Sept. 8 (Saturday)
ETSU at Tennessee (SEC Network/SEC Network+), 4 p.m.
Furman at Elon (CollegeSportsLive.com), 6 p.m.
Jacksonville at Mercer (ESPN3), 6 p.m.
*Chattanooga at The Citadel (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*VMI at Wofford (ESPN+/CW62), 6 p.m.
Samford at Florida State (ACC Network/ACC Network Extra), 7:20 p.m.
Schedule notes:
* Southern Conference game
ESPN3 and ESPN+ are available on Roku
NOTES:
• Two league games and an FCS Playoffs rematch highlight the week-two slate. Chattanooga visits The Citadel and VMI heads to Wofford in Southern Conference play, while Furman faces former league member Elon on the road in a rematch of last season's first-round playoff game won by the Paladins.
• Five Southern Conference football teams earned wins during the opening week of play, with Wofford downing The Citadel in the only league game. The Terriers jumped out to a 21-0 lead only to see the Bulldogs tie things up in the third quarter. Wofford scored the go-ahead touchdown midway through the fourth quarter and stopped The Citadel on fourth-and-goal as time expired to preserve the win.
• Three league teams are nationally ranked this week. Wofford moved up to No. 7 in the AFCA FCS Coaches’ Top 25 and No. 8 in the STATS FCS Top 25, while Samford is up to ninth in both polls. Furman remained 21st in the coaches’ poll slipped two spots to 25th in the STATS poll. Western Carolina is receiving votes in both polls, while Chattanooga earned votes in the STATS poll.
• Samford redshirt senior quarterback Devlin Hodges, the two-time defending SoCon Offensive Player of the Year and a preseason All-American, accounted for six touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ 66-9 win over Shorter on Aug. 31. Hodges threw for 330 yards and five touchdowns and ran for another 33 yards and a score and exited after the first series of the third quarter. He also moved into second in SoCon history in passing yards with 10,631 for his career, passing SoCon Hall of Famer Armanti Edwards of Appalachian State.
• Hodges is vying to become just the second player in league history to earn the Offensive Player of the Year award three times from the SoCon coaches and the first from the league’s media. Furman running back Stanford Jennings earned the media’s Player of the Year award three times from 1981-83 before it was separated by offense and defense, and Appalachian State’s Dexter Coakley was a three-time Defensive Player of the Year by the media.
• Western Carolina redshirt junior quarterback Tyrie Adams amassed 343 yards of total offense in the Catamounts’ 33-26 win over Newberry on Saturday, including 262 through the air and 81 on the ground, He scored a career-high three rushing touchdowns, matching his career total in one game.
• Hodges and Adams were on the preseason watch list for the 2018 STATS FCS Walter Payton Award for the outstanding offensive player of the year, while Samford redshirt senior defensive lineman Ahmad Gooden, Western Carolina senior defensive back Marvin Tillman and Wofford senior defensive lineman Miles Brown were on the preseason watch list for the STATS FCS Buck Buchanan Award, which honors the outstanding defensive player of the year.
• Two league coaches earned wins in their head coaching debuts Saturday. Randy Sanders’ ETSU squad downed Mars Hill 28-7, while Josh Conklin’s Wofford squad topped The Citadel 28-21.
• Mercer coach Bobby Lamb enters Saturday’s contest against Jacksonville needing one win for 100 in his career. He is fourth in league history with 89 wins as a SoCon coach, as he was 10-2 in 2013, the year before the Bears entered the conference.
• Current SoCon schools boast a combined 12 players on NFL teams’ 53-man rosters as of Sept. 1, according to research by STATS’ Craig Haley. Samford and Chattanooga claim four active NFL players apiece, while Western Carolina has two and The Citadel and Furman have one each. The New York Jets have four former SoCon players on their roster in The Citadel’s Andre Roberts, Furman’s Dakota Dozier and Chattanooga’s Buster Skrine, as well as J.J. Wilcox of former league member Georgia Southern.