Georgia State Preview

Here comes another one of those Jekyll and Hyde Sunbelt teams. Georgia State was coming off a pretty good 2020 where they finished 6-4 with a 3-game winning streak in 2020 including a 39-21 win over WKU in the Lending Tree Bowl. The expectations in 2021 were high as they were returning quite a few players from the 2020 team including a surprise Freshman QB named Cornelius “Quad” Brown. Things have not gone as well as expected, but this team is tied for first place in the SBC East and all while doing it against a stout early season schedule. Georgia State started the year off losing their 1st 2 games handily. They opened hosting Army and losing 43-10, then went on the road and got beat 59-17 to UNC. Then suddenly, a change at QB to GSU and they defeated a pretty good Charlotte team at home 20-9. They then outplayed Auburn for all but the final minutes of the game where they lost 34-24, then hosted App State and lost 45-16. At this point in the season, they were 1-4 and things were looking bleak. But the schedule got easier as they got into conference play and they defeated ULM 55-21 in Monroe, then at home beat Texas State 28-16 and finally went to Statesboro and defeated Georgia Southern in a rivalry game 21-14. They are riding a 3-game winning streak and are 4-2 in their last 6 games. They will be playing UL on short rest as they played Saturday in an evening game and now will have to turn around and travel to Lafayette to play on Thursday.

QB—As mentioned above, Quad Brown was the expected starter and did start the season but struggled mightily. Brown was coming off an impressive 2020 and his expectations were high. Quad started the first 2 games of the year, but Darren Grainger came in to finish up the UNC game. Grainger started and won the game vs Charlotte and played OK vs Auburn. Vs App State they went back to Brown, but Grainger finished the game. Grainger again took the reigns vs ULM and seems to be solidified as the starter now. Neither has been great, but Grainger has been way better as the starting QB. Grainger has completed around 60% of his passes for 924 yards (only about 115/game) but does have 11 TD’s vs 3 INT’s. In comparison Brown has 0 TD’s and 4 INT’s on the season and is completing only 51% of his passes. Grainger is also the better runner of the two, on the season Grainger is the 2nd leading rusher on the team with a 4.9 yard per game average and 1 TD. Grainger is a big lanky kid at 6’4” 202 lbs. He started his career at Furman and was the named to the Southern All Freshman Team in 2018-19 where he started 11 of their 13 games. Grainger is now the guy and unless he gets hurt we will probably not see Quad Brown play. UPDATE, QUAD BROWN HAS ENTERED THE TRANSFER PORTAL. Backup QB is now Freshman Mikele Colasurdo

RB—Similar situation at RB and QB, the season started with Destin Coates at RB. He rushed for almost 800 yards and 7 TD’s in 2020 after coming off a pretty good 2019. But Coates has slipped down the depth chart after only rushing for 186 yards and 1 TD this season and has since entered the transfer portal this week. The man who has taken over at RB is 5’10” 220 pound wrecking ball named Tucker Gregg. Gregg started his career at Georgia State as a walk-on but has worked hard and become a fan favorite at GSU (for the 7 fans that follow Georgia State). Gregg has 552 yards on the season on 96 carries and 4 TD’s. He is not going to scare you with his speed, but he will pound the ball inside the tackles. He is hard to bring down and runs really hard. Behind him is Jamyest Williams, who has 5 TD’s on the season and rushes for 6.6 yards per carry. Like I said, the loss of Coates is tough, mostly for depth and experience, but Gregg and Williams are doing a fine job so far this season, plus the fact that Grainger can run the ball as well makes it tough. They do not throw the ball to their RB’s very often as Gregg and Williams each have 1 catch on the season, Coates was leading the RB’s with 3 before he left the team.

WR/TE—They like to spread the ball around to several different WR’s. They have 4 WR’s with more than double digit catches on the season as well as 2 TE’s with double digit catches. At WR Jamari Thrash is the leader with 25 catches for 326 yards and 3 TD’s. Behind him is Ja’Cyais Credle with 17 for 236 and 3 TD’s. Then Terrance Dixon with 15 for 130 and Sam Pickney with 13 for 136. They have 2 really good TE’s. Aubry Payne has 12 catches for 112 and 3 TD’s and Roger Carter has 11 for 160 and 1 TD. The interesting thing about GSU is that they don’t really seem to have a real deep threat on the team. The leading receiver (ypc) on the team is Roger Carter the TE with a 14.5 yard per catch average. Their 2 top receivers average under 14 ypc. One question mark for this team is Cornelius McCoy who has only played in 4 games this year and is questionable for the game vs the Cajuns. Dixon is a little guy at 5’7 and outside of Sam Pickney, who is 6’4 and Ja’Cyais Credle who is also 6’4, they don’t have a ton of really tall recievers, most of the around 5’11 or 6’0.

