Week 1 Preview - South Carolina St.

As I mentioned in the season preview, South Carolina St. is a very good FCS team. They will likely be ranked all season and could make noise in the playoffs. They return last season’s MEAC player of the year at QB, and 4 preseason MEAC all conference offensive linemen. Defensively, they have the preseason MEAC defensive player of the year at defensive end. I do not know too much about the rest of their defense, other than they play a handful of teams that run option schemes, so they should be better prepared for our offense than some other teams we face.

However, with all that said, SC State is still an FCS team, so as a ranked FBS team, this should not be close for very long. They may keep it close for much of the first half for a handful of reasons. First, they will probably come in at least slightly more motivated than we will. They are also a skilled team with experience at QB and O line, which is much more important than experience at running back and wide receiver. Finally, it will take some time for us to wear down their first string. When you play an upper echelon FCS team, generally their first string is pretty close to yours. The real difference comes in depth, and thus when the first string wears down, you start to see real separation.

Given the above, I won’t mind too much if we do not blow them out in the first quarter. But let’s not get crazy. I do expect to win the battle on both lines of scrimmage. The AJC put out an article today that highlighted the fact that their O line outweighs our defensive line by an average of twenty something pounds. Please ignore that. Offensive lines are almost always bigger than defensive lines, simply because defensive linemen typically need to be able to move more than offensive lines. There are some exceptions, such as option schemes like ours where offensive linemen can be smaller. But giving up some weight on the D line is very normal. It absolutely does not mean you should lose that battle. Their average O lineman probably has a weight advantage on Julius Peppers, but I doubt that would matter much if they played him. Strength, technique and athleticism will determine who wins that battle, not who weighs how much.

If we do win the battle on both lines of scrimmage, that should mean we are able to keep them out of the end zone, and we are able to score early and often. Their defense may have some playmakers, and may be used to playing option schemes, but they probably are not used to seeing a scheme as good as Johnson’s, and they definitely are not used to playing a team with our athletes or depth.

This game will be more about getting a look at the defense as a whole, and the offensive line, to see if we have improved those areas like we needed to do. We may not really be able to see if the O line has gotten that much better. I would hope that our O line last year, even as bad as it was, would have outplayed an FCS defensive line. Defensively on the other hand, we should be able to see if we have improved. They have an experienced and skillful quarterback and an offensive line that is good by FCS standards. If our defense can shut them down for at least the first 4 or 5 possessions, we should be pretty good. If we can’t dominate them, but we can at least keep them out of the end zone and force a few punts, then we may be a decent defense. Why do I say just the first 4 or 5 possessions? Well, ideally I would like to play well the whole game, but I don’t really care if we get sloppy on defense after it is 35-0.

Offensively, I expect to score early and often. We have plenty of experience, more depth and talent at offensive line than we have had under Johnson, and Anthony Allen, Stephen Hill, Joshua Nesbitt should simply be too athletic for their defense to stop.

So here are my goals for the game:

Defense

- Hold them under 250 total yards

- Hold them without any touchdowns

- Force 3 and outs on 50% of their first half possessions

Offense

- Score touchdowns on our first three drives

- Run for 400 yards

- Score at least 45 points

- Get Tevin Washington some snaps, and possibly David Sims

Those are pretty lofty goals, but if we are as good as I think we can be, all of that is possible. I won’t be too excited no matter what happens, mostly because of the 2007 season. For those that don’t remember, we were supposed to be very good, and after winning easily at Notre Dame, we beat Samford 70-3 or something, and I thought we were real good. And we proceeded to go 4-4 in the ACC and get Gailey fired. So dominating a weaker team is not a guarantee of a good season. But nevertheless, accomplishing the goals I set above would be very encouraging.

Only about 40 more hours until toe FINALLY meets leather.

As always,

Go Jackets!