Gil Pound

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — This Saturday marks the last time the Georgia Military College Bulldogs (8-1) will take to Davenport Field as the Silver Storm of ASA College-Miami (6-1) comes to Milledgeville for a 1 p.m. kickoff.

The lone blemish on the Silver Storm’s record belongs to none other than the no. 10-ranked GMC Bulldogs who finished up a successful road trip with a 45-3 trouncing of ASA-Miami on the first Saturday of October. A prolific passing attack paired with three forced turnovers helped propel the Dogs to victory in the first meeting.

GMC Head coach Bert Williams says the Storm has the pieces in place to be a strong team, but had not seen a team as good as the Dogs at the time of the first contest.

“We know they’re talented,” said Williams. “One of the things we discussed in our first meeting was the fact that they hadn’t played against any other comparably talented teams. They had a little bit of a talent shock if you will when they played us the first time just because they hadn’t played against anybody as good or better than them so far in the season.”

ASA-Miami has only played two games since the earlier matchup with GMC, but has pretty well handled its opponents by final scores of 34-14 and 47-10.

“They’ve had a chance to adjust to the speed of the game and the physicality. I expect they’ll be better prepared and ready to go for this second matchup.”

The Bulldogs have been putting in work though as well since the early October meeting, averaging just over 60 points per game on offense and allowing less than 15 on defense.

Despite the fact that the numbers look to be overwhelmingly in favor of GMC this Saturday, Coach Williams expects his team to see a much tougher opponent this time around.

“The talent’s there for them to do some things and they’ve certainly got some big play guys,” Williams said. “We did a good job of keeping them in check [the first time]. I don’t expect we’ll necessarily have those same benefits this time around.

“I think the number one thing we have to do is not feel like we’ve got the game already won since we handled them down there in a fairly convincing manner. We have to get out there, get ready to go, be ready to play hard, come out early, and don’t give them anything to rally around.”

With this Saturday being the last home game of 2016 for the Bulldogs they will take all the support they can get from the community in their quest to finish the season strong and compete for a bid to a postseason bowl game.