Game Week, Army

Game Week at Last as Panthers Host Army on National TV

With 22 starters returning from last year's bowl-winning squad, Georgia State opens the 2021 season by hosting Army in a nationally-televised game Saturday at Center Parc Stadium. Kickoff is at 12 noon on ESPNU.
             
Head coach Shawn Elliott's 2020 Panthers earned their third bowl berth in the last four seasons and defeated Western Kentucky 39-21 in the LendingTree Bowl to finish at 6-4 overall, 4-4 in the Sun Belt Conference.
             
Army, coached by Jeff Monken, is coming off a 9-3 season, capped by a 24-21 loss to West Virginia in the Autozone Liberty Bowl. They are receiving votes in the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches preseason polls.
             
The Panthers enter 2021 on a three-game winning streak after ending 2020 with victories over South Alabama, Georgia Southern and Western Kentucky. GSU has won four of its last five games.
             
Georgia State returns all 11 starters on offense and nine starters on defense as well as its punter and placekicker, and 10 of those returnees were named to the Preseason All-Sun Belt Conference team.
             
Top playmakers on offense are sophomore quarterback Cornelious Brown IV, running backs Destin Coates and Tucker Gregg and a bevy of talented pass catchers, including wideouts Sam Pinckney and Cornelius McCoy and tight end Roger Carter. But the backbone of the offense is an experienced offensive line led by four-time all-conference left guard Shamarious Gilmore.
             
That cast will look to pick up where the Panthers left off in 2020, when Georgia State averaged a school-record 33.3 points. GSU returns 97.6 percent of its offensive yardage the 2020 unit that averaged 424.3 yards per game. That includes 100 percent of GSU's passing yardage, 99.1 percent of its rushing yards and 96.4 percent of its receiving yards. Every player who scored a point returns.
             
Defensively, the Panthers return all-conference performers at each level with Dontae Wilson and Hardrick Willis on the defensive line, Blake Carroll at linebacker and cornerback Quavian White and safety Antavious Lane in the secondary. That quintet helped Georgia State rank No. 7 in FBS with a school-record 35 sacks and No. 8 with 21 turnovers forced.
             
Placekicker Noel Ruiz ranks among the FBS active leaders in career points and field goals.
             
Georgia State and Army are meeting in Atlanta for the second time in three years after the Panthers captured the first meeting 28-21 on Oct. 19, 2019. Quarterback Dan Ellington, now on the GSU coaching staff, hit tight end Aubry Payne with the go-ahead 8-yard touchdown pass with 7:41 to play, and the GSU defense made a late stand, sealed by Quavian White's interception at the 2-yard line with one minute left.
             
The game against Army kicks off the most challenging schedule in program history as the Panthers also face a non-conference games against North Carolina and Auburn on the road and Charlotte at home before jumping into Sun Belt Conference play. In all, Georgia State faces seven teams that played in bowl games in 2020, including six foes who won eight or more games.
             
Three GSU opponents are ranked in the Preseason Top 25: North Carolina (No. 10 AP/No. 9 Coaches), Louisiana (No. 23 AP & Coaches) and Coastal Carolina (No. 22 AP/No. 24 Coaches). Auburn (both), Army (both) and App State (Coaches only) are receiving votes. Georgia State is one of just five Group of 5 teams with three preseason ranked opponents on its 2021 schedule.
 
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