Georgia Southern looking to continue last year’s success

On Nov. 23, 2013, the Georgia Southern program made history. It was the final game of the season, facing a Florida Gators team that was a heavy favorite, and the Eagles pulled off a 26-20 win, marking the first time Florida had lost to an FCS program.

Heading into 2014, their inaugural year in FBS football, the Eagles utilized the victory over Florida as the stepping stone to a 9-3 record, including a spotless 8-0 record en route to a Sun Belt Conference championship. Head coach Willie Fritz spoke of how important the Florida victory and a 24-23 loss to N.C. State in the 2014 opener were for the team’s belief last year.

“I think it proved to our guys that we could compete at this level and we can win at this level,” Fritz said of his first season with the program.

The Eagles accomplished history amid many changes, including a new head coach, opening and playing in an updated stadium, the creation of the Ted Smith Family Football Operations Center, new opponents in 10 of the 12 games, a new conference and a new level (FBS).

“We had a great year; there was a lot of question marks going from I-AA football to Division I,” Fritz said. “The field looks totally different, so there’s just a whole lot of new and exciting things that happened.”

But the excitement only will live on as long as Georgia Southern competes and proves it can be a perennial winner. Fritz recognizes the larger expectations this year, and after last season, he believes the next step is to do it again.

“We don’t want to be a one-hit wonder,” Fritz said. “We want to come out and do it again and defend our Sun Belt championship.”

Building upon last year starts with recruiting and being more effective passing the football. Fritz accepted the Georgia Southern position on Jan. 10, 2014, so he was unable to run a full recruiting operation before his first season. One year later, he and his staff have a “full-fledged Division I recruiting class,” Fritz said. “I’ve been very impressed. You’re not able to do football things with them (during the summer), but just what I’ve seen, they’re a little taller, a little longer, maybe a little faster than what Georgia Southern has had in the past. I think we’re going to have five, six, seven, eight of those guys play significant roles this year.”

And while he declined to note any specific players because “they haven’t done it yet,” Fritz called this year’s freshman class much deeper and more talented than in the past.

Along with the improved recruiting, Georgia Southern seeks to strengthen its passing game, which ranked 125th in the nation out of 128 teams last year. Because of the team’s dominant rushing attack, which ranked first in all divisions of the NCAA with 381.1 yards per game, teams stacked the box near the end of the year and forced the Eagles to pass.

“We’re still going to be a running team -- that’s going to be our bread and butter -- but we would like to be able to throw 50, 60, 70 yards more a game,” Fritz said. “We’ve got to produce big plays in the passing game. If they’re going to play man coverage on us, then we’ve got to hit them and make them pay for it.”

Georgia Southern will not completely abandon its top-ranked running game, and for good reason. The Eagles ran for 4,573 yards on 7.1 yards per carry last year and boasted two players who rushed for more than 1,000 yards: junior running back Matt Breida and junior quarterback Kevin Ellison.

Breida led the FBS in yards per carry with 8.7, rushing for 1,485 yards and 17 touchdowns, and Ellison was one of four quarterbacks in the FBS to throw and rush for 1,000 yards. And they were only sophomores.

Fritz said he’s “really excited” for the future with Breida and Ellison leading the backfield and called them “very vital to our success.”

Fritz’s one concern with the state of the rushing attack is the number of losses on the offensive line; Georgia Southern returns just one starter.

“(The offensive line) really did a tremendous job, and that’s going to be a big factor for this season,” Fritz said. “For us to have the same type of rushing attack or improve in it, some guys have to step up in the offensive line.”

Along with patching the offensive line and improving the passing game, Fritz wants to focus on registering more turnovers on defense and producing in the kicking game. Despite ranking first defensively in the conference last year, the Eagles forced only 20 turnovers in 12 games. This year, Fritz has challenged his coaches and players to increase the number to 30.

And more turnovers might lend a hand in Georgia Southern pulling off another major upset. The Eagles nearly beat a pair of ACC teams last year, losing by one point to N.C. State and by four to Georgia Tech. In 2015, Georgia will face the task of holding off another Georgia Southern upset bid when the teams meet Nov. 21.

“It would be a tremendous feather in our cap to do that, but we’ll worry about that later in the season,” Fritz said. “That’s not top priority right now.”

Right now, the West Virginia Mountaineers sit squarely in the headlights. Georgia Southern opens the season Sept. 5 in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Ellison will not play in that game after being suspended for the first two contests.

“We’ll do everything exactly how I’ve done it for years, and years and years,” Fritz said of his staff’s preparation for the Mountaineers. “When you get two weeks out from that first game, you get laser-sharp focus on the opponent.”

Before last year’s season, he remembers publications ranking the team eighth and ninth in the conference while another ranked Georgia Southern 124th out of 128 teams in the FBS.

“The problem you run in to is guys thinking that’s where we’re supposed to be,” Fritz said. “You gotta go out and play the year. Just like last year, we had to go out and prove ourselves; this year we have to go out and do the same thing.”

But the goals don’t simply elevate to emulating last year. Fritz envisions something greater as the years progress.

“We established a goal, and I verbalized it in the public many times,” Fritz said. “But we want to be a perennial top 25 program year-in, year-out.”

ABOUT THE GEORGIA SOUTHERN EAGLES

Head coach: Willie Fritz (146-65 in 18 seasons overall; 9-3 in one season at Georgia Southern).

Record last year: 9-3, 8-0 Sun Belt Conference.

Returning starters: Five on offense; eight on defense.

Players to watch: Kevin Ellison (Jr., QB); Matt Breida (Jr., RB); Jay Ellison (Jr., DT); Matt Dobson (Sr., S).

Schedule

Sept. 5 at West Virginia

Sept. 12 Western Michigan

Sept. 19 The Citadel

Sept. 26 at Idaho

Oct. 3 at Louisiana-Monroe

Oct. 17 New Mexico State

Oct. 22 at Appalachian State

Oct. 29 Texas State

Nov. 14 at Troy

Nov. 21 at Georgia

Nov. 28 South Alabama

Dec. 5 Georgia State

This story was originally published August 29, 2015 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Georgia Southern looking to continue last year’s success ."