Dana Holgorsen well aware of Georgia Southern program

STATESBORO -- West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen is spending a lot of time this week educating his team about Georgia Southern.

“Georgia Southern doesn’t have a lot of name recognition like an Alabama,” Holgorsen said. “But in the coaching fraternity, they have plenty of name recognition. awMy staff and I understand what they’ve accomplished. My job is to get that through to my players. There’s a challenge out there for us.”

The answer to whether or not Holgorsen got that lesson across to his team will be answered when the Mountaineers and Eagles open the season at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Georgia Southern is entering its second year in the FBS. The Eagles are coming off a 9-3 season in which they went 8-0 in Sun Belt Conference play, winning the conference championship in their first season.

West Virginia, meanwhile, was 7-6 with a fourth-place finish (5-3) in the Big 12, its best finish in its three years in the conference. The Mountaineers dropped a 45-37 decision to Texas A&M in the Liberty Bowl. The Mountaineers return 21 starters and have 46 upperclassmen and 51 players who have played in a Big 12 game.

“They’ve got a lot of guys back,” Georgia Southern head coach Willie Fritz said. “They’re big and fast. It’s going to be a tremendous challenge for us.”

The biggest question mark for both teams is at quarterback. The Mountaineers are breaking in a new starter, Skyler Howard, who started the final two games of last season, a regular-season 37-24 win over Iowa State and the bowl loss to the Aggies. Howard, a Texas native whom Fritz recruited when he was the head coach at Sam Houston State, arrived at West Virginia from Riverside (California) Junior College after spending one semester at Stephen F. Austin.

In his two starts and a mop-up role in two other games, Howard threw for 829 yards and eight touchdowns, completing 56-of-110 attempts with no interceptions.

Favian Upshaw will get the starting nod for the Eagles in place of Kevin Ellison, who has been declared ineligible for the first two games by the NCAA for academic reasons.

Upshaw played in 11 games last year as a backup to Ellison and ran for 385 yards on 40 attempts while completing 19-of-27 passes for 285 yards and two scores.

“I’ve told people the entire offseason I felt like we have two starters,” Fritz said. “He’s done a great job in the preseason. He’s a hard-working guy; he’s smart. We’ve got a lot of confidence in him.”

Upshaw’s backup is redshirt junior Vegas Harley, who played in 11 games last year on special teams.

The Eagles must replace four starters on the offensive line, which is another major concern, but they will have two excellent offensive threats in running backs Matt Brieda and L.A. Ramsby. Brieda ran for 1,485 yards and 17 touchdowns last year while Ramsby, a converted quarterback, added 691 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Holgorsen spoke highly of the explosive Brieda.

“Brieda is as good as anyone we’ll face this year,” Holgorsen said. “It was break for us that (Ellison is) out, but there were plenty of games last year when they used the second quarterback. They replace a lot of players up front, but they’re replacing them with upperclassmen. That’s the sign of a good program.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 7:31 PM with the headline "Dana Holgorsen well aware of Georgia Southern program ."