Georgia Southern reflects on big road win, preps for S.C. State

STATESBORO, Ga. (WSAV)—The mood on campus at Paulson Stadium, the home of Georgia Southern, is much happier this week.

As the Eagles feel the emotion of a down to the wire win on Saturday as they handle business in Reno defeating Nevada 20-17. Now they turn the page and start preparations for South Carolina State.

The Eagles earned what they hope is the first of many wins on Saturday. The Eagles trailed 14-7 after the first but outscored Nevada 13-3 for the rest of the contest.

JC French had another efficient day, 23 for 37 and 243 yards including two touchdowns and no interceptions

“Being able to create points while not making the critical error,” Head Coach Clay Helton said. “That needs to continue. We have go to be able to help him a little bit. I’m looking at an area of improvement for us offensively. Our run RPO game needs to be a little more efficient. We didn’t get the ball out on some advantage like we could have. He can improve in that area. We have to do a better job of supporting him within the run game.”

The defense made two big plays for Georgia Southern in the fourth quarter of the win. Nevada appeared to be inches away from scoring the go-ahead touchdown but Marques Trent-Watson forced a fumble to stop the drive.

Then with fourth-and-one with just over two and a half minutes remaining in the contest, the defense comes up with the game sealing stop.

“I thought Latrell Bullard,” Helton said, “even though he will not show up on the stat sheet. He played in the backfield the whole game. That fourth-and-one was critical. When you freeze the tape and the ball is handed off, there’s five men in the backfield playing on their side of the line of scrimmage.”

This week, the Eagles return home for a non-conference game against South Carolina State, a historically black college and university out of Orangeburg, South Carolina. They arrive in week three 1-1 after defeating the Citadel last week.

“They are fast,” redshirt junior defensive back Chance Gamble said. “They have good receivers. A little bit smaller receivers than what we’ve faced the past two weeks. So it’ll be a different challenge for us in the secondary.”

Here are some other scores from around our area, with Georgia remaining perfect after a dominating 48-3 win over Tennessee Tech. Georgia travels to Lexington for a date with Kentucky this Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Speaking of Kentucky, South Carolina defeated the Wildcats on the road in their SEC opener 31-6 this past Saturday. This week, they face No. 16 LSU at noon in Columbia.