Difficult early schedule awaits Fort Valley State

Kevin Porter likes what he sees from his team’s non-conference schedule ... even if it’s going to be tough on his team.

The Fort Valley State Wildcats open their season Thursday at West Georgia. On Sept. 9 in Waycross, the Wildcats will face off with Valdosta State.

Then on Sept. 30, Fort Valley State travels to Southern, an FCS program. In between, the Wildcats do have two home SIAC games against Miles (Sept. 16) and Benedict (Sept. 23).

“That was kind of the thought process of scheduling like that. We want to try to play some of the best people in Division II, and fortunately for us, two of those teams happen to be in our state,” Porter said with a laugh. “If you’re looking for good people to play, you don’t have to go far.

“It’s good for us. It’s good for our program to be able to play against some of the top programs in Division II.”

The Wildcats have a lot of momentum from last year in Porter’s first season with the team. Fort Valley State started 1-6 in 2016 but finished with four straight wins, including a win over Kentucky State for the SIAC championship.

Even without players like Otis Brown, who Porter said was “roughly 70 percent of our offense” and Brian Walker, who Porter said was “responsible for 60 to 70 percent of the plays we made on defense,” Porter is pleased with his team entering this season.

“Our guys were playing with a lot of confidence at the end of the season, and they are relishing in the fact that they haven’t lost a game (since October),” Porter said. “We’re just looking forward to getting started again. We think that collectively we’ve got a good group. No standout guy here or there, but we’ve got a bunch of guys who’ve played together and are getting to the point that they understand how we want our program to run and how we want to play.”

This story was originally published August 30, 2017 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Difficult early schedule awaits Fort Valley State."