The first meeting between Georgia State and Georgia Southern went just as Eagles fans predicted it would: Coach Willie Fritz turned Matt Brieda and a horde of others loose in the old Georgia Dome and romped to a 69-31 win leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind the upstart Panthers were out of their league.
It’s been a different story, however, since that initial Sun Belt Conference meeting in Atlanta back in 2014. Georgia State came to Statesboro the following year and enjoyed a 34-7 romp and actually holds a 6-5 overall lead in the series going into Saturday’s 7 p.m. game at Paulson Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN+ and the early line has the Eagles a 6.5-point favorite.
The game will be a reunion for the Eagles with a couple of familiar faces.
Georgia State is coached by former Georgia Southern assistant Dell McGee and his quarterback is redshirt senior TJ Finley who two years ago threw for 301 yards and three touchdowns in leading Texas State to a 45-24 win over the Eagles.
Both teams are off to disappointing starts. The Eagles (2-4, 0-2) were expected to challenge James Madison in the East Division while Georgia State (1-5, 0-2) was looking for better things in McGee’s second season.
Georgia Southern is coming off back-to-back losses to James Madison and Southern Mississippi and Coach Clay Helton needs a win – a dominating win would be helpful –to quieten some of the chatter among the faithful regarding his job status.
As to Georgia State it’s hard to find any positives when looking at a Panthers team which last Saturday suffered a 42-20 Homecoming loss to Appalachian State. The Panthers lone win was over FCS member Murray State but losses to Ole Miss, Memphis, Vanderbilt and App have all been by between 21 and 56 points.
When Georgia State played App, it entered the game with high hopes after losing a hard fought 14-7 game to conference kingpin James Madison which had beaten Georgia Southern 35-10 the week before.
The Mountaineers jumped out to a 31-0 lead and never looked back against the Panthers who, McGee said, reverted to earlier form and failed to play complimentary football.
“We’ve got to play complimentary football for four quarters,” McGee said. “We still haven’t done that. There have been miscommunications, misreads, etc. We have to scale back what we’re trying to do.”
McGee was at Georgia Southern for the 2014-2015 seasons and was the interim head coach for the 2015 Go Daddy Bowl victory having taken over when Fritz went to Tulane. Bypassed for the GS job McGee joined Kirby Smart’s first staff at Georgia and was there for eight years before taking over at Georgia State.
Georgia Southern will be going for its third straight win in the series. The Eagles’ five victories have all been by double digits as they’ve won by 38, 21, 18, 17 and 17 points. The Panthers’ wins have been by 27, six, four, six, seven and eight points.
Quarterback has been the most intriguing story of the Panthers’ season.
Finley is a much-travelled story. The New Orleans, La., product is with his fifth school—sixth if you wanted to get technical about it-- having signed with LSU out of high school. In a sense, he’s in his second go-round with Georgia State.
At LSU he started five games as a true freshman. He then went to Auburn for two seasons.
Next up was Texas State where he passed for 3,439 yards and 24 touchdowns two years ago before going to Western Kentucky last year where he started the first three games before injury struck.
At Western he played for Helton’s brother, Tyson, and was a teammate of current GS backup quarterback Turner Helton.
Finley transferred to Georgia State last January but during the summer left for Tulane, only to return to the Panthers prior to their second game with Memphis.
Finley has thrown for 816 yards and four touchdowns and Brown, a transfer from Texas Tech and the stronger runner of the two, had accounted for 602 yards and seven touchdowns through the air. Brown played in high school at Northside Warner-Robins.
The run game has been non-existent as the Panthers are averaging only 92 yards per game on the ground. Rashad Amos had 213 yards and Branson Robinson 103.
Defensively the Panthers have been wracked with injuries and are allowing 455 yards per game, 248 through the air.