PC 26 - Gardner-Webb 24

[elcid83]

Homecoming is always supposed to be a fun time in College football. This was especially true for GW as we had been on the road for five weeks and we were all ready to play a home game. The GW administration pulled out all of the stops for the alumni and brought The Embers out to play a pre-game warm-up show. If you're a beach music lover, you know these guys are good. [It was lots of fun for the older folks, but didn't do much to impress the younger alumni and the current students.] Over 6,000 were on hand to cheer on the Runnin' Bulldogs. As it was time to kick-off, the GW band and cheerleaders led our boys out onto the field.



Gardner-Webb jumped out to a 7-0 lead quickly to start the game, driving 65 yards on just seven plays. Rock capped the scoring march with a one-yard sneak at the 11:59 mark in the first quarter.



The loss spoiled a career-best day for Patrick Hall, who carried 21 times for a career-high 137 yards and two touchdowns.





Gardner-Webb finished with 269 total yards, with Rock completing 12-of-20 passes for 154 yards and one interception.









Preston Pemasa had a career-high 10 tackles (seven solo) and two tackles for loss. Brian Wittenberger added a career-high 10 tackles and a sack.

Preston is #52


Whittenberger is #49



I don't have any idea why PC beat GW today. PC certainly showed up to play this game. I'll be disappointed if PC doesn't win another game this year. In looking at the game stats, it appears that PC's QB sacks may have been the difference. I don't think this was due to slack O line play, but may have been more attributable to our QB holding the ball a little long to see if a play develops. Hopefully we will get this fixed and move on to the rest of the season.

The win for Presbyterian (1-6, 1-2 Big South) snapped the nation’s longest losing streak in the Football Championship Subdivision at 20 games and spoiled Homecoming for the Runnin’ Bulldogs (3-4, 2-1 Big South). In an effort to honorably recognize PC's victory, here are a couple of pics of the PC fanbase on hand to witness the end of their losing streak. These pics are also offered to thwart all of the thousands of PC fans who will claim they were in Boiling Springs on this historic day.





Gardner-Webb welcomes Coastal Carolina at 1:30 pm on Saturday, October 30. GW remains in control of its own destiny to win the Big South. Of course, they have to win the rest of their games to do so.

Go Runnin' Bulldogs!

[RedZone+7]

ElCid83: You dont have any idea why PC won this game?? I think there is enough blame to go around than just sacks in a game! Where is our defense and why are we not racking up the sacks?? Our punting game and special teams?? Let's hope we get all these issues corrected and move on.

[ToTheLeft]

PC's defense did a terrific job of adapting to G-W's offense. They would allow a nice drive, but then come out and shut down the Runnin' Bulldogs the next time. Coaching wise, PC was the better coached team during the game, and since the bounces went their way in addition to being well coached, it made up for the lack of talent (although PC does have some talent, it's not the same as G-W, even an injured G-W).

I'm still worried about either of these teams catching LU napping. Either is capable of winning against the Flames, especially a game in Clinton (where the tea is sweet, and the "t" is silent"... stupidest commercials ever.)

These last four games will be a very good test for LU. Make it through these and we'll finally have done what we needed to do. 2 home, 2 away. 2 against new teams to the BSC who have beaten us to keep us out of the playoffs recently. 2 against old familiar foes. This conference, for being as lowly as it is, is gonna have a fun month. The Runnin' Bulldogs control their own destiny. As do the Flames and the Seawolves. Should make for a great month.

[OL FU]

Congrats to the Hose for winning their first in a long time.

[89Hen]

Not you Elcid, but there were several G-W fans yapping an awful lot last year and off-season. What's happened?

[BigDawgPop]

Injuries at key positions, playing and coaching down to your competition.

