By Austin Bruce

VALDOSTA — The Valdosta State University Blazers (7-0, 3-0 Gulf South Conference) will look to stay hot as the Chowan University Hawks (2-5, 1-3 GSC) come to town Saturday.

The game will kick off at 3:30 p.m.

Saturday’s matchup will be the Blazers’ first game in two weeks after having last week off. For Blazers head coach Tremaine Jackson, the bye week was an opportune time for the team to reset following a bizarre October as they enter the home stretch.

“We’re pretty normal now, and that was a time that we will always remember,” Jackson said. “We’re normal and ready to go for this backside of the bye week season — we incorporate November as its own season. We got a pretty good opponent in Chowan coming in, and I think we’re pretty normal.”

These final few weeks of the season will be pivotal for the Blazers as far as their conference title and playoff hopes are concerned.

The Blazers remain a half-game up on West Alabama, West Florida, and North Greenville in the GSC standings, with all three sitting at 3-1 in conference play.

However, the Blazers have yet to face West Florida, which will pay them a visit on Nov. 16. Additionally, the Blazers’ matchup against West Alabama was cancelled due to Hurricane Helene, meaning the Blazers and Tigers could tie should the Blazers falter.

In the first NCAA Super Regional rankings released Monday, Valdosta State found itself among those under consideration in Super Region 2. The Blazers are one of just two undefeated teams in the region and are joined by West Alabama as the only GSC members currently under consideration.

Jackson says that the rankings are reflective of what’s come to be expected in Titletown rather than a distraction.

“To us, that’s not a distraction. That just goes along with the place,” Jackson said. “You walk in here, if you get distracted by some rankings, you’re really going to get distracted by all these trophies sitting out here. That’s the privilege of the place, right, and we understand that every year, we compete consistently for championships. You’d rather have that on you on this part of the year than not to be under consideration. We welcome that. We don’t let it bother us.”

As for their matchup against the Hawks, the Blazers be looking to keep a Chowan offense that has struggled mightily in recent weeks grounded. The Hawks are a pedestrian 147th in scoring offense (14.6 PPG) and are 134th in total offense (266.9 YPG).

Jackson believes the Hawks are better than their record says though.

“Their record doesn’t reflect how good I think they are,” Jackson said. “They’ve been in a lot of games. They’ve started fast, and then for whatever reason they’ve fallen off here and there. This isn’t the same Chowan team from a year ago. They’re a lot better personnel wise. We got to be on our A-game and find their good players and make sure we know where they are.”

Jackson also says that his team won’t be hunted and that his team is still looking to play their best football.

“We’re not going to be hunted. We’re going to stay hunting. We don’t believe in sitting around and being hunted and allowing what our record says to predict how people play against us. We don’t know who we are, and we won’t know until the end, right.”

Jackson added: “We kind of just keep going and keep focusing — we still haven’t played our best football yet. We’re still searching to see what we can be. We don’t look at records and rankings and anything of that stuff. We just kind of get to going to work every day.”