GWU 26 - CCU 24

[elcid83]

We won the coin toss and deferred to the second half for the first time that I can recall and it was a good move. The defense held CCU to a Field Goal and came off of the field with a lot of excitement. The offensive line was in the que and they were beating each other up and screaming and hollering and they were ready for anything when they hit the field. Good changeup by the coaching staff that made a difference in the outcome of this game.

GW's offense responds to the D's good performance and puts up a nice drive that stalls before reaching the end zone, but results in a FG for us. The Dogs are off to a good start for the evening and the best start since the Ohio game.

GWU starts the 2nd half with a Ricky Rhodes' 53 yd run that gets us near the goal line. A short run and an 8 yd pass to Pork Chop and we have gotten the 2nd half off to a wonderful start. It was good to see Ricky really get through the line on the first play and it caught CCU completely off guard.

The win was impressive to me because we were able to pull it off without playing perfectly [and I don't think I've ever seen a football team play perfectly]. We were also able to come back from what appeared to be an end of game comeback shocker after CCU returned our final kickoff for a TD. It really felt good to be on the other side of that for a change. I thought QB Lucas Beatty really looked comfortable in the backfield.

It's interesting to read posts on CCU's site. They call their loss the second loss to Liberty. I don't know about anyone else on here, but, I didn't see any red, white, and blue unis on the field Saturday night. It is also clear that they were expecting this game to be an easy one and it's hard to blame them given our performance this year.

I'm hopeful that this game will be a catalyst for better football at Gardner-Webb. I'm thankful that the players got to see their hard work pay off.

Go Runnin' Bulldogs!

[eagledawg]

I'm thankful for the W. The guys never gave in, never gave up. That's a big step towards building the program with the new staff, especially after some of the lop-sided scores the last few weeks (WFU, Samford, Liberty) and especially when falling behind by large margins early in the contests. ElCid is right, there is nothing perfect in any football game and we were far from it. Our next big step will be when we put teams away when all the non-scoreboard stats are hugely in our favor. We get the ball inside the 1 on a turnover but can't punch it in, we control the time of possession by a huge margin and I mean huge, we win the turnover game 0-2, we have significantly more total yards, we have much better balance in our yards on offense and we are less penalized. With all that, we have to kick a last play field goal to win, so yes, we need to learn now to go for the kill. When you're beating a team every which way, you need it to show up on the scoreboard. I love our guys setting the tempo right from the opening kick-off. We lay a slobber knocker hit on the return team, Marty Patterson follows that up with a huge hit on a pass by Coastal out in the flat later. I know Coastal's players were playing with their heads on a swivel instead of concentrating on catching passes (numerous drops in this game). This is the start if the players will look not just to each upcoming game but each play to get better as a total team. We got the monkey off our back against Coastal. We have a great opportunity with 3 in a row at home. We're not where we want to be, not really even close but after Saturday night, we are heading in the right direction.

Go Dawgs, let's keep it going against the CSU Bucs. Stay hungry my canine friends.

[unk96]

well said Elcid and I agree 100%. Go Dawgs.

[gwebb1994]

Uncle Mo is on our side, and dammit, it is about time. Getting the monkey off our backs is huge. We can win out.