Numbers Never Lie: Pigskin Preview 2014

Georgia Southern opens the 2014 Football Season with Atlantic Coast Conference opponent N.C. State on August 30, with the game set for a 12:30 p.m. start at Carter-Finley Stadium. The Wolfpack is one of two ACC teams on the Eagle schedule this year, with a contest at Georgia Tech two weeks later on September 13.

Coach Willie Fritz, who took over as head football coach on January 10, has an 18-3 record in season openers. That includes an 11-1 mark in games played in the month of August.

SEVEN IN STATE
The Eagles play seven games in the state of Georgia this season, five at home with two on the road in Atlanta against first-time opponents. Three of those games in the Peach State will take place in September, with Georgia Southern welcoming Eagle fans to a newly expanded Paulson Stadium for the home opener on Saturday, September 6, with the game at Georgia Tech the following week. The Sun Belt home opener, also the first Thursday night game at Paulson Stadium since the 1989 Hugo Bowl, brings longtime rival Appalachian State to Statesboro for a nationally broadcast ESPNU game on September 25.

With three of their four games in Georgia in October, the Eagles play host to Idaho for Homecoming on October 11, followed with a bye week and then a trip back to Atlanta to play Georgia State. Georgia Southern’s second Thursday night game on ESPNU is set for Halloween eve October 30 vs. Troy.

DOME SWEET DOME
Georgia Southern is 1-0 in games played at the Georgia Dome, defeating Middle Tennessee State on Sept. 9, 1995, as the designated home team. Coach Fritz is 3-1 in games played in NFL stadiums with all four games played at Houston’s Reliant Stadium, now NRG Stadium, during his Sam Houston State tenure.

EXPERIENCED O-LINE
According to statistical calculations by Phil Steele Publications, Georgia Southern has one of the most experienced offensive line units in the nation. Ranked 24th nationally, the Eagles return veterans Logan Daves, Garrett Frye (25), Trevor McBurnett (23) and Manrey Saint-Amour (23), along with upperclassmen Darien Foreman (13), Maurice Hunt Jr., Raymond Klugey and Jeff Ward, all who have at least two starts under their belt.

LEADING IN THE LAST YEAR
For the first time since 2007, when Jayson Foster led the league in rushing, Jerick McKinnon led the Southern Conference (SoCon) in that statistical category. In a similar pattern, safety Deion Stanley had three interceptions to rank at the top of the SoCon list, the first time an Eagle had done so since 2007. Carson Hill had three interceptions that year as the conference leader.

In the team statistics, Georgia Southern maintained its spot at the top of four offensive categories, ranking number one in total offense and rushing offense in back-to-back years in 2012 and 2013, and for the third straight season in scoring offense (2011, 2012 and 2013) and third-down conversions. The Eagles also returned to the top of the rushing defense category in 2013.

THIRTY-FIVE EAGLES POST 3.0 GPA IN SPRING
Thirty-five Eagle Football student-athletes finished the spring 2014 semester with grade point averages of 3.0 or higher. Of that total, 16 were named to the Dean’s List for GPAs of 3.5 and above and two recorded perfect 4.0 GPAs. Twenty-three maintained at least a 3.0 grade point average for the entire 2013-14 academic year and were recognized as members of the Eagle Honor Roll.

POSITION CHANGES
Ezayi Youyoute returns to his original quarterback position this preseason, after injuries kept him off the field for the past year. L.A. Ramsby will bolster the Eagle running attack after spending the spring at quarterback. James Dean, who has played both running back and linebacker, will continue at tight end after moving to that spot in late spring. Vegas Harley, who scored a 31-yard touchdown on his first collegiate carry last year, moves to the defensive side of the ball as a member of the Eagle secondary.

UNIFORM NUMBER CHANGES
Wide receiver B.J. Johnson moves to No. 12 for fall 2014, after wearing No. 81 last year. Safety Zander Yost, who wore a duplicate number during his mandated NCAA transfer year, will wear No. 41. Other number changes include senior running back Dennis Pritchard (43) and cornerback Clifford Saggus (45).

