(2-3) Liberty OPEN
Liberty has a week off in really the ideal spot for an open date, the middle of the season and just before the start of conference play.
What Liberty has to do in the bye week: Get any injuries healed up and get new starting QB Buckshot Calvert – I’m not even calling him ‘Steven’ anymore; ‘Buckshot’ is more fun – more first-team reps in practice.
Best case scenario for Liberty – Liberty uses the bye week to prepare for the unconventional offense of their first conference opponent, Kennesaw State.
Worst case scenario – Realistically, there isn’t one. Liberty hasn’t generated a lot of momentum to lose nor are they in a slump. The Flames have lost to the teams they should have lost to and beaten the ones they should’ve beaten. Essentially, this open date is more or less a reset going into Big South play.
(2-3) Albany State @ (3-2) Charleston Southern – Thursday, Oct 6th,7:00pm (Big South Network) POSTPONED
With Hurricane Matthew approaching the east coast, the administrators at CSU and Albany State agreed on short notice to move up their game and play it Thursday evening made the decision to close campus effective immediately. The CSU-Albany State football game has been postponed without word as to when the game will be made up. The two teams do not share an open date this season so the makeup date will likely be in 2017 or beyond.
Given the predicted track of the hurricane, closing the school and cancelling events seems like a prudent decision. CSU’s next scheduled game is October 22nd against Presbyterian.
What Charleston Southern has to do against Hurricane Matthew: Hunker down, board up the windows and stay safe, Bucs. We’ll see you on the other side.
(3-2) Monmouth @ (1-4) Howard – Saturday, Oct. 8th, 1:00pm
After their huge win against Fordham last weekend, Monmouth heads down I-95 to the nation’s capital to visit the Howard Bison of the MEAC conference. This game should be entirely unaffected by weather.
Howard comes into the game fresh off their first win of the season against Norfolk State. Howard initially spotted NSU a 21-6 lead after one quarter but methodically chipped away at the deficit over the second and third before pulling away in the fourth quarter for a 33-28 win. Prior to that, HU had been generally non-competitive in most of their other games. Statistically, it appears that Howard puts an emphasis on running the ball and rushing defense but, despite the focus on them, those aren’t things that the Bison do particularly well.
Coming off the big win last week and with a short week to prepare for a conference foe next week as well as going on the road against a team that’s not at all deep but has athletes at the skill positions, this has all the classic markings of a trap game for Monmouth. However, I just don’t think Howard is good enough to make that happen. If the RB/WR combination of Ed Royds and Reggie White, Jr. continues to emerge, Monmouth should jump out to a pretty good lead early. Hawk fans can expect to see lots of action for backup quarterback and Baltimore native, Kenji Bahar.
What Monmouth has to do against Howard: Dominate up front. Howard’s OL is big but not athletic overall while their DL isn’t even that. If Monmouth controls the line of scrimmage, they can control the game.
Best case scenario for Monmouth against Howard – Get in, score lots of points early and build a lead. Don’t let Howard hang around.
Worst case scenario for Gardner-Webb – They let Howard hang around. The Bison have already played Maryland and Rutgers this year so they won’t be wowed by the Monmouth Hawks. The longer they stay in the game, the better the chance they make Monmouth regret it.
(3-2) Missouri S&T @ (3-1) Kennesaw State – Saturday, Oct 8st 1:00pm EST (Big South Network)
A week removed from hammering a struggling Furman team, Kennesaw returns home to face the Miners of Missouri S&T. Missouri S&T hail from Rolla, Missouri and the Great Lakes Valley Conference in Division 2, aka., the Pioneer League’s non-conference opponents of choice.
MoST currently sit at 3-2 having, to this point, faced a full slate of D2 opponents. The Miners are currently rated just 73rd out of 171 teams but, offensively, are moving the ball through the air pretty well. Defensively, they’re taking the ball away pretty well and the effect is a scoring average of 38 points a game. While they come from a lower-division and a fairly weak conference overall, MoST is probably an upgrade from the Point team KSU played a month ago.
