Coastal Carolina at Georgia Southern: How To Watch, Preview, Prediction

Time and Date: 7 PM ET - September 30

Broadcast Network: NFL Network

Location: Paulson Stadium - Statesboro, GA

Records: Coastal Carolina 2-2 (0-1 Sun Belt), Georgia Southern 3-1 (0-0 Sun Belt)

Line: Georgia Southern -6.5

Point Total: O/U 64.5

All-Time Series: Georgia Southern is 5-4 all-time against Coastal Carolina, but the Chanticleers won last season in Conway, 34-30, and have won the last three matchups.

Georgia Southern Outlook

Last week was a get-right game for Davis Brin and the Georgia Southern football team, as the Eagles traveled to Indiana and smoked Ball State by a 40-3 margin.

Brin shook off the poor performance from the Wisconsin contest two weeks ago, throwing for 344 yards and four touchdowns in last week’s blowout win over the Cardinals.

This week, the Eagles will look to keep the momentum rolling against a Coastal Carolina squad licking its wounds a bit at the moment.

Offensively, Southern should have its way with a Chants defense that ranks nationally as follows:

• Total Yardage: 91st (382 YPG allowed)
• Passing Yardage: 53rd (206.5 YPG allowed)
• Rushing Yardage: 109th (176 YPG allowed)

Now as we all know, GS offensive coordinator Bryan Ellis does not want to run the football 40+ times per game, but this might be the key to defeating Coastal for the first time since 2019.

The Chants defense has been porous in its front-seven, and was just gashed by Georgia State running back Marcus Carroll for 150 yards and a score just a week ago.

It may be time for Ellis to take the limits off of O.J. Arnold and just let him run in this one.

Coastal Carolina Outlook

So far in 2023, Tim Beck has CCU fans wanting Jamey Chadwell back worse than ever.

Last week’s 30-17 loss to Georgia State was an absolute debacle for the team in teal, as Coastal could not contain the Panthers offense and could not do much on the offensive side of the ball either.

Grayson McCall is great, but he is not a miracle worker. The Chants currently rank 92nd in the country in rushing with 133 yards per game, something that had been a hallmark of previous Coastal offenses and taken pressure off McCall and the passing game.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

In this new regime, Coastal currently cannot run the football for one reason or another. As we all saw last week, forcing McCall into running a one-dimensional offense with 50 pass attempts per game is simply not the best use of his talents or the team’s personnel in general.

Coastal has shown it has a formidable pass catching duo in Sam Pinckney and Jared Brown, but three players on the offense can only do so much when the play calling and offensive scheming is below average and the line isn’t getting much push in the running game.

Offensively, this team simply is not clicking right now, and defensively things are not looking much better.

Prediction

Georgia Southern’s Achilles' heel last season was its run defense, something Coastal took advantage of to great effect in the previous matchup. The Eagles’ run defense has not only taken a step forward, but the Chants offense has taken a step back.

With a leaky defense that had just been exploited by the Panthers last Thursday, I think it is more of the same for Coastal against the other Georgia-based Sun Belt school.

Final Score: Georgia Southern 38, Coastal Carolina 27