Khadrice Rollins
krollins@ajc.com
In the war of attrition that is a football season, Georgia State must turn to its reserves at a crucial point in the year.
After picking up a much-needed win last week on homecoming, the Panthers (2-5, 1-2 Sun Belt) will travel to Mobile, Alabama to go up against conference rival South Alabama (3-4, 0-4). Last week, GSU turned to a fair amount of bench players to step into starting roles, and they delivered, but it wasn’t without a bit of tinkering.
“You have to get creative on what you’re doing,” coach Trent Miles said. “You have to tailor things to help their abilities. You bring guys in and now all of a sudden you’ve been running a certain system, and they might not fit that system as well, so you got to tailor what you do around their abilities.”
On offense, the Panthers are being forced to rely on young guys to fill in for some of their key upperclassmen. Freshman running back Darius Stubbs got the bulk of the carries at the position with junior Kyler Neal on the bench with a high ankle sprain. Miles said he expects Neal to be out a few more weeks, but said that with Stubbs he has a strong runner who knows what to do when he’s asked to tote the rock.
Joining Stubbs in the backfield was redshirt freshman quarterback Aaron Winchester. Winchester was a late addition to the starting lineup against UT Martin after Conner Manning went down with an injury in practice last Thursday. Miles said the team scrambled to adjust the gameplan to fit the more athletic Winchester and with Manning’s status still unknown for Saturday, they will continue to adjust as necessary.
“I add another element being able to use my legs in the running game, and doing different things as far as out the pocket and making plays when stuff breaks down,” Winchester said. “But we’re used to. All training camp I’ve been running with the ones sometimes, sometimes with the twos, so it’s nothing new to us.”
But for Winchester and Stubbs, there was an extra level of comfort that helped them out last week.
“Since I’ve been (practicing) with the twos, it’s usually me and Aaron in there anyway, so I felt like we had a good connection going in,” Stubbs said.
On the defensive end, injuries are also forcing the coaches to move guys up on the depth chart, but the replacements have a bit more experience then the guys filling in on offense. Sophomore defensive end Marterious Allen moved to the inside last week and his fumble recovery returned for a touchdown in the third quarter gave the Panthers some separation from UT Martin en route to the 31-6 victory. Along with Allen, junior cornerback B.J. Clay snatched two interceptions, and took one of them back to the house the possession after Allen’s scoop and score.
With Jerome Smith now expected to be out for a while with his broken hand, Clay will continue to fill in as the starter. As he prepares for life with more responsibility, Clay said he is making sure to take things slowly.
“I’m just trying take things day by day, play by play, just go as hard as I can while I can for as long as I can,” Clay said. “Try to help the team. Just filling in for guys like Jerome, playing behind (cornerback) Chandon (Sullivan) and always trying to do the best that I can do.”
