The Georgia Southern University Eagles will host the Elon University Phoenix in a football game on Saturday afternoon, both teams coming under a difference of circumstances.

Elon is on a two-game winning streak after the embarrassing 62-0 loss to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to open the season, and has a bunch of confidence.

After a bye week, the Eagles hope to rebound from a 23-21 loss to The Citadel Sept. 8. Despite the somewhat surprising loss to the then-unranked Bulldogs, Georgia Southern is still the No. 11 Football Championship Subdivision team in the nation, last year’s Southern Conference champion and a 41-14 victor over the Phoenix last Oct. 1.

“They just opened up the floodgates on us,” said Elon sophomore linebacker Odell Benton. “We watched the film from last year. We missed a lot of tackles last year. We’ve been working on that, and we’re ready this year.”

Georgia Southern started the season as the No. 4 team in the nation, but their defeat at the hands of now-No. 10 The Citadel knocked them back a few spots. The Bulldogs are on a tear and sit at the top of the SoCon after whooping up on No. 17 Appalachian State University 52-28 last week.

Despite the Eagles’ shocking loss to The Citadel, Elon senior tight end Chris Harris said the Phoenix cannot overlook Georgia Southern.

“It doesn’t mean you can play soft or anything,” he said. “We have to go out there on our A-game and show them how we play.”

The Eagles will bring their triple-option rushing attack against Elon, with two of the top 12 rushers in the nation. Sophomore quarterback Ezayi Youyoute is eighth in the nation and second in the SoCon with 132.5 rushing yards per game, while sophomore tailback Dominique Swope is 12th in the nation and third in the SoCon with 116.5.

“We’ve got our usual option plan for them,” said Elon senior defensive lineman Jay Brown. “The stats are a little bit biased because they’re an option team. But we’ve got our plan for them, so we’re just going to do our basic scheme for them and hope it works out.”

That seems to be the plan for the Phoenix in every area of the field: more of the same. Elon’s offense has generated 82 points and 800 yards of offense in its last two games, including 571 last Saturday against West Virginia State University. A key part of that victory was the play of senior wide receiver Aaron Mellette, who led the team with nine receptions for 129 yards and two touchdowns, more than doubling his season total in all three stats.

Acting head coach and defensive coordinator Ed Pinkham said not much will change as far as the offensive gameplan from the last two weeks.

“They just have to keep doing what they’re doing,” Pinkham said. “I thought our offensive line played very well last week and gave (senior quarterback Thomas Wilson) an awful lot of time to throw the ball. And when you do that, Tom has a nice strong accurate arm and he’s got a great corps of receivers. If our offensive line continues to play the way they played Saturday, I think we’ll always have a good chance of winning.”

The matchup with Georgia Southern marks the beginning of arguably the toughest part of the Phoenix’s schedule this season. Elon will take on No. 7 Wofford College Oct. 6 and Appalachian State the next Saturday before getting their bye week.

“The SoCon championship is obviously one of our goals,” Harris said. “We need to keep this grind. This SoCon run we have coming up is very important, and starting off right is very important to us.”

The Eagles come into this game off a bye week, something that Georgia Southern head coach Jeff Monken was happy with to recuperate some injured players. He specifically mentioned Mellette, Wilson and Elon’s veteran defense on a SoCon coaches’ conference call Tuesday.

“Every bit of the time we’ve spent has been on Elon,” Monken said. “It’s the most important game in the world to us. It’s a game we’ve got to get prepared for and give ourselves a chance to win.”

The Phoenix recognizes the amount of time the Eagles have had to get ready and feels it’s ready for the challenge.

“We know they have ample time to prepare for us,” Benton said. “We, as a defense, we’ve got our plan. They lost the previous week, so we know they’re going to be coming out foaming at the mouth, ready for us. As a team, we’re ready, we’re not going to back down, we’re still going to play hard-nosed football as a defense. Defensively, we’re putting it upon ourselves to win the game.”

Elon head coach Jason Swepson may make the trip down to Statesboro, Ga., for the game. He missed the West Virginia State game after being hospitalized with chest pains. His status has not yet been announced.

Either way, Pinkham sees the importance of getting the SoCon schedule started off right.

“If we can get a victory, especially down in Statesboro, that really gives your kids all the more confidence,” he said. “So it’s very, very important. You’ve got to win, no matter what. You can’t ever go into a game saying you could lose that game and it would be alright.”

 

Game Notes

  • Swope had his first career start against Elon last season. He ran the ball 15 times for 74 yards and a score.
  • Elon freshman running back Thuc Phan did something against West Virginia State that Phoenix rushers were not able to do until the second-to-last game of last season. Phan had 15 rushes for 110 yards on the ground last Saturday, Elon’s first individual 100-yard rushing game of the season just three weeks into the 2012 season.
  • Monken on Citadel upsetting Appalachian State: “Nothing surprises me in this league. This is a good league. There’s a lot of parity in this league.”
  • Georgia Southern is 9-3 all-time against Elon and has won every game against the Phoenix since Monken became the Eagles’ head coach in 2010.
  • The Eagles are tied for the second-longest active home winning streak in the FCS with 11 straight victories at home, dating back to Nov. 6, 2010.