Georgia Southern Eagles 2022 College Football Preview
July 17, 2022
2021 Recap
Record – 3-9
ATS – 6-6
The Eagles struggled to a mark of 3-9 which was their first losing campaign since 2017 when they finished 2-10. In fact, last year was really disappointing when you consider that they were 25-14 (.641) from 2018 thru 2020. Georgia Southern didn’t even beat anyone of consequence as their victims were a collection of TOMATO CANS.
There’s hope on the horizon tho as Georgia Southern brings in former USC (!) HC Clay Helton to lead the progam. Let’s go!
Georgia Southern Eagles 2022 Outlook
OFFENSE
The offense was OFFENSIVE last year as the Eagles managed just 20.3 PPG (dead last Sun Belt) whilst suffering a massive drop in production on the ground (267 YPG to 193 YPG) and doing nothing thru the air (#124 FBS passing offense). Clay Helton and company are gonna move these guys to a more traditional attack with a THROW GAME focus and the new starting QB will be former Buffalo Bull Kyle Vantrease who was decent in a run-focused Buffalo offense (15-9 TD to INT L2Y, 62% completions). The top-three players in terms of receiving yards are back in the mix but note that nobody had 500+ yards LY and the leader in TD receptions was TE Beau Johnson (3). Adding Houston WR Jeremy Singleton will help but it’s unclear how much production the Eagles can expect from the air attack. The RB unit is very deep despite the loss of #1 rusher Logan Wright and recall that JD King had 804 yards on the ground in 2019 (7.0 !). Georgia Southern will feature four upperclassmen starters up front and should be fine despite the big shift in philosophy. We expect the Eagles to be about a TD better per game on offense in 2022.
DEFENSE
Georgia Southern was a mess on defense LY and went from allowing 20.8 PPG and 326 YPG to 31.4 and 442 respectively. Not good, yo. New DC Will Harris has just five returning starters to work with but there are some decent holdover pieces. The DE combo of Justin Ellis and Dillon Springer combined for 8.5 sacks and 9 QBH LY and leading tackler safety Anthony Wilson leads an experienced secondary. LB looks like a bit of a black hole and they’ll have to be a LOT better defending the pass overall (#119 FBS pass efficiency D LY, 28-5 TD to INT!). It’s hard to expect more than mild improvement on this side of the football.
SPECIAL TEAMS
The Eagles were mediocre on special teams LY but the good news is that everyone of consequence is back for another run in 2022. The kicking game looks average and they really need to SPICE up the return game.
Schedule Analysis
Overall – There are two nasty road games to deal with in non-conference play (UAB, CORN) but they also face a pair of cupcakes at home (Morgan St, Ball St). They have a stretch of five road games in seven weeks starting in week two and their final three games are nasty (at Cajuns, Marshall, App St).
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – October 22 – at Old Dominion
This will be the Eagles’ 5th road game in seven weeks and there’s a bye week up next. Not a great spot to battle an improving Monarchs program.
Season Win Total
per BetOnline July 17
Over 4.5 +120
Under 4.5 -150
MEGALOCKS says:
No leanage.
We have them booked for four or five wins.
MEGAmazing Tidbit
Clay Helton was 46-24 (.657) with the Trojans but he didn’t garner much love with PUNTERS as he was just 31-39 (44%) vs Vegas.
MEGALOCKS Outlook:
It’ll be interesting to see how quickly the Eagles can develop a productive modern attack. The offense should be fine but we’re not sold on the talent on defense and they play in the rough and tough FUN BELT East division. There was a yuuuge coaching staff upgrade in Statesboro but we’ll call for them to miss out on a bowl game and build towards 2023.
Want more Georgia Southern football ?
WEBSITE
https://gseagles.com/sports/football
FORUM
http://www.gsufans.com/tsc/forum.php
NEWS
https://www.underdogdynasty.com/georgia-southern-eagles
http://www.thegeorgeanne.com/sports/
http://www.espn.com/college-football/team/_/id/290/georgia-southern-eagles
Offense went 99 rating roster cheat code in the spring game .. D couldn’t make a tackle .. maybe its spring game blues but lotta missed tackles for big gains O couldn’t miss .. I suspect this D is in biiiiig trouble.. also ton of passing and while tough to tell for sure it does seem like they weren’t melting the play clock at all and saw a couple hurry up stints ..
Books obvi know these guys are likely stinkin this year but maybe we can hope they haven’t thrown out all the legacy G-SO stats to set the lines and totals with .. if not then maybe we can get an early 120 MPH HEATER LOCK laying whatever on Nebraska or hit the total .. Corn should hang a hundo on these guys if they aren’t tooo jet lagged ..
HAA love the HEATER LOCKS Think that CORN game is gonna get U.G.L.Y , thanks for the heads up on the defense I may need to downgrade from mediocre to awful!
Ha yeah .. corn opening up a can for sure !!!!….
Yeah D is trouble for sure .. WR’s did look quick n shifty but its a gaggle of 5’11 slot midgets .. OL also stuck w a bunch of stocky option potatoes .. if the D couldn’t get pressure or cover those WRs and totally hapless tackling anyone then we can go ahead and project them at #130 now lol .. woof ..
Think to look out for though … Total surprise to me they landed Vantrease … I get why he would xfer Buff just never had any WR’s when he was playing def no EPIC Johnson / Osborne duo … maybe one go-to guy each yr and did have Lefabre before he xferred .. combined that w super heavy run first offense .. But did like him he def held Buff together after the EPIC FUN years … But now he’s a sure thing lock of the century 4th year starter and hits the portal in December no idea if he’ll be picked up .. maybe the first gig offered a few days later is G-So’s triple option transition job and he’s like yeah high probability nightmare sign me up, just get me outta buffalo lol .. Buffalo’s QB bench was depleted too maybe lucky to land Rutgers’ 3rd string QB … kid’s from Akron, Moorhead already hired and he could def could use an experienced QB .. mmm sorry mom/dad still gotta fly every week to see me play .. lol what?!…. such a weird move that it only makes sense if he’s just got some serious goods that he couldn’t really show off at Buffalo .. G-So bringing in the Co-OC from WKY and Helton obvi loves passing (maybe too much lol) .. crappy D aside he did look pretty comfortable in the spring game and he’s got a couple good RB’s stickin around .. U heard it here first bud.. #VAN-T4HEISMAN!!!!!..
The Van-GOD ! haaaaa I see him at 140,000-1 for Heisman might be worth four or five units haaaaaa I could see Southern winning four or five games if everything clicks on offense but the Sun Belt is deep yo and like you said that defense is pure filth
Last point point but worth saying … if Van-T is actually much better and the Buff coaches and supporting werent able to get that out of him .. well then you can lock this up right now: BUFFALO SUCKIN SOME MASSIVE DONKEY D!*K THIS YEAR ..
haaaaa 1000 STAR Donkey Dong lock for sure…..Wish I had better karma about the Bulls yo