Georgia Southern embarrasses itself in loss to New Hampshire

Georgia Southern completely came out flat on Saturday afternoon, failing to show signs of life on either offense or defense and taking a 22-12 loss at the hands of FCS New Hampshire.

The Eagles failed to do much of anything on both sides of the ball, despite outgaining the Wildcats by a 326-274 margin in total yardage, and Southern winning the possession battle by holding the ball for longer than New Hampshire.

Georgia Southern ran the same stale plays it insisted on ad nauseam a week ago when it mustered just 78 yards of offense in a loss to Auburn.

In my recap of that game I said the Eagles were not far removed from the talent level of an FCS team, and caught some (maybe deserved) flack for it on Twitter. Does the lack of talent on both sides of the ball have your attention now?

Southern showed a little improvement in the back half of play, scoring 12 points, while being aided by some New Hampshire mistakes.

In the end, it was not enough as the Wildcats staved off a Georgia Southern team that has completely looked lethargic in 2017, and took eight full quarters to score its first offensive touchdown this season.

Despite having over 100 yards rushing and more passing yards than he did last week with 93, freshman quarterback Shai Werts was worse than he was in the loss to Auburn. Werts regularly looked lost, including throwing a pick straight to a New Hampshire defender in the fourth quarter that effectively sealed the loss to the Wildcats when Southern was threatening to make a run.

I think that all-in-all, this loss has been a nail in the coffin to the Tyson Summers era of football. Going forward, there’s no way this Eagles’ team wins more than two games in its current form.

Not even Summers’ best friend and Georgia Southern athletic director Tom Kleinlein will be able to spin this loss as a positive, like he tried to do last fall when GS stumbled to a 5-7 record and only marginally salvaged its season when it defeated Troy on senior night.

Outside of completely turning its season around and winning the Sun Belt Conference, I cannot foresee an outcome in which Summers should keep his job past this season. Even if the program’s money and Summers’ buyout issues are thrown in Eagles’ fans faces all season until the finale, no one will take this team seriously until Summers is officially canned.

God help us Eagle fans who will have to suffer through the remainder of the Summers era before he is mercifully fired and Georgia Southern begins its search for its third head coach as an FBS team.