VALDOSTA — VALDOSTA — A freshman quarterback and a kicker came to the rescue for Valdosta State’s football team in one of the most thrilling season openers in the Blazers’ 29-year history.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Brett Whitmire came off the bench midway through the third quarter, and led three field goal drives, the last one a game-winner, to lead the Blazers to a 25-22 victory over the Wingate Bulldogs on Saturday at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium.

After Wingate tied the score with a touchdown and a two-point conversion with 47.6 seconds left, the Bulldogs opted to kick off short. Matt Pierce caught the kick, and raced across the field, before being tackled out of bounds at the Wingate 48.

Then, in his fifth career drive, Whitmire calmly completed an 18-yard pass to Ronnye Nelson and a four-yard pass to Jackson Dean, before spiking the ball on the Wingate 26-yard line with four seconds left.

Kicker Daniel Andersen came on, and booted a 43-yard field goal through the uprights as time expired to send VSU to a wild victory and Bazemore-Hyder Stadium into a frenzy.

“It felt good when I hit it, then it started curling off a little bit and I was like, ‘Lord just please get it through, please get it through,’” Andersen said. “He got the job done for me.”

The players rushed the field and mobbed Andersen, who kept his helmet on for his own safety. Somewhere in the pile, Whitmire was enjoying the moment.

 “I can’t even explain it right now,” Whitmire said. “It still hasn’t kicked in yet. After all this, I’m sure it’ll kick in. I’m very excited.”

VSU led 16-14 in the second half when head coach David Dean decided to remove starting quarterback Jimmy Coy in favor of Whitmire. The freshman from Jacksonville, Fla., was rudely introduced to the college game when Wingate punished him with a late hit and a facemask on his first two plays. Whitmire recovered, and led the Blazers on a drive that ended with an Andersen field goal.

After another Andersen field goal gave VSU a 22-14 lead, Whitmire appeared to have made a play that put the game out of reach. He found fullback Cameo Holloway in the flat at the Wingate 3 late in the fourth quarter, but Holloway was leveled by Terrence Stephens and fumbled.

Pierce intercepted Wingate quarterback Cody Haffly on the Bulldogs’ ensuing possession, but Haffly got the ball back later in the fourth and led an 85-yard touchdown drive that was ended when Perry Floyd caught a touchdown in the back of the end zone to make it 22-20. Haffly then completed the two-point conversion to Delric Ellington to tie the game.

However, the Bulldogs made the mistake of kicking short. Dean said that when he saw it, he told his coaches that it was a big mistake, because the Blazers were going to try to end the game in regulation, instead of playing for overtime.

“We gave up a big drive at the end, but I was awfully proud of our offense,” Dean said. “They didn’t roll over. We said, on the sidelines, if we had the opportunity, we were going to try to win the game. We didn’t want to go to overtime. That’s what we did.”

Unlike last season’s opener against Newberry, VSU got off to a fast start. Ronnye Nelson took a direct snap on the Blazers’ fourth play of the game, and raced 53 yards for a touchdown.

In the second quarter, Michael Brown raced to the outside, put a juke move on a defender and raced down the sideline for a 36-yard touchdown that made it 14-0.

The Blazers’ defense, which was stingy all night, got on the scoreboard when Marcus Nedd recorded a safety after VSU punter Jack Fulford pinned the Bulldogs at the one-inch line.

The Blazers looked well in command late in the first half with a 16-0 lead.

Then they started giving handouts to the Bulldogs. Instead of running the ball late in the half, to run time off of the clock, the Blazers threw incomplete passes, which gave the Bulldogs the ball back with enough time for Haffly to throw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Chris Bowden with 1:12 left.

Wingate used up all of its timeouts to force VSU to punt on its next drive. There was only one second difference between the play clock and the game clock, so the Blazers lined up with Coy in the shotgun. Coy took the snap but failed to run out the clock, instead kneeling with .7 seconds left.

Wingate took over on VSU’s 28, and ended the half when Haffly completed a 28-yard touchdown pass to Bowden to make it 16-14. Replays showed that Bowden never caught the ball, and was out of bounds anyway, but the official covering the play was out of position and called it a touchdown.

Dean went wild on the sideline, raving at the official and picking up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. He didn’t leave the field with the team. Instead, he continued arguing all the way to the tunnel.

VSU managed to survive its mistakes. Barely.

“It was a team effort,” Dean said. “We all hung together. We played together as a family. I’m proud to see us finish off the game, and win our first one.”

Whitmire completed 14 of 23 passes for 201 yards, while Coy finished 11 of 21 for 101 yards. Dean did not say that Whitmire would start VSU’s game at Newberry next week. He said one or two series at the end of the game isn’t enough to make that decision, and he added that he and the coaching staff will evaluate the game film and the quarterback position during the next week of practice.

The Blazers travel to Newberry on Saturday.