Conference play begins in earnest in the Big South this week. After this week’s results, I’ll include the conference standings in next week’s review along with a brief look at what those standings mean. It won’t be a power poll but, hopefully, something that provides a little context to the wins and losses.
(3-2) Charleston Southern OPEN…again
Due to playing in the FCS Kickoff game a week earlier than the rest of the nation and now having a game cancelled due to Hurricane Matthew, CSU will enjoy their third open date of the season this week. It will also be their second consecutive day off. By the time CSU hosts Presbyterian on October 22nd, it will have been three weeks since the Bucs’ last game action at Coastal Carolina and seven weeks since they last played at home.
What CSU has to do in the bye week: Do a little clean up after the storm, I guess, but I don’t what they need to get accomplished during their third bye week that they couldn’t get done in the first two.
Best case scenario for CSU – CSU comes out of the break refreshed for the home stretch and prepared to play more than three games in a row.
Worst case scenario – The extended break dampens their forward momentum at the worst possible time.
(4-2) Monmouth @ (1-4) Presbyterian – Thursday, Oct 13th,7:00pm (Big South Network)
Presbyterian welcomes Monmouth to Clinton, SC in an extremely rare mid-season Thursday night conference game in the Big South. It’s so rare, in fact, that this is the first time ever. Liberty and Coastal Carolina played a Thursday night conference game just last year but that was a schedule alteration thanks to the game being broadcast on ESPNU and was also the last scheduled game of the season for both teams as well as being a rivalry game that typically carried conference title implications. This instance, however, is none of those things which makes this game one of the more inexplicably-scheduled dates in recent memory.
Why a Thursday night game between these two teams?
- Television? No. Aside from an in-person ticket, the only viewing option is streaming the Big South Network.
- Venue scheduling conflict? Not obviously. Bailey Memorial Stadium is PC’s on-campus stadium and they are its only tenant. There don’t appear to be any other scheduled events for the site that weekend.
- Higher attendance? No chance. Typically, mid-week games have lower attendance than Saturday games because students have classwork to do and paying ticket-holders have to take off work to get any kind of gameday experience. Then factor in that Presbyterian College has only 1,200 students, is located in a town of just 8,500 people and is nearly an hour’s drive from anything that resembles a metro area.
- Rivalry? The schools have only met twice before with both teams winning the home game. The final margin in both games was less than a touchdown but neither game had significant impact on either programs season or final standings within the Big South. There’s nothing here that would naturally suggest a rivalry between a college in rural South Carolina and a university located practically within the shadow of New York City.
All in all, this is a game that seems to have placed where it is on the schedule entirely because of a dare.
Anyway.
Monmouth comes into this game fresh off their dissection of Howard, a game in which the Hawks could seem to do no wrong on offense. Presbyterian, meanwhile, comes home from a visit to Gardner-Webb in which the Blue Hose could seem to do no right on any side of the ball.
As mentioned, these two teams have split the all-time series at 1-1 and, in both cases, defense has been the hallmark of the game with neither team scoring more than 21 points. This year, however, the two teams are moving in diametrically opposite directions. Monmouth is averaging nearly 400 yards/game on offense and have scored 101 points in the past two weeks while the heretofore unshakable Presbyterian defense has given up at least that same amount of yardage in every game against scholarship competition and have scored just 13 points against that same group for the entire season.
What Monmouth has to do against Presbyterian: Get the ball to Reggie White, Jr. Presbyterian will likely crowd the box, hoping to take away a Monmouth ground game that has finally found some consistency even without the full-time contributions of RB Lavon Chaney. White is a physical receiving threat on the outside that can force the PC linebackers to turn their backs to the line of scrimmage.
What Presbyterian has to do against Monmouth: Generate something – anything – on offense. Even with the 31-point outburst against Campbell, the Blue Hose are still scoring less than 10 points/game. The offense is geared around the talents of RB Darrell Bridges but, to this point, no one else has shown an ability to take some of the defensive focus.
(3-2) Coastal Carolina @ (3-3) Gardner-Webb – Saturday, October 15th, 1:30pm (Big South Network)
Gardner-Webb faces Coastal Carolina in their last non-conference game of the year and the Runnin’ Bulldogs are probably more happy than most to see the Chants leave the Big South. G-W is 2-11 all-time against Coastal and have lost the last four straight by an average score of 45-13. Of their two wins in the series, both have come, oddly enough, at Coastal and, in more than a decade of trying, Gardner-Webb has never beaten the Teal at home. This, then, makes one wonder why in the world Gardner-Webb chose to schedule Coastal Carolina for homecoming.
