VIDEO: Ashley Ingram Presser
VIDEO: Reinhardt Cinematic Recap
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - Carson-Newman (1-0) heads north to travel to the State of West Virginia for the first time in 13 years for a first-ever meeting with West Virginia State (1-0) Thursday evening at 6 p.m. inside Dickerson Stadium.
Both teams won their season-opening games, with Carson-Newman thumping the 18th-ranked team in NAIA Reinhardt 50-7 and West Virginia State travelling to Wilson, N.C. to hand C-N's SAC-mate Barton a 27-24 defeat.
"We're going up to play a very good football team who obviously went on the road and beat Barton," head football coach Ashley Ingram said. "That's a physical football team that did a great job stopping the run against Barton. They Did a great job running the football with over 200 yards rushing. Obviously, Coach (John) Pennington has been at West Virginia State for a few years now, has done a great job there. So it's going to be a big challenge to go on the road and against a quality opponent."
Joel Felder was the star of the shoe in the Jackets win over Barton. He turned in 216 all-purpose yards, including 178 on the ground. He had the fifth-most all-purpose yards through two weeks of football. His 8.09 yards per carry rank 18th in NCAA Division II and second in the MEC.
"He's athletic, he's physical," Ingram said. "The other thing is he's got a passion for playing football. He's kind of fun to watch."
Carson-Newman is seeking its first 2-0 start since 2017. Mike Turner's Eagles opened the season 2-0 with wins over Pikeville (48-7) and Saint Augustine's (41-14) before dropping back-to-back games to Wingate and Newberry. Carson-Newman hasn't started 2-0 to begin a season with one of the games coming away from Mossy Creek since 2013. The Eagles began a march to the second round of the NCAA playoffs that season with a 55-28 thrashing of Wayne State before heading to Golden, Colo. and beating the Colorado School of Mines 27-24. That was also the last season C-N started 3-0.
Carson-Newman has never squared off with West Virginia State. In fact, this will be Carson-Newman's first-ever meeting with a school from the Mountain East. C-N has plenty of experience playing schools from the league's forebearer - the WVIAC. One of the oldest conferences in the country at the time of its dissolution in 2013, the football playing members of the WVIAC, plus Urbana, Notre Dame (OH) and UVA Wise formed the Mountain East in 2013.
Carson-Newman is 12-4 against former members of the WVIAC, with three of those losses coming prior to World War II to Marshall (1938), Morris Harvey, now University of Charleston (1944) and Concord (1925). Shepherd is the only school from the league to beat C-N in the modern era, a 6-3 win in the 1992 NAIA playoffs. Carson-Newman's last meeting with a WVIAC school was legendary head coach Ken Sparks' 300th career win - a 56-46 win over Glenville State to start the 2012 season.
On that Glenville State team was current West Virginia State offensive coordinator Rahmann Lee. Lee rushed 16 times for 126 yards and a touchdown, a 64-yarder.
Carson-Newman has played five games in the State of West Virginia since 1987. C-N has never scored fewer than 42 points in its trips to the Mountain State. A 2008 meeting in Athens at Concord saw Carson-Newman score 77 against the Mountain Lions. C-N last ventured north in 2011, beating Glenville State 45-20 to start the season.
Carson-Newman has kept the defensive pressure dialed up. With a sack in every week of the 2023 season, last year's team became the fourth this century to tally a sack in every week of the season. C-N has registered a sack in 12 straight weeks and 21 of the last 22.
While the sample size is small, Carson-Newman's 388 yards rushing on opening night against Reinhardt was a potential welcome return to the Eagles' historic dominance on the ground. C-N had produced just one 350+-yard rushing performance since moving away from the split-back veer in 2020. From 2009-19, Carson-Newman's offense taopped 350 yards rushing on 56 occasions, or 5.09 times per season. The Eagles are fifth nationally in rushing yardage.
"I know we played great on defense, but I think we can play better," Ingram said. "Obviously, we gave up a touchdown in the special teams. We've got to do a better job covering kicks. Offensively, I think we could be more efficient. I think we can run the ball with the fullback much better. I think we've gotten more in the passing game that we can do. So I don't think there's an area that we, you know, we were going to be complacent with or feel comfortable with."
Carson-Newman kicks off at Dickerson Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 12 at 6 p.m. against West Virginia State. Pregame coverage on the Eagle Sports Network begins at 5 p.m. with the AEC Countdown to Kickoff on Joy 620 (WRJZ-AM, Knoxville), MIX 105.5 (WSEV-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.
