In a game that many have seen before, but increasingly few seem to want to watch, Georgia State was thumped by Tennessee-Chattanooga 42-14 on Saturday at the Georgia Dome.
The announced attendance was 14,952 and the actual attendance was 5,195, according to Georgia State, as the Panthers lost their second consecutive game to an FCS-level opponent. Georgia State will play West Virginia in Morgantown next week.
That so few were there may have been a blessing. The Panthers failed to crack 100 yards in offense until the fourth quarter. The defense was steamrolled for 509 yards. The day even started poorly when two of the starting kickers were late for a meeting.
Saturday’s game was an all-around beating, and coach Trent Miles wasn’t in a forgiving mood afterward. He repeatedly said he wasn’t blaming the players, but was blunt when asked if this is the team people told him about when he was hired in December.
“This is what I’d heard about,” Miles said. “That’s what I saw today. I feel sorry for the administration. I saw a better football team across the field on this day.”
During the week, Miles said the Panthers would play more physically in an attempt to improve a rushing attack that gained 72 yards last week. Instead, the Panthers rushed for a school-record low of 30 yards, 16 less than the previous record against South Alabama in 2010.
“We tried to spread it out and run and couldn’t get movement,” Miles said. “We tried to pack it in and run and couldn’t get movement.”
The Mocs did the pushing, rushing for 401 yards. Keon Williams led Tennessee-Chattanooga with 20 carries for 147 yards and a touchdown.
“We didn’t compete,” Miles said. “It was really embarrassing to be quite honest with you. Our young men didn’t line up in the correct spots, and at a lot of times didn’t do what they were asked to do on our defensive side.”
While the Panthers cleaned up some of the special-teams issues from last week — which included a kickoff return for a touchdown and a blocked punt — it was the Mocs’ special teams that shined, with several long returns and a special play that led to a touchdown.
And Georgia State’s defense, mostly solid last week, couldn’t get a read on slowing the Mocs’ read-option offense, led by quarterback Jacob Huesman. He completed 9 of 13 passes for 84 yards and two touchdowns, and rushed 12 times for 84 yards and two more touchdowns.
“It’s going to get tough around here,” Miles said. “We’re going to be tough in practice: But you know, I’ll tell you right now the No. 1 thing we’re going to do, other than work on all the details and coach our guys as hard as we can every day, (is) we’re going to recruit.”
Miles paused before repeating the last part slowly: “We’re going to recruit because that was the glaring thing to me today.”
The only excitement early for Georgia State’s students came at halftime when $10,000 in vouchers was released from the rafters in a “cash drop” promo. Each student may have gone home several hundred dollars richer.
The Mocs jumped out quickly on scoring runs of 2 yards by Williams, a 27-yard pass from Huesman to tight end Faysal Shafaat on a trick play on fourth down, and a 9-yard Huesman-to-Shafaat pass with 6:16 left in the second quarter.
Those who stuck around for the second half finally got something to cheer about in the fourth quarter.
Georgia State’s first score came on a 5-yard pass from Ben McLane to Albert Wilson with 12:55 left in the game. McLane, who came in for the ineffective Ronnie Bell in the fourth quarter, found Wilson again on the next drive for a 30-yard touchdown pass. Miles said Bell was running for his life for most of the game. He said the quarterback competition will remain open, as it has been.
“They manhandled us up front,” Miles said. “They got pressure on our quarterback. They hit him.”
The Panthers’ scores came mostly with the first-team offense facing the Mocs’ second-team defense, which wasn’t lost on Miles.
“I saw a very poor FCS team in blue,” he said. “That’s what I saw.”
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