VALDOSTA — Ten hours after touching down at Valdosta Regional Airport, the Valdosta State football team’s coaches were at the office pouring over game film of Saturday’s 33-21 win against Southern Arkansas.
The VSU football team used Sunday as a full work day, complete with an evening practice for its players, due to having a shorter week to prepare for its upcoming game.
Thanks to the Gulf South Conference’s television deal, VSU will host Delta State Thursday at 8 p.m., giving them just five days of work to get ready for the No. 8 team in the nation.
The Blazers are keeping their work week similar to usual, with the exception of a lighter Wednesday, and moving Monday into Sunday.
“Everything just gets speeded up a little bit for coaches,” VSU head coach David Dean said. “There was not a whole lot of time to celebrate.”
After VSU’s fifth win of the season, the unit with the most celebrating rights is the defense.
Despite playing a running team in blistering heat with a travel-shortened roster, the defense held tough throughout the game, heading off several comeback attempts from the Muleriders.
VSU had eight takeaways on defense, stopping two drives that would have tied the game, and others that would have boosted SAU. The nation’s No. 2 scoring defense got into the end zone again Saturday, as Shawn Harris and Jamaal Clark ran back interceptions for scores of 86 and 45 yards, respectively.
“My hat’s off to the defense, who played a lot of snaps in the second half in that heat,” Dean said. “They played hard all the way to the end.”
The heat had every Blazer searching for water throughout the game, but luckily no one succumbed to the conditions.
The Blazers are mostly healthy heading into Thursday’s showdown with Delta State minus defensive lineman Melvin Black. Black injured his ankle Saturday and is doubtful for Thursday. Returning to the lineup after sitting out a week with injuries will be fullback Scott Palmer and running back Ronnye Nelson.
As the Blazers recover physically, they will also need to recover mentally from a game that saw VSU lose three fumbles, and pick up 125 yards of penalties.
The miscues halted several offensive drives, which would have made the win more comfortable than one that was a 7-point contest in the third quarter.
“We’ve got to do a better job hanging on to the football from an offensive standpoint,” Dean said.
If the Blazers limit mistakes, they showed Saturday that they can pick up revenge, as well as a crucial GSC win.
VSU put up 311 yards of offense behind a 28-of-43 passing performance from Willie Copeland. Copeland threw for 283 yards, including finding Zach Parker for 81 yards and Cedric Jones for 58.
“For the most part, I thought from the beginning of the game to the end, we had tremendous effort on offense, defense and special teams,” Dean said. “We had guys making plays and playing hard.”
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