Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Georgia State earns school’s first bowl win
They jumped and they cheered. They danced and they cried.
Georgia State players and coaches may have celebrated the program’s first bowl win Saturday in different ways. But the one constant throughout was the size of the smiles on their faces in the moments after the Panthers’ 27-17 win over Western Kentucky in the Cure Bowl at Camping World Stadium.
“We said we were going to make history,” a euphoric Penny Hart said after the team’s win. “We had the opportunity today and that’s what we did.”
As chants of “G-S-U, GS-U” rained down on the field, Georgia State coach Shawn Elliott was engulfed in a sea of players who wanted to give their firstyear coach a celebratory hug.
It was big milestone for a program still in its infancy — Georgia State launched its football program in 2008, joined the Football Bowl Subdivision level in 2013 and earned its first bowl invitation in 2015.
“They set a standard that’s never been done before,” Elliott said of his players. “When you do things that have never been done before, you remember them the rest of your life. We talked about it all year, let’s do things we’ll remember the rest of our lives.”
Redshirt senior quarterback Conner Manning earned Most Valuable Player honors after passing for 276 yards and a touchdown.
“A lot of us believed we could have a special year,” Manning said. “With this coaching staff and the energy they brought … that was the situation we were in. If you want to be successful you have to buy in.”
The Panthers (7-6) started the scoring with a 42-yard field goal by Brandon Wright that gave the team a 3-0 lead. It was the second longest field goal in bowl history and one of several game records that would fall Saturday.
Woes on the offensive line continued to plague Western Kentucky (6-7), which entered the game allowing a Conference USAworst 42 sacks this season. The trend continued Saturday as Georgia State’s defense hounded quarterback Mike White, who was sacked four times in the first half. The Hilltoppers managed an anemic negativefour rushing yards in the first half.
White was sacked six times during the bowl, with two of those stops delivered by Georgia State defensive end Mackendy Cheridor.
“We had six sacks, but we probably should have had 12 sacks,” Elliott said. “We had five broken containments. They pressured them all night.”
Cheridor, who registered a sack the last time the Panthers played in a bowl game in 2015, set the school record with 10.5 career sacks.
“Honestly, it’s been what’s ailed us as the year has gone on, but we needed to identify opportunities to run the football. We had some early success, but not enough and it made us one dimensional,” WKU coach Mike Sanford Jr. said of the pressure.
The Hilltoppers finished with -2 rushing yards for the second time this season. The team closed the regular season last in C-USA in rushing with an average of 66 yards per game.
Sanford said the turning point in the game came just before halftime when Western Kentucky was driving, but White was sacked for the fourth time and the football was dislodged and recovered by Panthers linebacker Chase Middleton. The turnover didn’t cost the Hilltoppers any points, but the momentum swing was too much to overcome.
Middleton finished with six tackles, a sack, a fumble recovery and an interception.
White, who wrapped up his college career in the same stadium he won a high school championship, set several bowl records, including most complete passes (26) and most passing yards (351).