OL—For the most part, their OL has been stable. Their best OL is probably Shamarious Gilmore at LG. Gilmore is a 6’3 295 SR. Also on that line is Travis Glover at LT, and he is a big one at 6’6 330. Their Center is also pretty good in Malik Sumter a 6’1 295 Junior. When they run, it will usually be to the left side of the line as these are their better OL players. At RG is Pat Bartlett a 6’4 295 Junior and Johnathan Bass a 6’4 290 Sophomore at RT. They are not really big on the OL, with the exception of Glover at LT. But they are experienced, these 5 guys make up about 137 career starts for the Panthers coming into the year and they have played most of the games this year together. There is a lot of continuity on that OL.

Offense—The Panthers are averaging 23.9 points per game. They only average about 385 total yards per game, make no mistake about it, this is a run first team. They average 222 yard per game on the ground vs 163 through the air, they have run the ball 355 times vs throwing it only 204. There are a number of reasons for this, the inconsistency and revolving door at QB early in the season, coupled with the experience OL and the emergence of Tucker Gregg at RB. Similar to the Cajuns they are struggling on 3rd down conversion (passing game issues on 3rd and long) at just about 40%. The funny thing about it is, even though they are a running team they are not a team that has a big advantage in TOP, actually they are down about 5 minutes per game in TOP vs their opponents.

DL—Back to a traditional 3-4 Defense this week and they rotate a number of guys on the DL. At NT is Dontae Wilson and on either side of him are Javon Denis and Harrick Willis. But a few other names to watch out for are Jeff Clark, Thomas Gore, Akeem Smith and Tre Moore. The best of the bunch up front is Javon Denis at DE. Denis has 25 tackles on the season including 2.5 TFL. Also watch out for Thomas Gore, who has 26 tackles and 2 TFL. They don’t get a ton of pressure from their DL position, but they are disrupters who can open up the LB’s to make plays.

LB—The man for the Panthers at LB is Blake Carroll, by far their best LB, although they have a few good ones. Carroll is 2nd on the team in tackles with 59 but leads them in TFL with 5.5 and sacks with 4.5. Also is Jordan Veneziale, who leads the team in tackles with 65 and has 2 sacks and a forced fumble and fumble recovery. Jhi’Shawn Taylor Jacory Crawford, Jontray Hunter are all near the top of their stats for TFL and/or sacks. Their strength in the front 7 comes from the LB core.

DB—In the back group, they have a couple of special players back they’re that are really good. Antavious Lane is a 2nd team ALL SBC guy at Safety, he is 3rd on the team in tackles and has 1 of their 4 INT’s on the season. Their corners are Quavian White (he is really good) and Bryquice Brown. The other safety is Chris Moore, more also has 1 INT. Most teams have tried to pick on Brown at corner because of how good White is, but Brown can make some plays as well as he has 8 breakups on defense.

DEFENSE—GSU is giving up 30.1 points per game and an average of 423 yards per game. Of those 170 are on the ground and 253 are through the air. They are weaker vs the pass than the run, but teams are averaging 4 yard per play on the ground, but in the air they are averaging 8.4 yards per play and 13.7 per catch. If you can complete passes vs them, you can cause trouble. They are struggling on defense in 3rd and 4th downs. On 3rd down they are giving up 44% of their 3rd downs and 65% of 4th downs. Teams are converting around 47% of their 3rd and 4th down conversions.

ST—Michael Hayes is their punter, he is pretty good, averaging 42 yards per punt on 41 punts with 12 of them inside the 20 and 15 fair catches. He has had 1 kick blocked, but has 7 punts of 50+ yards. Their FG kicker is Noel Ruiz, he is 6-7 on the season but has only attempted 1 kick of over 40 yards and missed that one. Both Ruiz and Hayes have done kickoffs this season, Ruiz is their main guy. But he has kicked 2 out of bounds and only averages 58 yards per kickoff, so Smith could have some opportunities back there to get some returns. Quavian White, their starting CB is their punt return guy, but only has 1 punt returned for 2 yards on the season, while he is also their kick return guy as well. (he is one heck of an athlete).

Coaching—Shawn Elliot started coaching at GSU in 2017, he has an overall record at GSU of 26-29, but that included a 2-10 season in 2018. In 3 of his 4 seasons at GSU he has taken them to a bowl birth and won 2 of those. Ironically Elliot spent most of his college coaching career at App State from 1997-2009, then spent time at South Carolina as an assistant and interim HC. One interesting name on their coaching staff is Dan Ellington, Ellington coaches the Running Backs at GSU, but was a really good QB for GSU a few years ago.

This should be a fun game vs GSU, they have some weapons, and they can play some defense. The Cajuns are playing so well at home in their last 3 games and if they continue that trend, I see them winning this game, but it could be closer than the last 3 home games.

Geaux Cajuns!!!!!!