Carrollton, GA - Sporting a 3-2 record and coming off of the program's first road win since September 1, 2007, one might think that West Georgia head coach Daryl Dickey would be giddy heading into the final non-conference game of the 2011 season Saturday.
"We've been here before," said Dickey at Wednesday's Coaches Luncheon. "We were 3-2 last year and we know how that turned out. We see some good things on the football field, but we need to not be satisfied with 3-2 and we need to move forward."
The Wolves are coming off of a decisive victory last Saturday in Searcy, Ark., as West Georgia beat Harding for the first time in nine tries on their own turf. The win included a pair of defensive scores and three rushing touchdowns as UWG forced and took advantage of six Harding turnovers en route to a 41-24 victory.
Quarterback #
Emmanuel Taylor# rushed for 114 yards and all three scores in the game, marking the first time since 1988 that a UWG signal-caller broke the 100-yd barrier. He now has 294 net yards on the season and seven rushing touchdowns, the most scores in the GSC this year. He is tied for the lead in scoring with 42 points and is third in the conference in rushing yards per game.
Taylor has accounted for each of the 10 scores that the offense has on the season, including three through the air. He has connected with 11 different receivers, with sophomore #Denarius Appling# as the leading receiver with 33.4 yards per game. Appling, #
V.J. Hunt# and #
Bobby Burum# have all been on the receiving end of a Taylor touchdown pass.
Defensively, senior #
Drek Matthews# has been all over the field this year and he provided one of the two scores for the Wolves against Harding last week with a 52-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown late in a wild second quarter. He nearly had two scores, as he picked up a fumble on a kickoff earlier in that contest and was pulled down at the Harding five yard line.
Another senior linebacker ran wild last week against Harding, as #
James McGee# picked up 16 tackles in the contest to lead the UWG defensive effort.
On the season, sophomore #
Bobby Liggins# is a linebacker making waves in the Gulf South Conference, as he has 8.5 tackles for loss on the year, which leads the GSC by more than .5 tackles for loss per contest.
Saint Augustine's College played tough, but lost 35-28 to Winston-Salem State in a CIAA Southern Division contest. The Falcons dropped to 2-4 overall and 1-3 in the Southern Division, while the Rams, ranked 16th nationally in the AFCA Coaches Poll, remained unbeaten and in the driver's seat for the division title at 6-0 overall and 5-0 in the division.