Game Stats
STATESBORO, Ga. - Sophomore quarterback Chaz Williams (127) and senior slotback Zzream Walden (115) each established new career rushing bests and combined for three touchdowns to lead Georgia Southern to a 52-7 Southern Conference football victory over VMI Saturday afternoon at Paulson Stadium.
The Eagles racked up 575 yards of total offense, including 495 ground yards, during the last scheduled football meeting between the twoschools as the Keydets will begin play in the Big South Conference next fall. Georgia Southern's defensive unit allowed a season-low 43 rushing yards during the contest and kept VMI scoreless until quarterback Joey Gibson found Pedro Garcia on a five-yard scoring toss with just 3:21 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Williams' performance, which topped a pair of 120-yard efforts against Gardner-Webb earlier this season and Chattanooga last week, marked the just third time in the last three years that an Eagle quarterback has recorded back-to-back 100-yard rushing games. He also completed three-of-six passes for 51 yards before sitting out the fourth quarter.
Walden, who averaged 19.2 yards a carry after picking up his 115 yards on just six attempts, scored twice in the opening half - the first to
open the game on a personal-best 44-yard run. The effort marked the second century-mark performance of his career and first since 2000 when he picked up 106 against Johnson C. Smith.
Despite its struggles on the ground, VMI (2-4, 0-3 SoCon) got another strong outing from quarterback Joey Gibson, who completed 16-of-34 passes for 196 yards. The Eagles held the Keydets to its lowest scoring output of the season and limited their 10th consecutive regular season opponent to 14 or fewer points.
Georgia Southern (3-2, 2-1) cashed in its first four possessions to build a 24-0 lead early in the second quarter, including a season-high 17-point in the game's first 15 minutes.
After Walden's 44-yard run gave GSU a 7-0 lead, senior safety David Young set up Scott Shelton's 26-yard field goal by blocking his sixth career punt - third against VMI - to end the Keydets' second series.
Williams added a one-yard scoring plunge on the Eagles' next possession with 1:17 left in the first quarter before Walden took a pitch in from seven yards out at the 12:20 mark of the second period.
VMI had its most serious threat of the first half stopped at the GSU six-yard line with 9:22 remaining in the half. After a GSU illegal participation foul and a pair of Gibson pass completions to T.J. Snelling got the Keydets inside the Eagle redzone, Georgia Southern forced three straight incompletions, the last on a fourth-down-and-five situation six yards shy of the GSU endzone, to thwart a potential score.
Senior Anthony Williams provided the Eagles' highlight, using a key block by Young to post an 87-yard touchdown return with 2:47 left in the first half. On the return, Williams became Georgia Southern's all-time punt return yardage leader, eclipsing the former standard of 864 yards set by Dexter Dawson from 1992 to 1995.
The Keydets, who amassed just 91 yards during the first 30 minutes, rallied behind Gibson who completed nine of 16 passes for 125 yards in the second half - including his TD toss to Garcia.
With the victory, GSU has now won 30 of its last 31 regular season home contests dating back to September, 1997 and 21 of their last 22 SoCon games.
Georgia Southern will travel to Western Carolina next Saturday for a 2:00 p.m. start while VMI returns home to host Wofford in a 1:00 p.m. matchup at Alumni Memorial Field.
VMI COACH CAL MCCOMBS -
" It wasn't pretty, and to be honest, it was embarrasing. We wanted to be able to play them more competitive, and the thing they did a great job with today is they had a really good front four that was able to put a lot of pressure on our quarterback today. And they got some athletes in the secondary and thet played a lot of man free and we just could not get open in the secondary. They just manned up on us and said, let's see if your're good enough to beat us. On defense we thought we would try to do what we did last year and keep the ball from the perimeter and keep the ball inside .Up inside we were better inside today than outside - they took the ball on the perimeter and the thing that beat us today more than there quarterback and fullback were their two slotbacks and their play action passes. We didn't do a good job playing their perimeter game. We didn't help ourselves in special teams. "
"We've got to get back in there Monday and go to work because we have six more ballgames to play. We've got to play like we're capable and win a football game."