That being said, the Miners still should not present a significant challenge to the Owls of Kennesaw State. The KSU offense was on full display against Furman as they put up 49 first half points on their SoCon opponent. It’s probably not realistic to assume that level of efficiency and ferocity is the new norm for KSU but, now, we definitely know that it’s possible. At the same time, the KSU defense is rounding into shape as well. DB Dante Blackmon now has four interceptions in his last two games and the Owl defense as a unit has eight takeaways in that same span.
What Kennesaw has to do against Furman – Same as before, protect the football and protect the quarterback. Kennesaw did the former well against Furman with zero turnovers and almost accomplished the latter. Chandler Burks again took some heavy shots against Furman was knocked out of the game midway through fourth quarter but he returned on the following drive. With starting quarterback Trey White’s health still unknown, it’s imperative that Burks remain upright.
Best case scenario for Kennesaw against Missouri S&T – Keep doing what they’ve been doing and maintain their positive momentum. Nothing breeds winning like more winning.
Worst case scenario for Kennesaw against Furman – Injuries. The key to running the option offense effectively is timing and injuries disrupt that in a big way. With conference play starting next week, consistency and maintaining the offensive efficiency is massively important. Backup QB Daniel David has filled in very capably for KSU thus far but it’s obvious that Burks provides something to the offense that David doesn’t at this point.
(1-3) Presbyterian @ (2-3) Gardner-Webb – Saturday, October 8th, 6:00pm (ESPN3, Big South Network)
At last check of Matthew-related cancellations, this game is still on. Located an hour due west of Charlotte, NC, Gardner-Webb is not expected to face anything close to the full force of the storm but it will likely be in extremely soggy conditions.
A year ago, these two teams were both equally stalwart on defense and just lousy on offense. This season, both teams have slipped a bit defensively but Gardner-Webb has managed to mold their offense into something that better fits the skills of QB Tyrell Maxwell. Presbyterian, on the other hand, doesn’t know exactly who their quarterback is. Starter Ben Cheek hasn’t played since being injured at Chattanooga on September 10th and, Will Brock, the guy who replaced him, left PC’s most recent game with a leg injury of his own. Unless Cheek returns, that means the Blue Hose will turn to either John Walker – who has only one quarter’s playing time in his career – or yet another untested, unnamed player at the position. The Presbyterian roster lists seven names at quarterback so it’s not as if PC head coach Harold Nichols doesn’t have options.
So, what can we expect from this game? If nothing changes between now and kickoff time, the weather will dictate everything. Gardner-Webb’s Spangler Stadium has an artificial playing surface so the game won’t be played in a mud-pit but the field, the ball and the players will all be very, very, very wet. Both offenses rely heavily on the running game so we should expect to see heavy doses of RB’s Darrell Bridges and Khalil Lewis but, thanks to the conditions, well, a lot more Bridges and Lewis. Bridges is a pounding every-down back who carried the ball 32 times against Campbell while Lewis will probably split some carries with Maxwell.
In this kind of game, special teams is everything and the players with the most individual impact on the game will probably be riding the bench for most of it. G-W’s kicker Paul Schumacher probably has a slight edge in field goals while Presby’s Brett Norton has a slight edge in punting. Of course, under adverse conditions, one slippery snap or one shanked kick could make all the difference.
What Presbyterian needs to do against Gardner-Webb: Play field position and hold the ball. The worse the weather, the better the situation for Presbyterian. Defensively, PC has been shaky against the pass recently and, while G-W’s Maxwell has improved in that area, the storm could take that aspect away. Gardner-Webb likes to run the ball to the edges out of spread formations while Presby prefers to do it up the middle and off tackle out of power looks. In a game where every inch of north-south movement is prized, that works to Presbyterian’s advantage.
What Gardner-Webb needs to do against Presbyterian: See above. Strike that. Reverse it. Presbyterian’s passing game hasn’t been particularly effective under the best of conditions. In this situation, Gardner-Webb can probably put eight or nine players in the box to defend Bridges.
Best case scenario for either team – Get to 13 points. The first team to win that race and get 13 points out of any phase of the game probably wins it.
