Saturday will mark the return to Paulson Stadium for former Georgia Southern assistant coach Dell McGee.
McGee, now the head coach at Georgia State, led the Eagles to a Go Daddy Bowl game victory as the interim head coach after Willie Fritz announced he was leaving for Tulane. The Panthers have been banged up this season and come in with a record of 1-5, but current Eagles coach Clay Helton said the Panthers are better than their record indicates.
“I have seen Dell’s team go through injuries and still play good football,” Helton said. “I thought they played really well in a 14-7 loss to JMU two weeks ago.”
Georgia Southern (2-4 and 0-2 in the Sun Belt) and Georgia State are scheduled for a 7 p.m. start Saturday evening at Paulson Stadium.
Helton said he has been impressed by both of the Panthers’ quarterbacks, including T.J. Finley, now at his fifth school, and Cam Brown. Finley started his career at Auburn and Brown, who originally signed with West Georgia, is a Texas Tech transfer. Brown ran for one touchdown and threw for two others in the second half of the Panthers’ 41-20 loss to Appalachian State.
Helton also is impressed with receiver Ted Hurst, who played at Savannah’s Johnson High School before signing with Valdosta State.
“We are going to have to be ready on defense,” Helton said.
Despite allowing 38 points and remaining toward the bottom of the country in nearly every statistical category, Helton said the defense took a step in the right direction against Southern Miss in a 38-35 loss, particularly in the second half, and is optimistic about the unit going into the Georgia State game.
“Being down a couple of players up front, I thought coach Brandon Bailey did a good job mixing up his fronts and going with some odd packages,” Helton said. “I thought we set the edge much better, which was a priority going into the game. We also rallied to the ball and got it on the ground."
Helton believes the Eagles took steps in the right direction despite dropping their second-straight Sun Belt game against Southern Miss.
After digging themselves a 28-7 hole, the Eagles outscored Southern Miss 28-10 in the second half.
“In this world of college football, you have to put four quarters of football together,” Helton said. “When you go back and watch the tape, the second quarter against Southern Miss really hurt us. We put more points against them than anyone else this year, but we needed more. I’m proud of the kids and their effort is elite. Their execution needs to be for four quarters and that is our challenge right now as we go into the second half of the season.”
The Eaglesput up nearly 400 yards of offense, but turnovers hurt. J.C. French threw three interceptions, though only one led to a Southern Miss touchdown. They also struggled running the ball once again and were held to zero yards rushing in the first half, which includes three sacks for a loss of 19 yards total. They got 82 yards on the ground in the second half, which Helton believes will carry over into this week’s matchup with Georgia State.
“I thought we really adjusted and did a much better job in the run game, as well as the passing game in the second half,” Helton said.
Eagles receiver Cam Brown caught 12 passes for 158 yards to lead the Eagles offense.
“We finally just cut it loose in the second half and I thought the flea-flicker to Cam kind of got us started,” Helton said. “I feel like we need to stay on the attack more like we did in the second half of that game.”
Saturday will be homecoming for the Eagles and the rivalry took on a new component recently, as it is now called the "Georgia Grown Bowl." Helton knows many of the players on the field Saturday know each other, which adds to the tension and excitement.
“It provides excitement as you know you have a chance to hoist a trophy at the end of the game,” he said. “Many of these kids played high school football together and now they go up against each other."