[EagleDawg]

89Hen - I'll take your post as a little poke at me and it is deserved. I just come from the old school if you don't have a lot of positive stuff to say, it's best not to speak. While the problems for G-Dubb football are many and most can be fixed excluding the current injury situation I am uncertain whether they will be fixed. I do concur with ElCid that several plays were affected by our QB holding the ball too long waiting for a play to develop or the receiver to spring open. That is something you can't do when you have 5 blocking 6 or 6 blocking 7. At least for the PC game, it appeared that we ran the ball with regular success and to hear the comments from those in the stands should have run it more. I recall at least one series in the 2nd half that we had 3rd and 3 and go empty backfield on PC's side of the field. With our OL, you gotta figure at some point in time, we gotta put in a power formation and say we're gonna run it right at you even if it takes both 3rd and 4th down to do it. In defense of our QB he made some really nice reads and throws in last week's game at CSU to our TE and our RB on a wheel route so he has the ability to do those things in a tight game deep into the 2nd half but for whatever reason and I would hope they are easily identified and corrected by the coaching staff he didn't.

To wrap up, as bad a taste as it left in our mouth's to lose to PC, I'm hopeful that the one lesson that the team can take from this (players and coaches) is that absolutely no game can be approached with less than the best preparation and best performance possible for that given week. I have little doubt that as a whole, the players didn't show up with the respect that should be there for every opponent and the coaches didn't push the right buttons to change that attitude leading up to the game, in the game or make the type of technical adjustments to overcome it. You leave a hungry team like PC in the ball game as time goes on they gain the confidence that they can win it and the favored team starts to tighten up. Congrats to PC, the losing streak is off your back at G-Dubb's expense.

Next up for G-Dubb are the Beach Chickens from CCU. Talk about a game where both teams need a win in the worst way and that's what you have on tap this Saturday. CCU holds a win streak against the Runnin Bulldogs, here's hoping that a streak is broken in Boiling Springs on 2 consecutive Saturday's. If it happens, there will be and if it doesn't more

[EagleDawg]

A couple of head coach quotes from the Shelby Star:

GWU Head Coach Steve Patton

“We had too many sacks and lost yardage plays,” said GWU head coach Steve Patton, shaking his head. “We had some breakdowns in our offensive line, and also, John (Rock) should have thrown the ball a couple of times. No yardage is better than lost yardage.”

PC Head Coach Howard Nichols

“Our defensive coordinator came up with a couple of things for us to try,” PC head coach Harold Nichols said, “and we were able to get pressure on him. But whether it was slanting guys one time, or bringing five or six on the next play, we just had some guys play well. It’s not always about schemes, it’s about out-playing that guy in front of you one-on-one.”

Notable stat line

Presbyterian had racked up only six sacks this season in an 0-6 start. The Blue Hose dropped GWU quarterback nine times for losses in their 26-24 win.

GWU Passsing 12-20-1 int, 9 sacks so 12-30 on pass plays = 40% positive pass play conversion rate, 188 yrs rushing on 45 plays = 4.17 yds per rush average.

Some fans in the stands questioned why we didn't run more or leave the RB in the backfield for better pass protection when running a pass play. Given that PC had averaged less than 1 sack per game coming in against GWU and racked up 9 resulting in 63 lost yards those would appear to be good questions. What say anyone else? Tough to lose 19% of your total yards to negative plays from sacks.

[gobluehose]

Having followed the Big South since PC has been in, GW has always been a pass first team - really GW has been a pass 1st-2nd-3rd-run-only-if-you-have-to-kind-of-team. This year, due to a new QB or injuries or whatever, it seems that GW has lost its offensive identity. Anytime a team that runs 4 and 5 wide most of the time has less that 150 through the air, there is something wrong. Meanwhile, PC has not had an identity on O or D all year and I think finally found both resulting in a much needed win. Also, though PC was 0-6, they were and are 2nd in the league in pass defense. I think this had something to do with receivers not being open as well.

Good Luck to GW the rest of the season. Beat the Beach Chickens!

Oh, and great pics by the way.....very nice work.

[g-webb1994]

Nice pics elcid, as always, hopefully you'll be able to post a picture of Patton and his staff in the unemployment line in due course. As I said in another thread, the G-W administration made the needed change to re-energize the mens hoops program, and doing the same for football is needed.

All teams have injuries...bottom line, G-W across the board has more talent on the roster than PC, by a wide margin. No excuses, we got whipped and embarrassed.