FAMILY PLAN SEASON TICKETS AVAILABLE
Eagle fans can select their season tickets for Georgia Southern’s upcoming 2014 campaign, and experience the historic first year in the FBS and the Sun Belt Conference. The Eagle Family Plan offers a pair of reserved-seat season tickets to all five games for only $145, with each additional ticket at $75 each. Family Plan seating is available in the grass seating area and in Sections JJ and KK in the new mid-deck. Donations to the Georgia Southern Athletic Foundation are not required to purchase these ticket plans for either the grass hill or mid-deck areas.

Eagle Family Plan season tickets in mid-deck Sections JJ and KK may be purchased online at GSEagles.com/fbtix, by calling 1-800-GSU-WINS, or at the Athletics Ticket Office at 203 Lanier Drive. Business hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

CONNECT WITH THE EAGLES
Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA.

To hear more about Georgia Southern’s historic move to the FBS:
“By the Numbers” spotlights some of the interesting statistics, rankings and milestones as they relate to Georgia Southern’s new videoboard and sound system at Allen E. Paulson Stadium. Installed one year ago, the new videoboard and sound system will offer an engaging fan experience on gamedays and during other University events.

6
The new videoboard requires six video computers to operate. The videoboard can display replay video, promotions, sponsorships, graphics and statistics, crowd chants or live views of Paulson Stadium’s cameras across the entire display or in smaller windows.

40
Forty new speakers have been installed as part of the new sound system at Paulson Stadium. That total includes 12 low-frequency speakers, 20 mid-frequency speakers and eight high-frequency speakers, with each producing a part of the audible range.

592
Nearly 600 modules, at 14.4 x 14.4 inches each, comprise Georgia Southern’s new videoboard, located at the new Football Operations Center.

852
The new videoboard has 852 square feet of active display area. The previous dot matrix board, the first “EagleVision” at Paulson Stadium, installed in 2003, was 15’5” wide and 11’10” high, with just 180 square feet of display area.

888
Georgia Southern’s video display board has a 15HD pixel layout, meaning every line and column of LEDs are spaced exactly 15 millimeters apart. There are 888 LEDs per module or approximately 525,000 individual LEDs.

1,176
Total number of labor hours needed to manufacture and install Georgia Southern’s new videoboard. Once the design and specifications were approved, 176 hours, or just over a month, was required to manufacture the displays. Once the videoboard arrived in Statesboro, 400 hours were allotted for installation. An estimated 400 hours will be needed to set all electrical functions and the Daktronics tech will spend 200 hours getting the videoboard prepared for use with some activity taking place concurrently.

1,424
The Daktronics videoboard and sound system pieces were transported 1,424 miles from the company headquarters in Brookings, South Dakota. The dark blue metal structural enclosure was constructed in Greenville, South Carolina, by Masstar Signs and was installed in 45 sections.

4,000
The new speaker system mounted in the stadium weighs two tons with a cabinet that measures six feet high, 3.6 feet deep and 22 feet long, about the same length as Ford F-350 pickup truck.

100,000
Lifespan in hours of the LED lights on videoboard, or roughly 10 years, if the videoboard was never turned off. Three 20-amp circuits are required to power the new videoboard and sound system.

234,215
Total number of pixels on the new videoboard. A pixel is the smallest point on a display or screen arranged in rows and columns to create a video image. Each pixel is assigned color information in the form of a series of numbers with a pixel being one of 16.8 million combinations of red, green or blue (RGB).

To hear more about the new and improved Paulson Stadium from Georgia Southern Director of Athletics Tom Kleinlein: http://savannahnow.com/sports/2014-07-26/our-house-paulson-stadium-georgia-southerns-very-very-very-fine-house#.U9ZFi_ldV8F