First, Maine gave Georgia State’s Bill Curry a splendid pair of L.L. Bean all-weather boots in appreciation of a long coaching career ending Saturday.
Then came kickoff. And the Black Bears well and truly booted the rest of the Panthers.
Running with little resistance through GSU’s banged-up defensive line, finding its receivers working downfield in blissful solitude, Maine overwhelmed the Panthers 51-7.
“We played very, very poorly,” Curry said. “We expected to finish the season well and simply didn’t get ourselves ready.
“When Maine played at their best this year, they’re a really good football team. We didn’t test them to find out if they had to play their best,” said Georgia State’s 70-year-old foundation coach, who announced before the season that this would be his final season on the sideline.
Stephen King, an author from these parts, could not have written a more horrific ending to Georgia State’s 1-10 season nor to Curry’s 20-year coaching career.
Maine, 4-6, used Saturday to compile some impressive statistics to keep it warm through the long winter. It totaled 594 yards of offense (averaging 9.1 yards per play), gaining 332 of those on the ground.
Maine quarterback Marcus Wasilewski broke loose on a 46-yard run on the game’s first play. Consider the tone set. Maine drove 90 yards in nine plays on that initial drive to score first.
As it had been doing for seemingly all of this season, Georgia State was playing from behind. And there would be no catching up this day as Georgia State’s defense gave up 435 yards in just the first half, and its offense threw four interceptions in the second (finishing the season with a minus-20 turnover-to-takeaway ratio).
Wasilewski threw for four touchdowns, and none of them were cheapies — going for 17, 76, 69 and 24 yards.
The result was the most lopsided loss this season, as well as the worst loss to a non-BCS team in the three years of the program’s existence.
“We wanted to win this one for a lot of people — the seniors, coach Curry, ourselves as a whole,” quarterback Ben McLane said. “As a team we deserved another win. We worked hard. It’s a shame it has to end like this.”
Added Curry on the ugly end to his coaching career: “I’m just numb. I haven’t focused on the fact that this is actually the last hurrah.”
