Michael Shaw and the Georgia State defense took a quick turn.
After they were demolished 56-0 at Penn State on Sept. 16, the Panthers shutout Charlotte 28-0 the following Saturday. Coming off an unexpected off-week because the Memphis game was cancelled, the Panthers hope for more of the latter.
The GSU defense was stout in a Week 1 loss to Tennessee State. It wasn’t as bad against the Nittany Lions as the score indicates – the talent discrepancy simply got the best of them.
The Panthers’ defense is starting to gain confidence, and a team determined to make a bowl game thinks that’s key.
“I feel like if everybody on defense does their job, you make plays in the scheme of the defense,” Shaw said. “As long as I do my job to help out the defense, if I can make plays doing that, that’s always good.”
Making plays is something defensive coordinator Nate Fuqua wants to see Shaw, an outside linebacker, do more often. The third-year starter had 1.5 sacks in Charlotte, but hasn’t scraped the ceiling of his potential yet, Fuqua believes.
“I’d like for him to make some more plays where he’s in position to make them,” Fuqua said. “He did that last game, but with a new scheme, he’s still in a learning process on how to play fast. But he’s still battling and fighting through every play.
“It’s just them trusting in the scheme. It’s new to those guys. Sometimes when you’re a kid, you tell them that stove’s hot. Until you touch it, they’re not going to learn. And we touched a hot stove up there at Penn State. I think it kind of opened up guys’ eyes as to how disciplined you have to be.”
The Suwanee-native Shaw prides himself on intensity, which GSU’s new coaching staff is trying to ingrain into its players. The staff is impressed by Shaw’s energy, but the team’s overall willingness to adopt a more physical philosophy has particularly stood out.
“We’ve been really impressed since we got here,” Fuqua said. “When we tried to change the whole culture in the spring, be a lot more physical than they’re accustomed to, there’s no back down. They’ve done everything from that standpoint.”
Shaw’s emerging as a leader for the Panthers. He’ll be the first to say he doesn’t care about stats or even his sacks. His three years at GSU have made him “smarter and wiser.”
“If I make zero tackles and we win,” he said, “then that’s good for me because we all won. That’s the goal for me.”
His team will need to win at least five more times to qualify for a bowl. It faces road games at Coastal Carolina and Louisiana-Monroe over the next two weeks before (finally) returning home for Troy on Oct. 21. That will be the Panthers’ first home game since the season opener Aug. 31.
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