Georgia Southern hopes to finish with a positive note

Georgia Southern’s difficult season will come to a close Saturday, but the Eagles still have a chance to be spoilers in the Sun Belt Conference race.

The Eagles (4-7, 3-4 Sun Belt) will be looking to snap a four-game losing streak when they meet Troy (9-2, 6-1) at noon on Saturday at Paulson Stadium. With a win, the Trojans will complete a remarkable turnaround season — they were 4-8 last year — and guarantee themselves a share of the conference championship. Appalachian State (9-3, 7-1) has completed its season, and Arkansas State (6-5, 6-1) could make it a three-way tie with a win over Texas State.

In its first Saturday home game since Sept. 17, Georgia Southern will say goodbye to 24 seniors as the program wraps up just its fourth losing season since the program’s rebirth in 1982. But this class owns some of the biggest moments in Georgia Southern history outside of its six FCS national titles.

First-year head coach Tyson Summers has had the likes of Kevin Ellison, Matt Breida, Younghoe Koo, Ironhead Gallon, Andy Kwon, Jay Ellison, B.J. Johnson III, Bernard Dawson, Jonathan Battle Jr. and Montay Crockett for only one season, but he is aware of their accomplishments.

“It’s a group that has done an amazing job at Georgia Southern,” Summers said. “They made the transition from FCS to FBS, a group that was able to beat the University of Florida on the road a couple of years ago. Then they turned around and won a Sun Belt Conference championship. They also accomplished the first ever opportunity to be in a bowl game and were able to come out with a victory in the bowl game.

“Some of the milestones our university has been able to hit is because of this class.”

But if Eagles lose to Troy, this class will equal the program’s record for most losses in a season. That record belongs to the 2006 team, which went 3-8 and ended its season on a five-game losing string.

Summers, incidentally, was an assistant coach on that team under head coach Brian VanGorder.

Several of the departing seniors will leave their name etched in the record book.

With the Troy game remaining:

▪ Ellison has 3,253 yards rushing and 3,098 passing to join Tracy Ham and Greg Hill as the only Georgia Southern quarterbacks to accomplish that feat.

▪ Breida has 3,688 yards rushing and currently ranks sixth on the program’s all-time list. With 147 yards, he would pass Jayson Foster for fifth place.

▪ Koo is an All-America candidate and one of three finalists for the Lou Groza Award, which goes to the most outstanding place-kicker in FBS. If Koo wins, he would be Georgia Southern’s first national award winner at the FBS level. He has 19 field goals in 20 attempts, which equals Adrian Mora’s single-season record for the program, which he set in 2010. Koo’s 14 consecutive field goals to start this season are a program record.

▪ Johnson has 85 catches for 1,248 yards, which is good enough to rank him third and seventh on the program’s career lists, respectively. His nine catches against Louisiana Lafayette are the third best single-game effort behind the late Raja Andrews, who had 10 catches twice.

▪ Gallon is one of the most popular the most popular Eagles in recent years, and his 227 career tackles from his linebacking position, including 97 this year, are a big reason why.

The remaining Eagle seniors are cornerback Darius Jones Jr., safety Vegas Harley, quarterback Favian Upshaw, linebacker Ken Butler Jr., linebacker William Bussey Jr., cornerback Rayquan Green, wide receiver Mike Summers, defensive end Nardo Govan, long-snapper Jake Abraham, defensive end Jamal Johnson, offensive tackle Max Magana, offensive lineman Sam Gaddy, wide receiver Kelgan Williams and defensive end Tre Griffin.

Troy was ranked No. 25 in the nation until losing 35-3 to Arkansas State 35-3 two weeks ago. But second-year head coach Neal Brown’s team showed its mettle by rebounding to pound Texas State 45-10 and then got a second chance at a conference championship when Louisiana-Lafayette upset Arkansas State.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Brown said of Saturday’s game. “It’s an opportunity to get to 10 wins for the first time since we moved up to FBS and an opportunity to win a conference championship.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2016 at 3:09 PM with the headline "Georgia Southern hopes to finish with a positive note."