Georgia Southern welcomes a tough opponent after a difficult road trip

STATESBORO -- It doesn’t get any easier for the Georgia Southern football team.

Coming off a 44-0 loss at West Virginia, the Eagles (0-1) play their home opener against up-and-coming Western Michigan on Saturday.

The 0-1 Broncos, who went 8-4 last year and lost to Air Force 38-24 in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl a year after going 1-11, opened their season last Friday night with a 37-24 loss to No. 5 Michigan State.

That game made a strong impression on Georgia Southern head coach Willie Fritz, who saw one of his teams fail to score for the first time in his coaching career. Fritz is in his 23rd year as a head coach and his overall record is 185-71-1.

It was also the first time the Eagles had been blanked since losing at Montana, 45-0, on Dec. 12, 1995 in NCAA Division I-AA playoffs, a span of 242 games.

“Western Michigan is a real good team,” Fritz said following practice on Tuesday. “This will be the best ballclub to come into Paulson Stadium in the history of Paulson Stadium.

“They played in a bowl game last year, and came within a couple of touchdowns of Michigan State. We are going to have to play ­extremely well.”

The Broncos will be the first non-conference FBS team to play at Paulson, where the Eagles own a 181-33 record and have won their past eight openers. Georgia Southern is 25-6 in home openers since Paulson’s opening in 1984.

With Favian Upshaw starting at quarterback in place of the suspended Kevin Ellison, who will also miss this week’s game, the Eagles could not generate any offensive consistency against a veteran Mountaineers defense that free safety Matt Dobson said may be the best he has seen in his four years at Georgia Southern.

“We played Georgia when I was a freshman and I think they were better offensively because they had Aaron Murray throwing it all over the place, and (Todd) Gurley running it,” Dobson said. “But (WVU) might be the best defense. They were really good.”

Georgia Southern managed 195 rushing yards against the Mountaineers, but the passing game was virtually non-existent.

Upshaw, considered to be the best passer among Eagle quarterbacks, completed only 2-of-13 for 24 yards, and had four intercepted. He did have 64 yards rushing on 16 carries, while Matt Brieda, who had 1,485 yards last year, led the Eagles with 70 yards on 17 attempts.

While disappointed, Fritz was far from discouraged, however, after looking at the tape of the game.

“We did some good things,” Fritz said. “We were a little better than we thought for the most part.

“One thing we would like to get out of the offensive line is more movement, but we had bodies on bodies. I thought the backs ran extremely hard within the tackles. West Virginia is a very good team, and I thought their secondary was the best I’ve ever seen in person.”

In addition to Upshaw, who threw 27 passes and had 40 rushes last year, there were four newcomers on the offensive line. Center Andy Kwon, tackles Tommy Boynton and Max Magana and guard Roscoe Byrd were making their first starts at Georgia Southern although Byrd did start 20 games at Alabama-Birmingham before that school dropped football.

The Broncos feature some outstanding young offensive talent under second-year head coach P.J. Fleck.

Fourth-year junior quarterback Zach Terrell threw for 3,443 yards and 26 touchdowns last year while completing 67.9 percent of his passes (250-of-368), and he hit on 33-of-50 for 365 yards and two touchdowns against Michigan State. Jarvis Franklin ran for 1,551 yards and 24 touchdowns last year as a freshman while Corey Davis had 78 receptions for 1,408 yards and Daniel Braverman had 86 for 997 yards.

“Their quarterback is really accurate and is a good game manager,” Fritz said. “He throws the ball downfield and makes the right decisions. They’ve got a good, big strong back, a big time receiver and a good inside receiver. Their offensive line is big, and they’re good defensively.”

This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 11:13 PM with the headline "Georgia Southern welcomes a tough opponent after a difficult road trip ."