By: Mike Anthony

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Georgia Southern football.

On one hand, it’s tough to say that the team has been disappointing. After all, the same Eagles that suffered their worst season ever in 2017 took the Sun Belt by surprise in racing out to a 7-1 start. Seven wins was about the highest win total anyone had projected for the Eagles, much less their mark two-thirds of the way through the schedule.

But as the season carries on, expectations have a way of changing. So, when the Eagles came up punchless in Monroe two weeks ago and then allowed 32 unanswered points to Troy last weekend, those seven wins somehow don’t seem like such a feel-good story.

That’s not an indictment of the team or even its play over the last two weeks. That’s just sports.

Coaches will drone on and on each year about how their teams aren’t as good as their best win, nor are they as bad as their worst loss. The cliches and platitudes might not do much for ailing fan bases, but there is plenty of truth behind them.

Rarely can a team look back at an entire season and not see a few places where an extra play here or there could have meant a couple of extra victories. And, if that same team is being honest with itself, it’s also usually true that it could identify a spot or two where wins could have turned into losses if not for some good fortune.

The fact is that nothing the Eagles can do over the final two weeks of the regular season will make 2018 anything other than a success. Head coach Chad Lunsford is steadily gaining folk hero status points for the job he’s done.

He has quickly turned around the program and the young guys who were thrown into the fire last season are steadily proving they are capable of forming the core of Georgia Southern squads that can compete for conference championships in the immediate future.

The current season is already a success, but the next test is whether or not that’s good enough for the 2018 Eagles.

There won’t be a top-25 ranking or a New Year’s bowl and a shot at the Sun Belt title is all but mathematically impossible. However, there is still a chance for another bowl win, a possible 10-win season and two more chances to pay back conference foes for losses suffered last season.

Georgia Southern isn’t a world-beater. The fast start was nice and there have been tons of positives when compared to 2017, but the plain truth is that there are plenty of things that need to continue to improve if the Eagles want to head into the final month of 2019 with another good shot at winning the Sun Belt.

The good news is that the players seem to realize that. The better news is that there are still a few games remaining in this season to get a head start.

Much is always made about how a team deals with success after a big win or how it handles adversity after a loss. What the Eagles need to do is figure out how they want to deal with themselves.

Either they can stay at their current level and notch some accolades with upset wins here and there while not quite having the consistency to make it to the finish line, or they can continue to improve and become a team that is feared rather than just favored.

One would assume that the Eagles want to be in the latter category. And with two possible payback games left on the schedule this season, now is as good a time as ever for them to start being feared.