VSU football back home to battle West Alabama

Oct. 8—VALDOSTA — For the first time since Sept. 10, the Valdosta State Blazers (3-2, 1-1 Gulf South Conference) are back at home to face the West Alabama Tigers (3-2, 1-1 GSC) Saturday evening.

The Blazers, who plummeted from the AFCA Top 25 Poll this week following a 70-31 loss to No. 13 Delta State last weekend, are glad to be back in familiar surrounding after a challenging road trip.

"We've been gone for three weeks. I do believe that three weeks being away from here was really good for us," VSU head coach Tremaine Jackson said Wednesday. "It was good for our program. It was good for our coaching staff to get to know our kids a little bit better. It was good for our kids to get to know our kids better but no doubt, it's better when you can sleep in your own bed. It's better when you can go to your house after the game. It's better when your family can make it to the game. We're definitely ready to be back. It's Pink Out night and that's very near and dear to some of our players' hearts with people that they know that survived cancer and all forms of cancer, but especially breast cancer. It should be a good night."

The 70 points the Blazers allowed last week was a school record.

Delta State led 42-17 at halftime and 63-17 after three quarters in the most lopsided loss the Blazers have experienced since the 58-17 loss to Ferris State in the 2021 national championship game. The Statesmen had 703 total yards — passing for 416 and rushing for another 287. In all, the Statesmen ran 89 plays for an eye-popping 7.9 yards per play.

Prior to last week's game, Jackson called it "a measuring stick". Wednesday, Jackson called the blowout loss a slap across the face.

"I look at it as sometimes you need to be slapped to figure out which way you need to go, and that was our slapping," Jackson said. "We had been doing some things here and there during the season where we were not well here but we got away and we snuck out. Well, we didn't do a lot of stuff well the other night. So now we've taken that and we know exactly what we're good at and we can focus on those things and not be doing other things we might see on film. Just being who we are is what we took from that the other night. and when you look at the other night, the game kind of got out of hand because we were trying to score. We probably could've gotten out of there and it not been the score that it was, but every time we walk out there, we're trying to win. Some of those times we went three and out, we were struggling on defense. I don't regret that at all. We were trying to win. We did do some good things that we're going to take from that on who we are to try to move forward with that."

One area that has been a sore spot for the Blazers is getting off to slow starts.

Through their first five games, the Blazers have trailed in the first half in four of them and while they were able to beat Keiser and Shorter, the slow starts were fatal in their losses to Virginia Union and Delta State.

"It's always important for us to get off to a fast start in everything," Jackson said. "I think people focus more offensively because they want you to go down and score. We've been getting off to a bad start as a football team, so we've emphasized and emphasized and we continue to and we're going to beat it like it's a dead horse until we get it right. Hopefully, we do start fast. We're going to do something that we hadn't done before in the game and try to see if that works. If that works, then we'll continue to do that the rest of the season. We're certainly not trying to start slow, but you've got to give credit for coaching. They have good plans against us in the beginning so we've got to try to play that great chess game early on and win it."

The Tigers defeated the Shorter Hawks 37-14 last week, putting up 418 total yards — 338 coming from the rushing attack. The Tigers averaged 6.9 yards per carry with 20 first downs and scored four rushing touchdowns.

Though their passing game wasn't very good against the Hawks — quarterback Jake Corkren hit on just 11 of 28 passes for only 80 yards with an interception — it was the run game that ruled the day for the Tigers. Bry Webb led the way with 15 carries for 164 yards and two scores, while Antonio Brown and Demetrius Battle combined for 168 yards and two trips to the end zone.

Defensively, the Tigers held the Hawks to 215 total yards and 11 first downs. The Hawks managed just 94 yards rushing and completed 16 of 38 passes for 121 yards. The Tiger defense got the Hawks QB Aeneas Dennis four times for sacks last week and managed two sacks on backup Harold Cook in the game.

Jackson acknowledges his team's now well-documented struggles against the run at this point of the season, but also understands the challenges good running teams will present the rest of the way as Webb, Brown and Battle come into Bazemore-Hyder Stadium.

"All of them give us fits," Jackson said of teams that can run the ball. "When you have a defense that has a problem right now stopping the run, smothering the run, and you cut on the tape and you see a guy go 80 yards on one of the first plays of thee game against Shorter and you see another guy who's 6-2, 240, you start wondering like, 'Man, we've got to get this guy down. We've got to come up with a plan to get these guys down.'

"They're really good at tailback. They've had some struggles in the passing game, but they haven't needed to pass the ball very much. I think they rushed for 338 last week against Shorter so any time you're rushing for 300-plus yards, you're going to run the ball and they're playing really good defense. All of them are scary and we've got to have a plan for all three of those guys."

The Blazers are hoping to build on the things they did well against Delta State — although few, according to Jackson.

Offensively, the Blazers produced 420 yards on 68 plays — 240 through the air and 180 on the ground for an average of 6.2 yards per play.

Senior quarterback Ivory Durham completed 18 of 37 passes for 185 yards with two touchdown and one interception. Durham also had seven carries for 34 yards.

Seth McGill completed a 55-yard touchdown pass to Ted Hurst, who caught two touchdowns in the loss. McGill also had 10 carries for 79 yards. Jamar Thompkins had a quiet night with seven carries for 32 yards, while former Lowndes High School star Travis Tisdale had six carries for 35 yards and a touchdown.

Heading into Saturday's matchup, Jackson looks to get his trio of 1,000-yard rushers from a season ago going early and often against the Tigers.

"We hope those guys experience a big night no matter what they've done," Jackson said. "Those guys are good enough players to have their way when they execute in the right manner. We're going to always try to be us. We know in order to win championships you've got to run the football. That just is what it is. We're going to always try to establish the run game. Everybody in our league knows that. They're probably tired of hearing those names, but we definitely have to have an overall plan to make some plays on this defense. This defense is really, really good that they have."

Kickoff for Saturday's game is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.