No. 15 Blazers kick off GSC schedule at Shorter

Sep. 24—VALDOSTA — No. 15 Valdosta State football got its groove back in a 55-7 win over Miles College last week.

Saturday, the Blazers (2-1) visit the Shorter Hawks (2-1) to kick off Gulf South Conference play at noon.

"We're super excited to get back on the road," VSU head coach Tremaine Jackson said. "We did some really cool things on the road last week. We were able to get to the hotel and have our Fellowship Friday in a really tucked off area. The food was good. Nobody was late to meetings. We had a really good trip. I felt like coming into Saturday, because of the way the trip went, that we were going to have some success.

"I'm a big little things guy. When the little things go right on the road, I think you've always got a chance and I think our guys played well for the most part Saturday night."

In the blowout win against Miles, Valdosta State put up the second most yards in school history with 700 on just 65 plays.

Senior quarterback Ivory Durham, GSC and D2Football.com Offensive Player of the Week, threw for 359 yards and a career-best six touchdowns last week — giving him 11 in his last two games.

Durham also spearheaded the rushing attack with 10 carries for 113 yards. Senior running back Jamar Thompkins has 12 carries for 102 yards and a touchdown. Former Lowndes High School product Travis Tisdale came in late for two carries for 46 yards and a touchdown.

The Blazers called more designed runs for Durham and have made it a point to feature Thompkins more over the first three games.

"Any time you've got a couple of guys that can run the football, you're pretty good," Jackson said. "Everybody's seen that three-headed monster before. What was really good is a guy like Travis Tisdale and James Chaney got in the game. They were able to continue the run game. We feel really good about our run game. We played a couple of different offensive linemen. We want to continue to grow our run game because we're going to need that. You run the ball to win championships. Everybody knows that, so we certainly are encouraged by the production of all those guys."

Last week was also big for the Blazers' receiving corps as Council Allen caught four balls for 106 yards and a touchdown while Davie Henderson had three grabs for 89 yards and a score.

Despite the prolific offensive display, Jackson did not like that the offense missed a couple of checks, some execution miscues with getting the correct calls to the receivers in the running game and not holding their blocks long enough at times. In fact, Jackson feels his team could've done more damage than they did.

"It was good, but when you're a coach and you analyze it, you look at what you missed," Jackson said. "We missed some things and they know that. They want to correct those things. We try not to get tied up in the numbers and things of that nature. We try to get tied up in the execution of what we do and try to find out who we are. We still don't know that fully yet because we continue to miss things. I don't know if we'll ever know, but we believe in perfection and we're certainly trying to get there.

"So, it was exciting. It was exciting for our fans. They got off my back for a week. ... I feel like we could've done more that night. We're trying to get ready for a really tough conference. That was our last non-conference game and when you're trying to get ready for what I believe is the best conference in all of Division II, you want to make sure you're cleaning up a lot of things and getting ready for a really good Shorter team."

Defensively, the Blazers allowed just seven points, — easily a season-low. The defense allowed 184 total yards last week with 115 of those coming on the ground; an improvement from the 305 the Blazers allowed to Virginia Union in Week 2.

Terrell Dudley led the charge with nine solo tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack against Miles.

"We put the training wheels on 'em and we'll keep those training wheels on until they're ready to ride," Jackson said of his defense. "We changed some things structurally. We tried to put extra hitters on the field and put extra hitters in some places. I had to realize that we haven't been together that long. No matter what it feels like in this town, we've only been together for nine months.

"There were some things defensively where we've had some struggles in previous years that showed back up at different times. We specialize in defense, but it doesn't happen overnight. We wanted to make sure we put our players in the very best position to make plays and build confidence as we go throughout the season."

Shorter comes into Saturday looking to bounce back after a 42-20 loss to No. 21 Albany State last week.

The Hawks allowed 517 yards of total offense to the Rams, who hit them for 246 yards through the air and 271 on the ground.

The Rams went ahead 14-0 early and led 21-14 at halftime, but in the second half, they outscored the Hawks 21-6 for the win.

Hawks quarterback Aeneas Dennis went 12 of 22 for 178 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Dennis' backup Harold Cook went 5 of 9 for 110 yards and a touchdown.

Dorian Anderson led the Hawks' offense with five catches for 131 yards and a touchdown.

Defensively, the Hawks got a team-high nine tackles from Bryan Rice as well as five tackles and an interception from Artellious Edmonds in the loss.

When asked about the Hawks, Jackson put his focus on handling the tight end platoon of 6-foot-6, 245-pound John Dietl III and 6-foot-7, 245-pound Kyle Morlock. Deitl and Morlock have combined for 15 catches, 191 yards and four touchdowns in the Hawks' first three games.

Though the Hawks went 0-7 in the GSC last season, Jackson insists this isn't a team to be taken lightly.

"We don't underestimate anybody," Jackson said. "The Shorter team we're about to play is really good. They've got two really big tight ends, they look like Rob Gronkowski. Those are really good players and for them, to beat Valdosta State would solidify their season. We know that. That's everybody though. We're trying to find out who we are, but this Shorter football team is not what people are used to. They're good."

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