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The Citadel at Georgia Southern, to be played at Allen E. Paulson Stadium in Statesboro, Georgia, with kickoff at 6:00 pm ET on September 2, 2023.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Danny Waugh will handle play-by-play, while David Hulvey supplies the analysis. The sideline reporter is LeeAnna Gaye.

The contest can be heard on radio via The Citadel Sports Network. WQNT-1450 AM [audio link], originating in Charleston, will be the flagship station. Other stations carrying the game include WQXL in Columbia (100.7 FM/1470 AM) and WDXY in Sumter (105.9 FM/1240 AM).

Brian Giffin will call the action alongside analyst Lee Glaze. This will be Giffin’s first game on play-by-play for the Bulldogs; he has previously called football games for Butler and Kennesaw State.

• “Live Stats” for the game

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Links of interest:

– SoCon weekly release

– Georgia Southern game notes

– The Citadel game notes

– Maurice Drayton’s Monday press conference, definitely not your typical opening-game presser

– Nobody knows who The Citadel’s starting QB will be — well, Maurice Drayton probably does, but he’s not saying

– The search for a “big back” at The Citadel, although how “big” is defined is up to the individual

– Teaching, fasting, playing linebacker in a new scheme — all in a day’s work

– Clay Helton’s press conference

– Georgia Southern’s coach’s show

– Georgia Southern is ready to get the season started

– Clay Helton is focused “on going 1-0 this week”, which is probably better than going 0-1 or 0-0-1

– Future road trip of note for Georgia Southern: in 2025, the Eagles will open the season with back-to-back games at Fresno State and at Southern California

– Not football, but I thought this was interesting: Georgia Southern recently received approval for a $10 million baseball facility; the proposal includes the demolition of the current facility and replacing it with a 16,000 square foot “multi-use” building, and will be privately financed

– Volleyball player Sadie Gomez of The Citadel is training to be part of the U.S. Space Force; don’t mention UFOs to her, though

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Roster review:

– Of the 110 players on The Citadel’s online roster as of August 29, 58 are from South Carolina. Other states represented: Florida (14 players), Georgia (11), North Carolina (11), Virginia (5), Alabama (2), Ohio (2), New York (2), Texas (2), and one each from Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

– Georgia Southern has 129 players on its online roster. Of those, 83 are from Georgia. Other states represented on the Eagles’ squad: Florida (16 players), North Carolina (7), South Carolina (7), Texas (3), California (2), Tennessee (2), and one each from Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Alex Smith is a freshman punter from Melbourne, Australia. Incidentally, Smith was a professional tennis player before switching to punting. He is a left-footed punter.

– The Eagles have seven players who hail from the Palmetto State, but none of them graduated from legendary gridiron powerhouse Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School. This demonstrates a serious hole in Clay Helton’s recruitment strategy, one that will inevitably keep Georgia Southern in the lower echelon of FBS programs for some time to come.

– Georgia Southern has six junior college transfers and 37 players who arrived via other four-year institutions, including tight end Dylan Snyder, a redshirt sophomore from Florence, SC who began his college career at The Citadel.

– Per Georgia Southern’s game notes package, “approximately” 25 of the Eagles are 22 years of age or older, including eight 23-year-olds. Offensive tackle Brian Miller is a seventh-year player who turned 24 in February. Eleven other players are sixth-year seniors.

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This season, The Citadel is transitioning to a new type of offense. I can’t tell you exactly what type, because that’s still a bit of a secret, but it will presumably feature more passing than in previous years. The pure triple option days are over, thanks mainly to changes in the rules that seem to have been specifically designed to wipe the triple option off the map.

As it happens, Saturday’s opponent for the Bulldogs moved on from the triple option last season, with Clay Helton’s arrival in Statesboro. How did Helton make the change, and how did it work out in 2022? Well, I’ll let ESPN’s Bill Connelly tell the tale:

Helton brought in Buffalo quarterback Kyle Vantrease and Houston receiver Jeremy Singleton, and poof, Georgia Southern had a passing game. Vantrease threw for 4,253 yards and 27 touchdowns and torched Nebraska for 409 yards and 45 points, the Eagles leaped from 121st to 40th in offensive SP+, and after slumping to 3-9 in Chad Lunsford’s last year in charge, they bowled in 2022.

Vantrease’s college career is over; he is now the Eagles’ radio sideline reporter. As a result, Georgia Southern dipped back into the transfer portal and came up with former Tulsa QB Davis Brin (22 career starts and 37 TD passes with the Golden Hurricane).

The Eagles also brought in receivers from Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Kentucky. In addition, Georgia Southern picked up Bryson Broadway, a left tackle who started 22 games for Georgia State over the last two seasons.

Defensively, the Eagles have a lot of new faces as well, including a new defensive coordinator. Brandon Bailey was the DC at Buffalo last year, and he has work to do, if last season was any indication. As Connelly points out:

The Eagles were 124th in defensive SP+ and lost three games in which the offense scored 30-plus points…nine of 12 defenders (and all six defensive backs) who saw 300-plus snaps last year [are gone].

Buffalo’s defense created 28 turnovers last year (which included recovering 15 fumbles), so that will undoubtedly be a point of emphasis for the Eagles in 2023.

Several transfers will see significant time for Georgia Southern on defense. On Monday, Clay Helton specifically mentioned safety T.J. Smith, a redshirt junior who played for Kansas State the last three seasons, as someone expected to be a major contributor.

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Odds and ends:

– The weather forecast for Saturday in Statesboro, per the National Weather Service:  sunny, with a high near 83 degrees.

–Per one source that deals in such matters, Georgia Southern is a 28-point favorite over The Citadel. The over/under is 52.

