Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/873185
P R E G A M E R E P O R T G E O R G I A S T A T E @ P E N N S T A T E T I M E 7 : 3 0 P . M . , S E P T . 1 6 | T V B T N GEORGIA STATE FACTS COACH Shawn Elliott (Ap- palachian State, '96) COACH'S RECORD 0-1 in one season; career record: 1-6 2017 RECORD 0-1 RECORD VS. PSU Saturday's game will be the first meeting be- tween the two teams. GOOD NEWS By game day, Georgia State will have had 17 days to get ready for its visit to Beaver Stadium. The Panthers opened their season on Aug. 31 against Tennessee State, falling, 17-10. They did not play last Saturday. BAD NEWS The Panthers have never beaten an opponent from a Power Five conference. In four of those eight games (vs. Alabama in 2010 and '13, Oregon in '15 and Wisconsin last year) the opponent was ranked. The two unranked teams they played were Washington and Clemson in 2014. DID YOU KNOW? Saturday's game will mark the first time since 2015 that the Pan- thers have played on natural grass. Georgia State's program is only in its eighth season, and the team has played on grass just seven times in its history. The most recent of those games was a visit to Georgia Southern on Dec. 5, 2015. Georgia State has moved into a new stadium this year, as Turner Field, the former home of the Atlanta Braves, has been converted into a 25,000- seat football venue. Rechristened Petit Field at Georgia State Sta- dium, the facility features a Field- Turf playing surface. M A T T H E R B | M A T T @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M Can anyone stop Saquon Barkley? Shawn El- liott isn't so sure, and since his Georgia State Panthers are the next team to face Penn State's standout junior running back, Barkley is rather high on his list of concerns at the moment. "I don't think anybody in college football can bring him down alone," Elliott said. "Barkley is a true talent. I can't really compare him to a lot of backs because he's just so physical, and he's going to be tough to handle." Elliott is in his first season as head coach of the Panthers, a team that has only been in existence since 2010 and has only been playing in the Foot- ball Bowl Subdivision since 2013. He was hired in December to improve a program that had gone 10-39 in its first four seasons of FBS membership 1 MAN OF THE HOUR In Saquon Barkley, Georgia State's defense faces its biggest challenge S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M Barkley heads up- field during Penn State's victory over Pitt, a game in which he totaled 183 all-purpose yards. Photo by Steve Manuel