For their part, Coastal is still dealing with the effects of Hurricane Matthew. While much of the east coast was touched by the outer edges of the storm, the eye of the storm came ashore directly over the Myrtle Beach area and the state governor declared the region to be in a state of emergency. As of this writing, the campus is still closed. The CCU football team had a fortunately-timed open date last weekend but, currently, the program is operating out of hotels while they wait for the school to re-open.
For their part, Gardner-Webb has found a rhythm with an offense built around running the ball with dual-threat QB Tyrell Maxwell and RB Khalil Lewis. This is bad news for a Coastal defense that has not demonstrated much improvement in stopping the run. The Bulldogs had a banner night last week against Presbyterian in which Maxwell and Lewis combined for over 250 yards rushing just between the two of them. This opened up areas downfield that allowed G-W to hit on some big pass plays and put Presby in a hole early.
Coastal, on the other hand, has been stewing for two weeks in the rancid juices of a 59-58 double overtime loss to former Big South rival Charleston Southern in a game decided by a blocked extra point. Despite gaining more than 400 yards of offense in that game, they gave up more than that to CSU and also gave away 11 points on turnovers. As distracting and discombobulating as the storm may have been, it’s certain that the team can’t wait to get the taste of that last game out of their collective mouth.
What Gardner-Webb needs to do against Coastal: Hold the ball. Coastal’s brand of hurry-up offense was effective at moving the ball against CSU last week but it left the Chants with just 17 minutes of possession time. Any team that gets to keep possession of the ball for more than literally twice the time of the other team, stands a really good chance of winning.
Best case scenario for Gardner-Webb – Maxwell and Lewis keep doing their thing. It should be a great atmosphere for homecoming in Boiling Springs and Gardner-Webb has, historically, been a team that feeds off of their own momentum.
Worst case scenario for Gardner-Webb – More of the last four years. Regardless of turbulent circumstances at the moment, Coastal’s two losses this year are by a single point apiece to opponents ranked in the top 10 of FCS.
(2-3) Liberty @ (4-1) Kennesaw State – Saturday, Oct 15th, 7:00pm (ESPN3)
Kennesaw State and Liberty open Big South conference play with a bang on Saturday night.
A year ago, KSU went up to Lynchburg at 5-1 and had all the momentum against a below-.500 Liberty team that was reeling from a disappointing four-game road trip that included losses to Monmouth and Gardner-Webb. But, in front of a homecoming crowd, Liberty held a 17-point lead at halftime and pretty much held that advantage through the second half in a 45-35 win. KSU would go on to win just one more game the rest of the season while the win served as a springboard for Liberty to claw their way back into a winning record on the year.
This time, however, KSU is coming into this game on a hot streak at 4-1 while Liberty comes in sitting just below .500 after a couple of disappointing road losses. The homecoming crowd can expect to see a lot of firewo – wait….OK, well, this time the game is at Kennesaw.
Kennesaw comes into this game on a four-game win streak and, after scoring just 10 points in regulation in the opener against ETSU, have put up no less than 36 points on every opponent since. For their part, this will be Liberty’s first game of the season against a team that is not a limited-scholarship school, an FBS school or Jacksonville State.
Liberty struggled to run the ball against Robert Morris in their most recent outing. Still, the Flames’ receiving corps along with the arm of QB Buckshot Calvert were more than enough to put plenty of points on the board a stingy defense that managed to score a touchdown of its own certainly helped.
Kennesaw’s QB, Chandler Burks, has really settled into the starting role leading the Owls’ triple-option offense. He struggled with making the correct reads against D2 Missouri S&T a week ago but his athleticism and passing ability give the KSU offense a dimension that wasn’t as much of a threat a year ago. That said, Burks’ top receiving target, WR Justin Sumpter, is not listed on the KSU 2-deep for the second week in a row after limping off the field at Furman. A deep threat passing attack wasn’t quite as necessary against Missouri S&T but it very likely will be against Liberty.
This game will the centerpiece of Kennesaw’s homecoming events this week. A stadium “Black Out” is scheduled — which I assume to be a good thing — and it should be an exciting gameday environment.
What Kennesaw has to do against Liberty – Avoid turnovers. The Liberty defense has taken the ball away 17 times in just 5 games and gotten 50 points – more than a third of their season’s total output – off of those turnovers.
What Kennesaw has to do against Liberty – Score early and often. The visible key to LU’s win a year ago was putting KSU in an early hole on the scoreboard. Without a home run receiving threat – which Sumpter is – the triple-option does not typically score points quickly and allows the clock to become another opponent for the offense.