VALDOSTA – The No. 4-ranked Valdosta State Blazers (4-0, 1-0 Gulf South Conference) will go for their fifth straight win Saturday at home against the Delta State Statesmen (2-3, 0-2 GSC).

The Statesmen come into Saturday’s game on a three-game losing streak after a 39-33 loss to West Florida last week.

In a surprising twist, the Statesmen had the defending national champions down 30-10 at halftime before falling apart in the second half. The Argos outscored the Statesmen 29-3 in the second half to stay undefeated (4-0) this season.

Delta State redshirt junior quarterback Patrick Shegog went 32 of 50 for 459 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Shegog was also sacked seven times in the loss to the Argos.

Receivers Corintheus Edmonds and Todd Lee Battle had standout performances for the Statesmen last week. Edmonds had eight catches for 161 yards and one touchdown, while Battle caught five balls for 84 yards and a touchdown.

Delta State racked up 580 yards of total offense and recorded 30 first downs in last week’s loss.

“They’re a big, athletic, physical team,” VSU head football coach Gary Goff said Wednesday. “They’ve lost their last three games by a total of 14 points. They’re a really good football team. I do believe that. On the offensive side, they have their starting quarterback back. They didn’t have him in ’19. He had a broken collarbone, I think. He’s a good player. He can extend plays with his legs, he’s got a good arm. They had 580 yards of offense last week against West Florida, so they obviously can move the ball up and down the field. The halftime score was 30-10 so they’re an explosive team.

“Defensively, they’re loaded with grad transfers. They’re big, they’re physical, they’re fast. They run that 3-3 stack. Linebackers put a lot of pressure on you offensively. They’re a solid, solid program. In my opinion, from watching film on them, they are absolutely a playoff program.”

The Blazers cruised to a 49-13 win over Shorter in their GSC opener last weekend. Despite the final score, the game was much closer than the result – at least in the first half.

Shorter trailed VSU 14-13 at the half, providing an unexpected test for the Blazers over the first two quarters.

The Blazers started off fast against the Hawks, scoring on their opening drive, but struggled much of the first half. In the second half, VSU seemed to flip the script – outscoring Shorter 35-0 and holding the Hawks to 49 yards of total offense in the second half.

Offensively, the Blazers rolled in the second half behind a commanding performance from their running game – reeling off a season-high 316 yards on the ground and a season-high 574 yards of total offense against the Hawks. 

For the second time this season, junior quarterback Ivory Durham ran for two scores and threw for two more. Durham had nine carries for 82 yards and two touchdowns, while completing 17 of 32 passes for a season-high 258 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.

Senior wide receiver Lio’undre Gallimore caught seven balls for 135 yards and two touchdowns, while senior Victor Talley had four catches for 87 yards. 

The “Black Swarm” stymied the Hawks in the second half, led by senior Nick Moss’s 13 tackles and eight solo stops. Moss also recorded one tackle for loss (13 yards) and two hurries.  The Blazers had four sacks and six tackles for loss, along with an interception return by senior Christian Matthew for a touchdown, marking the third defensive touchdown for the Blazers this season.

“I think it was just execution,” Goff said of his team’s performance. “We scored on our first two drives real fast, real quick. I think we might’ve relaxed a little bit and thought it was gonna be that way all night long. The second quarter, we had a lot of missed assignments, had a couple of big drops that we typically don’t have. We’ve got to understand that our opponents are playing extremely hard as well and if we make mistakes and they capitalize on them and we let those teams hang around, they’ve got a chance of beating you. You see that in college football every weekend. That’s why you see upsets.

“Hopefully, it’s something that we’ve learned from a little bit. Every game on our schedule from here on out is a team that’s working extremely hard to get into the playoff mix. We’ve still got to take it one game at a time, one week at a time, but in some sense, we’re starting playoff football right now.”

Goff’s allusion to playoff football comes with good reason as Saturday’s game begins a critical stretch in conference play for the Blazers.

Past Delta State, the Blazers will have to go on the road next week against West Alabama and Mississippi College the week after that before hosting rival West Georgia Oct. 30. From there, the team will host North Greenville on Homecoming before finally colliding with West Florida in the regular season finale Nov. 13.

Goff believes the next few games carry significant weight as the team looks to get a strong foothold in the GSC standings.

“Oh, they’re extremely important,” Goff said. “Delta State, a week ago, was in the Top 25 and still receiving votes. You’ve got West Alabama that’s now 10th. You’ve got West Georgia who’s still in the Top 25. You’ve obviously got West Florida where they are (No. 1). Every one of these games are very, very important and when you play really good football teams, the margin of error is just very, very small. So, we’ve got to make sure that we play extremely hard, that we play disciplined football and that we continue to attack for four quarters.”

Kickoff for Saturday’s game is set for 7 p.m.