September 12, 2014

Eagles look to cut down on miscues with road trip to Wolverine State

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - No. 13 Carson-Newman (1-0) coughed up six fumbles and lost four in a 38-24 victory over the Edinboro Fighting Scots in C-N’s opening contest. The Eagles will try to trim that figure down dramatically as they attempt to hand host Wayne State (0-1) the Warriors eighth consecutive loss.

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - No. 13 Carson-Newman (1-0) coughed up six fumbles and lost four in a 38-24 victory over the Edinboro Fighting Scots in C-N's opening contest. The Eagles will try to trim that figure down dramatically as they attempt to hand host Wayne State (0-1) the Warriors eighth consecutive loss.

"We'll have to be on the attack and to take care of the football," Carson-Newman's 35^th-year head coach Ken Sparks said. "We have to make them drive the length of the field instead of giving up a short field like we did this past week.

"We had so many issues with that. A lot of it was execution – running back runs the wrong play, a couple of them were concentration. Then we had a shot to the back of the quarterback, we have to make sure that those don't happen again."

Carson-Newman coughed up the football six times against UNC Pembroke in 2012 and Shorter in 2013, in the games following those two contests, the Eagles only fumbled a combined two times.

Wayne State enters the contest off a gut-wrenching 18-17 loss to Michigan Tech. The Huskies banged in a 25-yard field goal on the game's final play from Garrett Mead, his fourth field goal of the contest. The Huskies drove 69 yards in 14 plays over the final 2:00 of the game to send the Warriors to a seventh straight defeat.

"They lost a heartbreaker losing on a last-play field goal," Sparks said. "I'm sure that it was very hurtful to them. I didn't even realize they'd lost seven in a row. I'm shocked by that – they look much crisper than that. When you watch the tape from Michigan Tech, they are a good football team."

Carl Roscoe has earned Wayne State's starting job at quarterback after the Warriors shifted through three quarterbacks in 2013. After one week, Roscoe ranks third in the nation in passing efficiency (241.7), fifth in completion percentage (75.0 percent) and ninth in passing yards per completion (19.92).

Michael Johnson was the Warriors star wideout in week one with four catches for 107 yards and two shows. Johnson burned the Eagles last year in C-N's 55-28 win for 107 yards on seven catches.

The Eagles defensive pressure was superb in week one. C-N generated 13 tackles for loss and seven sacks. The 13 TFL are the most against Division II competition since a win over Concord in 2008. Meanwhile, the seven sacks are the program's most against Division II competition since 2007 and a win over St. Augustine's.

"We'll need to have some one-on-one matchups that we can win," Sparks said. "We absolutely must generate pressure on the quarterback. We'll have to get skinny, and there's not another coach in the country that's saying that, to get into some of those creases."

The Eagles offense racked up 515 yards of total offense in week one. The Warriors allowed 385 yards to Michigan Tech.

Carson-Newman running back Andy Hibbett (Corryton, Tenn.) needs 89 more yards to crack the 2,000-yard mark for his career.

Quarterback De'Andre Thomas (Milledgeville, Ga.) needs two completions to crack the program's top 10 list for the category – he currently sits at 132 for his career. Thomas also needs 122 more yards to break into the program's top 10 list for career passing yards. Thomas has 2,020 passing yards for his career.

Coverage of that game begins at 5 p.m. with the Appalachian Electric Cooperative Tailgate Show on the Eagle Sports Network on Joy 620 (WRJZ-AM, Knoxville), 106.3 ESPN Radio The Zone (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.