Summers set for debut with Eagles
When Tyson Summers was hired as the football head coach at Georgia Southern, he saw it as an opportunity and a challenge.
When Erik Raeburn was hired as the head coach at Savannah State, he saw it as an opportunity and a challenge.
It could be argued the opportunity is Summers’ while the challenge is Raeburn’s.
Summers took over a program that is one of the top teams in the Sun Belt Conference and has a winning tradition. For Summers, the job offers the opportunity to return to his home state and get his first head coaching job. He got the keys to a program that won six national championships at the FCS level before moving to FBS, where in its first two years, it has won a Sun Belt championship and its first bowl game.
The challenge is to maintain that level of success which the Tifton native will be attempting to do when the Eagles open the season at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Paulson Stadium against Savannah State.
“We’ve been going for four weeks, two weeks of camp mindset and two weeks of getting school started,” Summers said. “These guys are excited about getting to play a game on Saturday against an opponent.
“They’re looking forward to playing Savannah State. Coach Raeburn and his staff have done a great job wherever he has been and won a lot of conference championships.”
The Eagles return a veteran team, including 98 percent of an offense that led the nation in rushing last year. Summers was hired in December to replace Willie Fritz, who left after two years for the head coaching job at Tulane, and said he couldn’t be more pleased with the way the transition has gone.
“They (seniors) are on their third head coach in four years,” Summers said. “I think they have done a great job of buying into our staff and what we are trying to get done here, and I think our staff has done a great job of buying in too which is important.”
Saturday’s game will be the first of five home games for the Eagles, who also play at Georgia Tech and at Georgia State.
“I think it’s a big deal to be able to play a team from in state,” Summers said. “Football is important in this state. We’ve got real good middle school, high school and college teams … there’s a lot of talent in our state.”
Raeburn left Wabash, one of the top Division III programs in the country, to take over at Savannah State. The Tigers have won only seven games in the past seven seasons, and they have not had a winning season since going 7-4 in 1998. They lost to Georgia Southern, 83-9 two years ago and 77-9 the year before.
Raeburn is in his 17th season as a head coach, all at the Division III level, and he has a 135-39 record. The past eight seasons, he was 78-13 at Wabash, and before that he was 57-26 in eight years at Coe.
As a player and assistant coach at Mount Union, he was part of five D-III national championships. This will be the first game he has coached against a Division I opponent.
“Everything here has been so negative,” Raeburn said of Savannah State. “It’s a challenge to play Georgia Southern. They have different expectations. It’s a tremendous challenge here, but I felt it was a great opportunity. We’re in a great location. There are a lot of good players in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina and we’ve got to go get them.
“Everywhere I go in Savannah, people ask me why I took this job. I don’t understand the people who don’t understand the challenge and opportunity and the willingness to take it on.”
Raeburn is aware of the challenge Georgia Southern presents.
“They’ve got great running backs,” Raeburn said, “and they get more opportunities because the quarterbacks run so good. They’re so explosive offensively. But our biggest challenge will be their front seven on defense. They have a physical group of guys up front. They’re all upperclassmen, big, strong and experienced.”
Quarterbacks Favian Upshaw and Kevin Ellison and running backs Matt Breida, L.A. Ramsby and Wesley Fields give the Eagles a formidable group of runners, and center Andy Kwon is among the best in the country at his position.
This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 4:21 PM with the headline "Summers set for debut with Eagles."