Georgia Southern to begin conference play with Georgia State

STATESBORO, Ga. (WSAV)—Georgia Southern completed a third of its schedule on Saturday, with the Eagles record 2-2 after four games.

They lost on the road to the number five team in the nation Ole Miss 52-13.

“I really appreciate our team’s courage or toughness,” Head Coach Clay Helton said. “I thought they give unbelievable effort and fight, but at the end of the day, when you’re playing one of the better teams in the country, you know you can’t have a couple critical holding calls that stop drives. You can’t have a two coverages that end up where we’re at a place for big plays and you can’t have two turnovers.”

With start of conference play this week, helton shared his thoughts on the first third of the season

“This type of schedule, I think, has really been a great experience for our team as we go into conference play,” Helton said. “When you play the likes of a Boise State and Ole Miss, you have a long road trip to Nevada and play in the environment of an Oxford, Mississippi. It builds your strength and builds your confidence as a football team.”

The Eagles have eight regular season games remaining, all of them against Sun Belt teams, the first of those 8 games will be in Atlanta against in-state rival Georgia State.

“He spreads the ball around to different guys and different playmakers,” Helton said. “Defensively, you know, this will be our first time playing in odd front. They bounce in and out of odd (front) and four down. So that’ll be a new challenge.”

JC French has been the storyline this season. He won a three-way competition for the starting quarterback position. Through four games, he’s completing 64% of his passes with six touchdowns against one interception

“For the first four games, I played pretty well,” French said, “but obviously not to our standard because we want to be 4-0 and at this program we expect to win. So I think just by growing game to game, I’ve just seen like defenses just kind of understanding what they’re doing more.”

Georgia Southern will make the three-hour trip to Atlanta to take on Georgia State Saturday with the game kicking off at 3:30 p.m.