have gotten much better their should be some opportunities with the passing game vs GSU. Their opponents outgained them by over 50 yards per game. As expected with this type of offense they owned the time of possession averaging almost 33 minutes per game with the ball vs their opponents only having it 27 minutes. They were not very good at 3rd and/or 4th down either only averaging 30% on 3rd down and a much better 43% on 4th down.
DL--On the D Line, they have Randy Johnson and he is a pretty good one He was a 1st Team SBC player last year and should be again near the top of the DL stats. He finished with 33 tackles 3 sacks and 4 TFL last year. They play a 3-4 defense and although one of their LB's is a hybrid DB/LB.
LB--As far as LB's go, they have a couple/few goods ones and this is probably the strength of their defense Reynard Ellis was their leading tackler last year, he plays MLB and is a Junior, he finished with 86 tackles 2 sacks and 8.5 TFL, they also have Rashad Byrd at the WLB and he finished with 85 tackles 2 sacks and 7 TFL. Then Randy Wade who plays the Dog position finished with 64 tackles, 4 sacks and 8 TFL. They do have to replace that hybrid LB/DB and the expected player their would be Zyon McGee, who played a little last year at that position.
DB--Lot's of new faces here, including Ephraim Kitchen a La Tech transfer at one Corner back. Their best returning player is Kendrick Duncan at Free Safety, Duncan is a Junior who started 13 games last year and finished with 79 tackles. They also have a CB grad transfer from Duke in Javon Jackson who could see some playing time back their at Strong Safety.
Special Teams--They have a brand new kicker this year, which is good Tyler Bass was a beast, this year it is Alex Raynor a Redshirt Freshman but Raynor did hit on both of his attempts vs Campbell a 39 and 41 yarder as well as 3 for 3 on XP's. Anthony Beck is their punter he had 3 punts vs Campbell for 43 yard average and a long of 55, he did down 1 inside the 20. Beck started 13 games last year and averaged 42.5 yards per punt, so he is a good one. Dylan Lewis is the Kickoff specialist and he had 6 kickoffs and 3 touchbacks, so he has a strong leg as well. Khaleb Hood is their punt returner, he is new this year, he only had one punt return vs Campbell for 0 yards. On Kickoff returns they have NaJee Thompson and Khaleb Hod, both returned a kick vs Campbell, Hood had 1 return for 19 yards and Thompson had 1 return for 24 yards.
Campbell had success passing the ball vs GSU, but struggled running the ball. Our strength is running the ball so this should be an interesting matchup. We are going to have to run the ball and stop the run. That has got to be our plan. It should be a tough matchup. I see us winning, but it won't be easy.
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Originally Posted by Jacob81
