Savannah Morning News beat writer sees hard road for Georgia Southern improving on 2018:
Heading into the 2019 season, Lunsford has said his team is living by the motto: “Good To Great.” On social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, the creed is more recognizable as #GTG.
But as the schedule for this upcoming season was released Friday, the idea of improving on the incredibly rare 2018 campaign became a little harder to envision. For me, at least.
The aftermath of the Eagles’ Raycom Media Camellia Bowl victory was filled with a sense of accomplishment. Rightfully so, but the 2-10 season in 2017 made last year’s success feel more like an ending than a beginning.
The 2018 season was the closing of a chapter, and the 2019 season has now become the true beginning of whatever is to come in Statesboro. Gone are the seniors from 2018 who endured so much during their time as Eagles. Running backs Wesley Fields and Monteo Garrett, offensive linemen Jeremiah Culbreth and Curtis Rainey and defensive mainstays in Logan Hunt, Sean Freeman and Joshua Moon will have to be replaced. Unlike 2018, Georgia Southern won’t have the luxury of easing into the 2019 season.
In 2018, GS opened with home games versus FCS opponent South Carolina State and FBS Independent Massachusetts the following week. This year, the Eagles open with a road game at SEC power LSU on Aug. 31 before hosting Maine on Sept. 7 and traveling to Big Ten country for a date with Minnesota on Sept. 14.
LSU needs no introduction, as the Tigers will begin 2019 as a top-10 team in nearly every poll that matters. Maine, an FCS school coming off a 10-4 season and semifinal appearance in 2018, is no slouch. Minnesota is a Power Five school which comes into 2019 having won seven games last year including a 34-10 beating of Georgia Tech in Paul Johnson’s last game running the option offense as the coach of the Yellow Jackets.
The first two GS opponents in 2018 ended up winning a combined nine games last season. This year, the first two GS opponents won a combined 20 games last season.
There is no time for Georgia Southern to ease into the year. There’s not just a desire to be great in the season’s first few weeks — there’s a need to be great if the Eagles hope to get off on the right foot.
For openers
Beating LSU is unlikely and not a requirement for going from good to great, but it’ll be a measuring stick for where this team is in its quest to start a new chapter of Georgia Southern football. The games in Weeks 2 and 3 are, for now, winnable.
It’s tough to imagine a 2019 season in which the Eagles duplicate the record-setting numbers of 2018, but this time last year it was to imagine them going 10-3 and beating Appalachian State and Georgia State in the same season for the first time since 2014.
It would be easy to say that stranger things had happened, except for until last season, they hadn’t. Rising junior quarterback Shai Werts knows that the expectations are high for this year, and he’s got his sights set squarely on LSU already.
“Obviously (LSU is) a Power Five school, and last year we opened with an FCS team,” Werts said on the first day of spring practice on Feb. 13 in Statesboro. “But (LSU) puts their pads on the same way we put our pads on. We aren’t scared of anybody. We aren’t going down there just to play.
“We’re going down there to win.”
2019 won’t be a continuation of what happened in 2018 because that was the closing of a roller-coaster chapter in GS football history. No matter the results of this campaign, this year is the start of something.
For Lunsford, Werts and the rest of the Eagles, they’ll hope it’s the start of something great.
Travis Jaudon is a sports reporter for the Savannah Morning News covering Georgia Southern athletics. Follow him on Twitter @JaudonSports and contact him at 912-652-0353 or [email protected].
https://www.savannahnow.com/sports/...great-start-to-tougher-2019-football-schedule
Heading into the 2019 season, Lunsford has said his team is living by the motto: “Good To Great.” On social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, the creed is more recognizable as #GTG.
But as the schedule for this upcoming season was released Friday, the idea of improving on the incredibly rare 2018 campaign became a little harder to envision. For me, at least.
The aftermath of the Eagles’ Raycom Media Camellia Bowl victory was filled with a sense of accomplishment. Rightfully so, but the 2-10 season in 2017 made last year’s success feel more like an ending than a beginning.
The 2018 season was the closing of a chapter, and the 2019 season has now become the true beginning of whatever is to come in Statesboro. Gone are the seniors from 2018 who endured so much during their time as Eagles. Running backs Wesley Fields and Monteo Garrett, offensive linemen Jeremiah Culbreth and Curtis Rainey and defensive mainstays in Logan Hunt, Sean Freeman and Joshua Moon will have to be replaced. Unlike 2018, Georgia Southern won’t have the luxury of easing into the 2019 season.
In 2018, GS opened with home games versus FCS opponent South Carolina State and FBS Independent Massachusetts the following week. This year, the Eagles open with a road game at SEC power LSU on Aug. 31 before hosting Maine on Sept. 7 and traveling to Big Ten country for a date with Minnesota on Sept. 14.
LSU needs no introduction, as the Tigers will begin 2019 as a top-10 team in nearly every poll that matters. Maine, an FCS school coming off a 10-4 season and semifinal appearance in 2018, is no slouch. Minnesota is a Power Five school which comes into 2019 having won seven games last year including a 34-10 beating of Georgia Tech in Paul Johnson’s last game running the option offense as the coach of the Yellow Jackets.
The first two GS opponents in 2018 ended up winning a combined nine games last season. This year, the first two GS opponents won a combined 20 games last season.
There is no time for Georgia Southern to ease into the year. There’s not just a desire to be great in the season’s first few weeks — there’s a need to be great if the Eagles hope to get off on the right foot.
For openers
Beating LSU is unlikely and not a requirement for going from good to great, but it’ll be a measuring stick for where this team is in its quest to start a new chapter of Georgia Southern football. The games in Weeks 2 and 3 are, for now, winnable.
It’s tough to imagine a 2019 season in which the Eagles duplicate the record-setting numbers of 2018, but this time last year it was to imagine them going 10-3 and beating Appalachian State and Georgia State in the same season for the first time since 2014.
It would be easy to say that stranger things had happened, except for until last season, they hadn’t. Rising junior quarterback Shai Werts knows that the expectations are high for this year, and he’s got his sights set squarely on LSU already.
“Obviously (LSU is) a Power Five school, and last year we opened with an FCS team,” Werts said on the first day of spring practice on Feb. 13 in Statesboro. “But (LSU) puts their pads on the same way we put our pads on. We aren’t scared of anybody. We aren’t going down there just to play.
“We’re going down there to win.”
2019 won’t be a continuation of what happened in 2018 because that was the closing of a roller-coaster chapter in GS football history. No matter the results of this campaign, this year is the start of something.
For Lunsford, Werts and the rest of the Eagles, they’ll hope it’s the start of something great.
Travis Jaudon is a sports reporter for the Savannah Morning News covering Georgia Southern athletics. Follow him on Twitter @JaudonSports and contact him at 912-652-0353 or [email protected].
https://www.savannahnow.com/sports/...great-start-to-tougher-2019-football-schedule