September 2, 2021

Inconsistency haunts No. 24/18 Eagles in season-opening defeat to Wolves

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – No. 24/18 Carson-Newman (0-1) never could find IT consistently in its Thursday night opener against West Georgia (1-0).

West Georgia

1-0

#24/18 Carson-Newman

0-1

Final	1	2	3	4	T
West Georgia (1-0)	14	14	10	7	45
#24/18 Carson-Newman (0-1)	7	0	0	0	7

VIDEO: Mike Clowney Interview

VIDEO: Highlights

VIDEO: Alonzo Houston Interview

VIDEO: Trey Mitchell Interview

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – No. 24/18 Carson-Newman (0-1) never could find IT consistently in its Thursday night opener against West Georgia (1-0).

The Wolves waltzed out to a 14-7 advantage after a quarter and scored the final 31 points of the game en route to a 45-7 win over the Eagles. The triumph goes down as the first for West Georgia in the sixth game of the series between the two teams.

"West Georgia is a good football team," head coach Mike Clowney said. "One of the things we wanted to do is see exactly where we are at because we are a young football team that hadn't been in a game environment much. This was our first challenge to see where we were at. We knew we would have a lot of things we would need to fix. We obviously wanted to be fixing them coming out of a win, that's not the situation we are in."

The 38-point loss is C-N's largest home defeat since dropping a 52-10 decision to Lenoir-Rhyne on Nov. 6, 2010. It marks C-N's biggest opening day loss since the 1983 team, the Eagles' first national championship winning team, lost at Furman 52-7.

The Wolves outgained Carson-Newman nearly 2:1. West Georgia put up 470 yards of offense compared to 194 yards for the Eagles. Of the 65 plays C-N ran, 22 went for negative or zero yardage.

Meanwhile, West Georgia quarterbacks completed 31-of-42 passes for 331 yards. Mercer transfer and starter Harrison Frost connected on 20 of his first 24 passes before finishing 29-of-40 with three scores and 316 yards. The Wolves 73.8 completion percentage is the seventh highest allowed by C-N in school history.

"Number one, we have to look at the man in the mirror as a program to figure out the things we need to do better," Clowney said. "There were a lot of mistakes that we made here today. Most of the heart and effort were there tonight. However, especially with young guys, we have a tendency to revert back to things they've done in the past. This is different than what guys did in high school. A missed step here, a missed step there. It makes a big difference."

Mechane Slade was West Georgia's top target, catching nine passes for 80 yards and two touchdowns. Terrill Cole snatched six catches for 82 yards.

Troy Dendy (Laurens, S.C.) led Carson-Newman's rushing attack with 50 yards on 12 carries.

JJ Lewis (Tampa, Fla.) grabbed two passes for 18 yards. Mister Hogue (Oakman, Ala.) accounted for the Eagles' lone score on a 13-yard screen pass, his first career receiving TD, to finish with two catches for 16 yards.

Trey Mitchell (Knoxville, Tenn.) completed 7-of-20 passes for 47 yards and the score.

"I didn't think we would make as many mistakes as we did, I knew we would make some, but I didn't think we would make as many as we did," Clowney said. "We talked about the offensive line and their inexperience. There were some times where they did some things well, and there were times when that inexperience really showed."

Alonzo Houston (Palmetto, Fla.) led C-N's defense with 12 stops, including a half tackle for loss. Preseason All-American Rondrow Peebles added nine tackles.

Cody Gast was the top tackler for the Wolves with 11 stops and 2.5 tackles for loss.

This was Carson-Newman's first season-opening loss at home since a 52-45 defeat to Humboldt State to open 2016.

West Georgia won its opening game for a ninth consecutive year.

Carson-Newman breaks for 16 days before opening South Atlantic Conference play with Wingate on Sept. 16 at 1 p.m. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network starts at noon with the AEC Tailgate Show on Joy 620 (WRJZ-AM, Knoxville), The Mountain 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.