By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

I am not sure if we can call Georgia State’s 2023 football season a success.

The Panthers did go 6 – 6, which is good enough for bowl eligibility. That is an improvement on the 2022 season where they finished 4 – 8. Georgia State U did go 8 – 5 in 2021 and I expected them to have similar success this season.

They got off to a 4 – 0 start and they looked like they were going to cruise through the season.

The highlight was against Coastal Carolina. They played a Thursday night game on ESPN. Coastal Carolina has been one of the most high profile members of the Sun Belt Conference over the last few years. The Panthers beat them on national television, 30 – 17.

Darren Grainger was 15 of 26 for 191 yards and kept the ball 13 times for 47 yards to help the Panthers (4-0) extend their best start in school history. Marcus Carroll carried 29 times for 150 yards and a score.

Georgia State leads the series 4-3 with the visiting team winning every time and Grainger, a Conway, South Carolina native, has two of the wins.

The next game they lost to Troy at home, 28 – 7. The Panthers rebounded and won their next two games against Marshall and Louisiana. At this point their record was 6 – 1.

I’m not sure if the team relaxed at this point but they lost the next five games. The first game of this losing streak was at Georgia Southern, 44 – 27.

They lost the next two home games to James Madison and Appalachian State by the same score, 42 – 14.

Then they had to travel to Death Valley to play No. 15 LSU. The Tigers needed an easy win, GSU needed the money, and everything worked out perfectly. LSU won, 56 – 14.

The final game of the season was at Old Dominion in Norfolk, Virginia. The Panthers had a 21 – 0 halftime lead. They gave up 18 fourth quarter points and lost to the Monarch, 25 – 24.

One of the bright spots on offense was running back Marcus Carroll. He rushed for 1,350 yards. 13 touchdowns and he averaged 4.9 yards per carry.

QB Darren Grainger is GSU’s career leader in total offense, touchdown passes and touchdown responsibility while ranking second in passing yards and fourth in rushing yards. This season he had 2,364 yards passing, 17 TD’s, 7 interceptions and he completed 67% of his passes.

Playing in its third bowl game in the last four seasons and sixth in nine seasons, Georgia State faces Utah State (6 – 6) on Saturday, Dec. 23 at Albertsons Stadium in Boise. The game kicks off at 3:30 p.m. ET and will be nationally televised on ESPN.

“I wish it would snow a foot,” head coach Shawn Elliott said about his team’s bowl game.

Georgia State is 3-2 in bowl games, including wins in its last two bowls, the 2021 TaxAct Camellia Bowl and 2020 LendingTree Bowl.

“We’re in the day and age of the transfer portal, and everyone is aware of who we’ve lost in the portal, and what we have to do, so this preparation time has been very important to us,” Elliott said. “We have some new tackles, running backs, secondary guys. But that’s college football. You can’t complain about it, you have to engage and make the most of it, and that’s what we’ve done.”

We will have to wait and see if Georgia State can snap their losing streak in the bowl game.