Over the last five seasons, The Citadel is 22-32 against the spread overall, 14-15 on the road.

Other lines involving SoCon teams playing FBS opponents: Arkansas is a 35-point favorite over Western Carolina; Jacksonville State is a 17-point favorite over ETSU; Mississippi is a 31½-point favorite over Mercer; Pittsburgh is a 39½-point favorite over Wofford.

– Massey Ratings: Georgia Southern is ranked 98th in Division I. The Citadel is 187th (54th among FCS squads).

Massey projects the Bulldogs to have a 6% chance of winning, with a predicted final score of Georgia Southern 38, The Citadel 13.

– SP+ FCS rankings: The Citadel is 65th out of 128 teams entering Week 1 of the season. The Bulldogs are ranked 101st in offensive SP+, and 34th in defensive SP+.

A selected list of SP+ FCS rankings:

• South Dakota State (1st)
• North Dakota State (2nd)
• William and Mary (7th)
• Furman (10th)
• Samford (12th)
• Mercer (17th) [dropped 2 spots after its win over North Alabama last Saturday]
• Chattanooga (20th)
• East Tennessee State (48th)
• Kennesaw State (53rd) [transitioning to FBS next season]
• Western Carolina (55th)
• Wofford (66th)
• Davidson (72nd)
• Charleston Southern (86th)
• South Carolina State (116th) [dropped 18 spots after its loss to Jackson State last Saturday]
• VMI (102nd)
• Presbyterian (128th and last)

– In other FCS preseason polls/rankings, The Citadel ranks 69th in the Congrove Computer Rankings, 56th in the Laz Index, and 76th in the DCI.

The Bulldogs were picked to finish 8th in the SoCon in the coaches’ poll and 7th in the media poll.

– Games involving SoCon teams this week [projected score per SP+ in brackets]:

• Thursday at 7:00 pm ET: Tennessee Tech at Furman [Furman 39, Tenn. Tech 12]
• Thursday at 7:00 pm ET: Shorter at Samford [no projection]

At one major U.S. sportsbook, Furman opened as a 28-point favorite (with an over/under of 48).

• Saturday at 1:30 pm ET: Davidson at VMI [Davidson 28, VMI 25]
• Saturday at 2:00 pm ET: Mercer at Mississippi [Mississippi 38, Mercer 8]
• Saturday at 2:00 pm ET: ETSU at Jacksonville State [Jax State 29, ETSU 25]
• Saturday at 3:30 pm ET: Wofford at Pittsburgh [Pittsburgh 46, Wofford 6]
• Saturday at 4:00 pm ET: Western Carolina at Arkansas [Arkansas 48, WCU 12]
• Saturday at 6:00 pm ET: Chattanooga at North Alabama [UTC 33, UNA 14]
• Saturday at 6:00 pm ET: The Citadel at Georgia Southern [Ga. Southern 34, The Citadel 18]

SP+ gives The Citadel a slightly better chance (13%) of pulling off the upset than Massey does.

– Other games involving upcoming opponents [projected score per SP+ in brackets]:

• Thursday at 7:00 pm ET: William and Mary at Campbell [W&M 33, Campbell 22]
• Saturday at 6:00 pm ET: South Carolina State at Charlotte [Charlotte 34, S.C. State 15]

Depending on what sportsbook you patronize, William and Mary is either a 14½-point or 16½-point favorite over the Camels. The over/under is 52½.

– Among Georgia Southern’s notable alumni: musician Luke Bryan, former major league pitcher John Tudor, and current Presbyterian director of athletics Dee Nichols.

– Former “Voice of the Bulldogs” Danny Reed is the radio play-by-play announcer for Georgia Southern, a position he has held since 2015.

– The Citadel has an all-time record of 2-3 for games played on September 2. The Bulldogs are 0-3 on the road on that date.

– One thing the two schools have in common is that there is no microphone for press conference questions, so those questions cannot be heard by anyone watching the stream.

– Depth charts for both teams were not available earlier in the week. Georgia Southern is expected to release its two-deep on Friday.

– Paulson Stadium will feature a newly installed turf field on Saturday.

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I have no idea what to expect from The Citadel on Saturday. It was not exactly encouraging to hear Maurice Drayton say in his Monday presser that the Bulldogs “are a poor football team at the moment. We’re not playing very well. We’re not happy with our progress at this moment in time…everybody wants to know the truth until you tell it, and I’m telling the truth. We have some work to do. We’re not in a good place as a football team…we are a poor football team right now.”

The clip of the press conference that featured those comments went viral on social media, with Drayton almost universally commended for being brutally honest, which was seen as something of a novelty.

I also appreciated the honesty. I just wish he could honestly say that the team looked good.

This transition is going to take time, and there will be growing pains, not for the first time as far as fans of the Bulldogs are concerned.

I remember sitting in the stands at Johnson Hagood Stadium one October day back in 2010 against this same opponent, and watching the Bulldogs commit nine turnovers — in only 47 plays from scrimmage.

That was the season in which Kevin Higgins switched to the triple option after running a spread attack, and it took a while before the offense became consistently productive.

Now, The Citadel is essentially reversing the process, moving away from the triple option to an offense that (probably) will involve more spread concepts.

Patience will be a requirement. The hope is that eventually there will be a payoff. When will that payoff happen? I don’t know, and nobody else does either.

In the meantime, it’s better to have football than not have football. Positive thoughts are always welcome. Perhaps the Bulldogs will surprise some folks this season.

I’ll be watching.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: Brian Giffin, Clay Helton, Danny Reed, Georgia Southern, Maurice Drayton, SoCon, The Citadel |