Georgia State coach Bill Curry thought his team was prepared for Old Dominion’s special teams. He thought his team was prepared to face the Monarchs’ hurry-up offense. He thought his team wouldn’t make the same “stupid” penalties and errors it made in last year’s loss.
Well, they weren’t and they did.
In Curry’s worst-case scenario, the Monarchs used a blocked punt, a partially blocked punt, three turnovers and seven GSU penalties to defeat the Panthers 40-17 on Saturday at a mostly-empty Georgia Dome.
“I would love to play a good game against Old Dominion one day,” Curry said. “We always seem to play our worst.”
Curry said his team prepared well all week, arguably the best he has seen. Perhaps they were remembering last year’s 34-20 defeat in Virginia. They were pumped and focused during warm-ups. But when the game started, they just couldn’t get into a groove.
Quarterback Bo Schlechter, so composed in last week’s season-opening win, was tipping his plays by locking onto his receivers, or simply overthrowing them. He finished 10-of-27 and threw one of the team’s three intercepted passes.
The defense, very active last week, couldn’t stop Old Dominion’s running game in the first and fourth quarters. The Panthers allowed 278 rushing yards and 405 yards total.
Lastly, the special teams wilted, allowing the blocked punts as well as committing three penalties that wiped out good punt returns.
“What happened today was a failure of leadership by all of us,” Curry said. “I seldom felt better about preparation and seldom felt worse about a result.”
The blocked punts, both by Paul Morant, led to 14 points in the first half, including a demoralizer that helped the Monarchs take a 27-17 lead just before halftime. Donald Russell and Travis Evans both scored for the Panthers in the first half. Evans score cut Old Dominion’s lead to 20-17, before the partially blocked punt on Georgia State’s next possession turned the game around.
Further deflating Georgia State’s momentum, the Panthers were inside the 50-yard line on each of their first three possessions in the second half, when they could have climbed back into the game, but were forced to punt each time because of sacks or other mistakes.
“That was huge, absolutely huge,” Curry said.
The Monarchs made the Panthers pay for their offensive inefficiency by scoring a touchdown to make the score 33-17 with 4:27 remaining. Quarterback Thomas DeMarco finished a 86-yard touchdown drive with a keeper. The drive featured several missed tackles by the tiring Panthers defenders, including two on a 24-yard run by Goodwyn that preceded the scoring play.
Old Dominion wasn’t immune from its own errors. However, Georgia State had a hard time taking advantage of them. A fumbled punt return enabled the Panthers to make a field goal in the first quarter, which may have helped settle their nerves. To that point, the Monarchs had a 6-0 lead, but were moving the ball well. Georgia State couldn’t get out of its own way, going three-and-out on its first two drives.
“We did lose focus, but the focus was lost by the turnovers and us not clicking like we needed to,” Schlechter said. “And then that brought the lack of focus because we wondered ‘What are we going to do now?’”
Curry eventually pulled Schlechter, who was making his second start, in favor of Drew Little, just before the start of the fourth quarter. Little, last year’s starter who was suspended for the spring and didn’t play in the season opener, didn’t fare much better.
With the Panthers driving inside the 20-yard line, Little was intercepted after his pass was tipped by an onrushing defender.
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