9.15.06

UC’s DeMeo hopes tough schedule pays benefits
September 15, 2006

By Jay W. Bennett
Parkersburg News and Sentinel

Although the football record shows 1-2, it just as easily could’ve been 3-0 at this juncture of the season for the Golden Eagles of the University of Charleston.

Second-year head coach Tony DeMeo’s troops, whose team lost 25-24 at home to Findlay in week one and last week by a score of 12-7 at Elizabeth City State (N.C.), know what’s on the line come 6 p.m. Saturday.

That’s when UC will head to Gilmer County and Morris Stadium for a West Virginia Conference opener against head coach Alan Fiddler’s Glenville State College Pioneers.

In the preseason, the two teams were picked by league coaches in a tie for second in the WVIAC with the Golden Eagles even receiving one first place vote ahead of top-ranked Shepherd.

For the Pioneers, who are off to an 0-2 start, this WVIAC opener has to be the beginning of a turning point in their season, especially considering the G-men head to Shepherd next weekend.

Consecutive victories, starting with a triumph against UC, might be what the doctor ordered for GSC, but DeMeo doesn’t plan on letting that happen.

"Glenville beat us last year (19-14) and they had a real good team and should’ve been in the playoffs," DeMeo said. "Alan does a really good job and he’s a good coach. We’re two plays away from being 3-0.

"We played Findlay, which lost to the number one team in the nation Grand Valley State 13-0, and held our own and we scored more points against Findlay than the (defending Division II) national champs."

Meanwhile, the Pioneers are still trying to recover from a 23-20 home opener defeat at the hands of Johnson C. Smith.

GSC lost on the road last Saturday at Division I-AA Liberty, 31-7.

Knowing the Pioneers have their backs up against the wall, DeMeo just hopes his team can focus on the task at hand Saturday night and continue to improve.

"We had four turnovers (last week) and turned it over in the red zone and you can’t do that and win," said the UC grid boss. "We had our opportunities to win and just didn’t take advantage of it.

"Out of the 100 guys on our roster, 88 are freshmen and sophomores. We only have 12 upperclassmen on the whole team."

Former Ripley signal-caller Corey Isner is at the helm of the Golden Eagle offense for one more season. Thus far, the quarterback is 45-of-72 for 386 yards with four touchdown passes and two interceptions.

Charleston, which has been outscored 38-18 in the second half this season, is likely to try and pound the ball with tailbacks Blake Burr and Josh Culbertson, last year’s Kennedy Award winner.

Glenville State’s defense has allowed 434 yards on the ground on just 75 attempts for an average of almost 6 yards per carry. Burr has averaged better than 4 yards per tote (41-172) and scored thrice while Culbertson is still looking to cross into the end zone for the first time but has ran it well, going for 106 yards on only 17 rushes.

"We are on our way to where we need to be, but we’re not there yet," DeMeo added. "I’d love to have a light bulb come on a little more this week because Glenville is a very good football team. They are very underrated, don’t let their record fool you."

Charleston had a pair of extra points blocked in its loss to Findlay and led 7-5 going into the fourth quarter at Elizabeth City State. Before last week, the Golden Eagles had scored on 6-of-7 chances in the red zone but went 0-for-2 while in North Carolina.

Locally, former Wahama White Falcon Jeshua Branch and ex-Parkersburg Big Red Joey Lindamood have both been playing on special teams for UC. Branch has made eight tackles and Lindamood a pair.

Along with having a defense that has recorded 18 tackles-for-loss despite a 1-2 start, UC also will look to utilize wideout Terrance Spencer — Isner’s favorite target with 20 catches, two scores and 184 yards — as well as kickoff and punt returners Rusty Taylor (19.7 ypr) and Aaron Higdon (26.8 ypr, 1 TD), respectively.

"We scheduled tough teams and we wanted to play in hostile environments," DeMeo said of his scheduling plan.

"Conference games are always more important than non-conference and our whole idea was to prepare this team playing good football teams. That’s why I scheduled who I scheduled."

Now that it’s time for the WVIAC portion of the schedule to start, DeMeo and his staff soon will find out if his plan worked.