AWC tries to restart season on road

Arizona Western looks to rebound at Georgia Military after a loss to open the season

Week 1 didn’t go quite how Arizona Western hoped that it would, but the Matadors are looking to clear some issues up as they travel three time zones over on Saturday.

AWC (0-1) will visit Georgia Military College (0-1) on Saturday for the first true road game of the season. Georgia Military is located in Milledgeville, Georgia, which is about 100 miles southeast Atlanta. The Mats opened the season with a disappointing 32-30 loss to New Mexico Military last Friday at Yuma Catholic and the run defense was an issue. AWC gave up 312 yards on the ground. The loss ended a 21-game regular-season winning streak. Georgia Military of also lost its opener to Navarro College, 31-29.

Neither team looked to start off the season on the wrong foot considering lofty preseason rankings (AWC was 3rd, GMI was 15th), but will now have a chance to right the ship.

“They are fast and they’re big,” AWC coach Tom Minnick said. “They are a lot like East Mississippi. They have some dudes down south. That’s where everything starts at with football. They live and breathe it.”

Quarterback battle

AWC used three quarterbacks during the season opener and none of them were able to find a real rhythm. There was only one pass play of over 16 yards, which stymied the offense.

Going into the second week of the season the job belongs to Logan Byrd. Byrd, the redshirt sophomore, transferred from Mississippi Gulf Coast after spending the offseason there and prior to that he was at North Carolina.

In the opener he was 5-for-11 for 74 yards.

Minnick says he’s picked up enough of the offense in a short period of time to manage the offense and weekly gameplans.

“You’re only going to run the plays that you game plan,” Minnick said. “He’s been fine. He’s doing a good