Georgia Southern tries to build on effort against Georgia

STATESBORO -- If there were any questions among state football fans about the legitimacy of Georgia Southern's program and its ability to compete at the FBS level, they should have been answered by now.

A year ago, Georgia Tech scored with 23 seconds remaining to beat the Eagles 42-38, and then Saturday night, Georgia had to go to overtime for a 23-17 win over head coach Willie Fritz's crew.

"Certainly it validates the move up," Fritz said. "People were concerned a Southern Conference team moving up from FCS could compete.

"I think it shows the talent level in this area. We're playing with primarily I-AA players. The fact we're able to compete is a tribute to them. Probably close to 75 percent of the guys playing (against Georgia) were here before me. That's a credit to the staff before me."

Not only has Georgia Southern shown it can compete with the state's two big-time programs, it has run roughshod over the Sun Belt Conference since joining last year.

In its first year in the conference, Georgia Southern won the championship, going 8-0, 9-3 overall. And now the Eagles have an outside shot at gaining a share of this year's title if it can win out and Arkansas State (7-3, 6-0 Sun Belt) somehow stumbles against either New Mexico State or Texas State.

The Eagles (7-3, 5-1) will resume the conference chase at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Paulson Stadium when it takes on South Alabama (5-5, 3-3). It will be the first of two straight home games to conclude the regular season.

After playing the Jaguars, the Eagles will conclude their regular season against Georgia State on Dec. 5. A day later, they will learn their bowl assignment.

While Georgia Southern knows it is bowl bound, South Alabama is one of three teams trying to join the Eagles, Appalachian State and Arkansas State as bowl-eligible teams. The odds are stacked against all of them.

In addition to the Eagles, the Jaguars face Appalachian State next week while ­Georgia State (4-6, 3-3) has Troy and Georgia Southern remaining. Louisiana-Lafayette (4-6, 3-3) must play Troy and the Mountaineers.

"I thought we competed and played very hard," Fritz said of the game with the Bulldogs. "I thought our defense played well. We had a couple of short fields to defend, and that led to some of their scores.

"We have to put it behind us and move on. We're playing a very, very important conference game this Saturday, and I'm happy we have the opportunity to play in Paulson Stadium."

The Jaguars are playing for their postseason life, and head coach Joey Jones, the only head coach in the school's seven years of playing football, is well aware of the challenge his team faces.

"Obviously, after looking at last week's game with Georgia, they look really good," Jones said. "They have a lot of great athletes. They have the look of an SEC team.

"They played toe-to-toe with Georgia. They are a tough team that is well-coached and physical."

Jones, incidentally, has the distinction of being the first head coach of two startup programs. He was the head coach at Birmingham Southern when that school resumed football in 2007 after a 68-year layoff, and then left after one year to lead the USA program.

South Alabama, which made its first-ever bowl appearance last year when it played Bowling Green in the Camellia Bowl, missed an opportunity to get its sixth win last week when it had a two-game winning streak snapped by fast improving Georgia State, 24-10.

The Jaguars jumped out to a 10-0 lead against the Panthers, who cut it to 10-7 at the half and then dominated the second half as evidenced by the third quarter when South Alabama had the ball for only three plays.

"Offensively, we really didn't do much," Jones said. "In the first half, we dropped four or five passes, so we didn't take advantage of our chances to go up more.

"We didn't play well at all on offense in the second half. We didn't have the ball much, but still didn't move it down the field when we got it."

"I thought we played well enough defensively to win."

This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Georgia Southern tries to build on effort against Georgia ."