The long and winding four-game road stretch finally is over for the Georgia State football team and it ended just the way it began — with a loss — and extended the Panthers’ losing streak to six games.
Unlike the previous four games, which turned on a handful of plays, Georgia State was outmanned by a veteran James Madison club that rolled to a 38-7 victory Saturday on a Black Out day at Bridgeforth Stadium in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Georgia State (2-7, 0-5) returns home for the first time in a month when they face Arkansas State for homecoming Saturday at Center Parc Stadium.
“I’d like to give JMU all the credit,” Georgia State coach Dell McGee said. “They did a great job of preparing for the game and it showed. We didn’t play well on offense, defense or special teams, so we got our butts kicked in all three phases.”
The Georgia State defense had trouble slowing the James Madison offense that ranks second in the Sun Belt Conference in scoring and put up 70 points against North Carolina. James Madison had 452 yards of total offense — 241 passing and 211 rushing.
“We only stopped them one time in the first half,” McGee said. “They only missed one opportunity on third down.”
The Panthers were equally stymied on offense. James Madison limited them to 45 yards rushing and sacked quarterback Zach Gibson four times. When not being pursued, Gibson completed 24 of 37 passes for 213 yards and one touchdown. Three holding penalties didn’t help, either.
“We couldn’t get anything going on offense,” McGee said. “We had some decent plays but we would shoot ourselves in the foot and have some type of penalty that negated any plays that we were able to gain any momentum.”
The top receivers were Petey Tucker, who had five catches for 54 yards, and running back Michel Dukes, who caught six balls for 39 yards. But gamebreaker Ted Hurst had only one reception, a 9-yard touchdown.
James Madison quarterback Alonza Barrett III completed 20 of 30 passes for 241 yards, giving him 2,034 for the season, and three touchdowns and rushed for 33. George Pettaway ran 13 times for 95 yards and one touchdown.
“This was totally my fault, bad plan,” McGee said. “We’ve got to come out and go back to the drawing board, reset and self-evaluate. Just simplify things in all three phases and get back to basic fundamentals. Basic fundamentals were just a part of this loss, and ultimately that’s up to the coaches.”
JMU set the tone early. After scoring on their first possession, a 1-yard run by Pettaway, the Dukes stopped Georgia State on a fourth-and-10 when all-conference defensive end Eric O’Neill recorded his first of two sacks to turn the ball over on downs. On the next play Barnett threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to Omarion Dollison for a 14-0 lead.
Georgia State followed with its best offensive sequence of the half and scored on a 9-yard pass from Gibson to Ted Hurst. It was the eighth touchdown for Hurst, which tied a single-season school record held by Albert Wilson and Penny Hart.
James Madison added two more scores before the half, a 12-yard thrown from Barnett to Taylor Thompson and a 7-yard run by Wayne Knight. In that final drive the Dukes went 89 yards in 51 seconds to score their fourth touchdown in five first-half possessions and led 28-7 at the half.
Punter James Allen gave GSU a breath of life in the third quarter when he ran for first down, a play enhanced by 15 yards when he was smacked on the sidelines. But the Panthers couldn’t make a further dent and turned the ball over on downs, which JMU converted into a touchdown, an 18-yard pass from Barrett to Knight that upped the lead to 35-7.
The loss officially ends any hopes Georgia State had for becoming bowl eligible. “We’ve got three games left, homecoming coming up this week,” McGee said. “It’s a great time for our seniors and we still have plans to send those guys out the right way.”
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