Georgia Southern coach Chad Lunsford knows what his team is getting into when it visits Tiger Stadium for Saturday night’s season opener against No. 6 ranked LSU.
“That place rocks,” Lunsford, a former Auburn assistant, told Baton Rouge ESPN radio host Matt Moscona on Tuesday afternoon. “I haven’t been in many stadiums that passionate, 100 plus thousand people that live and breathe LSU football.”
Lunsford, 42, who never played college football, had never been a head coach before being named Georgia Southern’s interim coach in 2017 after head coach Tyson Summers was fired following a 0-6 start.
The Eagles finished the season 2-10, winning two of their last six games under Lunsford. He was named head coach at the end of the year and guided Georgia Southern to a 10-3 record last season.
Here’s what Lunsford had to say about his team and LSU in a combination of his comments in his weekly press conference and to Moscona.
From the weekly press conference
On the LSU game
“Our guys have been excited about this game for a long time and looking forward to going down there and seeing what Georgia Southern can do. We’re a pretty healthy team.”
On preparing for LSU
“You screw up if you make it something different than what it is. It is a football game. They are very talented, very fast, very quick, very strong. To the outside world, it’s definitely a mismatch. But our guys work hard, and they want to show they belong, that they can go play against LSU. We have to be mindful of the environment. LSU is a rocking stadium on Saturday night.”
On his impressions of LSU
“Really good football team. Definitely an SEC football team. This is one of their better teams. We definitely have our work cut out for us to go down there and try to do something.”
On if he thinks LSU is looking past Georgia Southern to next week’s game at Texas
“We will get in trouble this year if we sit here and say we’re going to sneak up on people. We’re not going to approach it like that. I’m sure LSU is preparing to play us and not another football team. We expect to get the best out of LSU.”
On what Georgia Southern would have to do to pull off the upset
“We’ve got to protect the football, we’d have to control the clock. We’d have to make sure we’re flipping the field position when it comes to special teams, making sure we don’t put our offense and defense in a bad situation. We definitely have got to play disciplined football, we can’t beat ourselves. If we get ourselves to finish the football game, we’ve got to finish.”
From the Moscona interview
On what makes starting Georgia Southern quarterback Shai Werts special
“He really bought into ball security. We preach it over and over again. It’s a testament to him to be able to protect the ball the way he does. I know he’ll continue to make sure Eagles don’t beat Eagles by turning the ball over.”
On the tradition of Georgia Southern’s triple-option offense
“The identity of our program is running the football and doing it with the option. There has been so much success here with this program, I would never mess around with that. Our fan base believes in it, the players we recruit believe in it and it’s has been a recipe for success at Georgia Southern, so I wouldn’t venture away from it.
On why the triple option is difficult to prepare for
“It’s difficult (for opponents) to re-create the speed of it in practice. That’s what’s hard. I’ve been under both offenses at Georgia Southern – under center and in the shotgun – and it’s the same thing when you only have a week to prepare. You don’t really get that same feel for what it’s going to be like on game day. That gives us a leg up, gives us an advantage when we go into our games, especially if a team only has a week to prepare for us.”
On some of his team’s strengths
“We have a really close group of guys. They really play for one another, they call it `The Brotherhood,’ they’ve really bought into that. The culture around here is off the charts.
“We don’t recruit five-stars. We may try, but we don’t really get a shot at those type of guys. We go find guys that really fit our program. We talk about our identity being blue-collar, discipline and tough. Being able to buy into being hard working, being a disciplined football team, being a physically and mentally tough team is what makes up Georgia Southern football.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys who want to add to that legacy. When you talk Georgia Southern football tradition, it’s rich."
On the meaning of hashtag GATASE on the front of the Georgia Southern helmets
“Get After Their Ass. (Former Georgia defensive coordinator) Erk Russell actually started that when he was at Georgia playing Georgia Tech. He took the Georgia Tech Athletic Association (first) letters, basically re-arranged them for `Get After Tech’s Ass.’ It has turned into a staple at Georgia Southern. We really love it.”
On how playing past games in large stadiums like Clemson and Auburn helps Georgia Southern prepare to play in Tiger Stadium
“Clemson’s atmosphere is off-the-charts also. Guys that did play in that Clemson game (a 38-7 loss last year) and that Auburn game (a 41-7 loss in the 2017 season-opener) won’t walk into Tiger Stadium thinking it’s different. They’ll be ready and excited to play in that atmosphere.”
