A key part of the recruiting spiel of most college coaches is “Come to our school. We’re family and we want you to be a part of it…blah, blah.”

And, for the most part that holds true. Anyone who has spent time around a team, especially a football team, sees it and feels it.

Eli Anders will tell you from first-hand experience it’s especially true at Georgia Southern.

A starting defensive tackle on the Sun Belt Conference’s second-best scoring defense and 35th in the FBS, allowing 20.5 points per game, the 6-foot-3, 260-pound Anders lost his Mother shortly after his arrival in Statesboro.

The Cornelius, N.C., native was not highly recruited coming out of high school but he was spotted at a mini-camp at Mercer University and, thanks to posting a 4.6 seconds 40-yard dash time, was offered by the Eagles.

Anders, who did not play high school football until his junior year, was an early enrollee at Georgia Southern arriving in January. In July he suffered a devasting loss when his mother passed away.

It was at this time he learned what the term family meant at Georgia Southern.

“I had just turned 18,” Anders said. “I was 17 when I enrolled in January, my Mom passed in July so I hadn’t really started my freshman year yet. I hadn’t even met the rest of my class. They were just getting here.”

What Anders did have was a bevy of supportive upper classmen with whom he had been working out and gone through spring ball with and a coaching staff that showed it truly cared.

While players come and go in the transfer portal as if it was a revolving door at a large department store Anders said the support he received in helping him get through a devasting period of his life has essentially made him an Eagle for life.

“Family is a real deal here, 100 percent,” Anders said earlier this week. “The coaches, players all rallied around me.

“It would take a lot for sure for me to leave here,” Anders said. “For me it’s not a money thing.

“There’s things Georgia Southern has to offer that are priceless to me. That money is gone tomorrow. When you think about family, culture, things you can’t give away…guys I’ve been with since my freshman year. We started on scout team, now we’re playing. It’s definitely a healthy place for me.”

Anders and the Eagles (4-4, 3-1) are coming off a dominating 19-3 win over Appalachian State that has put them in position to claim the East if they can win out. They’ll get another strong test at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Paulson Stadium when they take on Marshall (5-3, 2-2).

The win over App State, incidentally, marked the first time since 1935 (0-0 tie) the Mountaineers had failed to score a touchdown against the Eagles.

“Our big challenge this week is ourselves,” Anders said of the matchup with the Thundering Herd. “We’ll be prepping the same way we did last week, not getting complacent, trying to take the next step toward accomplishing our goal which is a conference championship.”

In trying to make this a month to truly remember the Eagles hope to continue the trend of success they’ve had the past two Novembers when they have gone a combined 6-2.

Those months, however, found Georgia Southern battling just to get bowl eligible. Last year, for example, they had to beat Marshall on the road in the season finale to get to six wins.

This year the stakes, thanks to the results of the last two weeks, are definitely higher. The best thing about it is Georgia Southern has everything in its hands.

“It’s nice to not be sitting there on Saturday night watching TV hoping someone loses or misses a field goal,” Anders said. “It’s nice to know we’re going to practice, we’re going to go play and whatever we do dictates whatever happens. It’s nice to have that control.

“After the James Madison loss we were talking that everything is on us,” Anders said. “This was no time to lay down or give up, to check out. We’re still going to pore over the details, find things to get better at and that’s what we did as a team.

“On any given Saturday anything can happen and I think we’ve all seen that the last two weeks. It’s been nuts.”

Anders is a construction engineering program and academically has made the honor roll each semester he has been at Georgia Southern. He is the president of Georgia Southern’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.