Sept. 18 (Saturday)	Series	TV/Digital	Time
#22/RV Chattanooga at Kentucky	First meeting	SEC Network+	12 p.m.
#RV/22 VMI at Cornell	First meeting	ESPN+	2 p.m.
#--/RV Samford at Western Carolina*	Samford leads 15-3	Nexstar/ESPN+	2:30 p.m.
North Greenville at The Citadel	The Citadel leads 1-0	ESPN3	6 p.m.
#RV/24 Kennesaw State at Wofford	Kennesaw State leads 2-0	ESPN+	6 p.m.
Delaware State at #17/16 ETSU	First meeting	ESPN+	7:30 p.m.
#25/RV Furman at NC State	Furman leads 8-5-4	Bally Sports South/ESPN3	7:30 p.m.

Nexstar affiliates for the Sept. 18 Ingles SoCon Game of the Week
Samford at Western Carolina, 2:30 p.m.
ECBD/The Lowcountry’s CW (Charleston)
WBTW/News 13 (Myrtle Beach)
WHDF/North Alabama’s CW (Huntsville/Florence)
WMYT/My 12 (Charlotte)
WWCW/The CW Virginia (Lynchburg/Roanoke)
WYCW/The CW62 (Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville)

Play-by-play: Pete Yanity
Analyst: Jared Singleton

NOTES
• Southern Conference play opens this weekend with Samford visiting Western Carolina in the Ingles SoCon Game of the Week on select Nexstar affiliates.

• Six more games are on Saturday’s slate. Ranked squads Chattanooga and Furman visit Power 5 opponents in Kentucky and NC State, respectively, while Wofford hosts 24th-ranked Kennesaw State. VMI visits Cornell, ETSU welcomes Delaware State and The Citadel hosts North Greenville.

• Samford has won three straight against Western Carolina and 11 of 13 against the Catamounts since joining the league in 2008.

• The SoCon is taking on a pair of Power 5 opponents for the second straight week. Mercer fell at No. 1 Alabama and Western Carolina lost at then-No. 4 Oklahoma last Saturday.

• Furman heads to NC State seeking its first FBS win since beating UCF in 2015 and its seventh overall. The Paladins are 8-5-4 against the Wolfpack all-time.

• When Chattanooga visits Kentucky on Saturday, it will be seeking its first win over an FBS squad since beating Georgia State in 2013 and its fourth overall.

• Four SoCon teams are nationally ranked this week. ETSU is ranked 17th in the AFCA FCS Coaches’ Top 25 and 16th in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25. Chattanooga is No. 22 and Furman is No. 25 in the AFCA poll, while VMI is No. 22 in the Stats Perform poll. The Keydets are the first team out of the AFCA poll, while the Paladins and Mocs are the first two teams out of the Stats Perform rankings. Samford is also receiving votes in the Stats Perform poll.

• Two SoCon teams pitched road shutouts last Saturday. Furman stifled Tennessee Tech 26-0 for its first shutout in 17 years (192 games ago), while Chattanooga downed North Alabama 20-0 for its first shutout since 2016 (53 games ago). Prior to those performances, two SoCon teams hadn’t turned in shutouts on the same day since Nov. 1, 2014, when Chattanooga downed Western Carolina 51-0 and Samford topped Concordia 55-0. The last time two SoCon squads both shut out Division I opponents on the same day was Nov. 11, 2006, when Elon dropped North Carolina A&T 45-0 and Wofford defeated Chattanooga 55-0.

• Wofford, which was idle last week after opening its season with a 24-22 win at Elon, will be meeting Kennesaw State for the first time outside of the FCS playoffs. The Owls claimed one-possession first-round wins in 2018 and 2019, winning 13-10 and 28-21, respectively. KSU, 1-1 after a win over Reinhardt and a loss at Georgia Tech, is No. 24 in the Stats Perform poll.

• After all six of its contests were decided by one possession last season, ETSU has won its two games this season by an average of 25.5 points per game. Dating back to the 2019 season, 11 of the Bucs’ last 14 games have been decided by eight points of fewer.

• The Citadel will be facing North Greenville for just the second time in program history. The squads faced off in Greenville, South Carolina, in 2016, with the game moved from The Citadel’s Johnson Hagood Stadium because of the forecasted impact of Hurricane Matthew. The Bulldogs, ranked No. 9 nationally at the time, won 38-14.

• VMI looks to bounce back from its first loss of the season when it visits Cornell, which will be opening its 2021 campaign and playing for the first time since topping Columbia on Nov. 23, 2019. The Keydets will be the first-ever SoCon team to face the Big Red.

• With seven field goals already to his credit, Furman’s Timmy Bleekrode leads the FCS with 3.5 per game. Bleekrode is the reigning SoCon Special Teams Player of the Week presented by GEICO.

• In addition to being named the SoCon Special Teams Player of the Week presented by GEICO on Monday, Furman placekicker/punter Tommy Bleekrode was named the SoCon Student-Athlete of the Week on Wednesday. The junior boasts a 3.69 grade point average and is majoring in business administration. Paladin quarterback Hamp Sisson took the academic honor the week prior.

SOCON POINTS OF PRIDE
• The 2021 season is the 100th of Southern Conference football. The SoCon is the fifth-oldest NCAA Division I college athletic association.

• Since it began competing in FCS, the SoCon has amassed the second-most national championships with eight. Also boasting another eight national championship runner-up finishes, the league has 16 title-game appearances, the most among FCS conferences.

• The SoCon prides itself on quality and depth.
    • Eight of the nine current SoCon football members have participated in the FCS Playoffs with seven different schools receiving bids since 2016.
    • Overall, current SoCon football members have combined for 46 total FCS playoffs appearances.
    • Six of the nine SoCon teams appeared in an FCS top-25 national poll in the 2020-21 season.

• The SoCon has had seven Walter Payton Award winners, two Buck Buchanan Award winners and five Eddie Robinson Award winners. VMI Coach Scott Wachenheim won the Eddie Robinson Award (FCS National Coach of the Year) in 2020.

• Sixty-one former SoCon players and coaches have been enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame.

• The SoCon had 12 FCS All-America selections in 2020-21.

• The SoCon broadcasts all of its home games on ESPN+ and has an over-the-air television network that will air eight games in five southern states in 2021.

• Sixteen former SoCon players were on active NFL rosters last season and five more were on practice squads. Former Citadel wide receiver Andre Roberts, former Samford defensive back James Bradberry and former Georgia Southern kicker Younghoe Koo, who played in the SoCon as a freshman, were Pro Bowlers. Twelve former SoCon players are on NFL rosters entering this season, with seven more on practice squads.

• The SoCon has been playing Division I FCS football since the 1982 season. The NCAA created two subdivisions for Division I football beginning in 1978 with the creation of I-A (now FBS) and I-AA (now FCS). The SoCon was shifted from I-A to I-AA along with the Ivy League and Southland Conference following the 1981 season, joining the Mid-Continent, Big Sky, MEAC, SWAC, OVC, and Yankee conferences, along with a number of independents, as I-AA participants.

• The SoCon is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2021. The league contested the first-ever collegiate conference basketball tournament in 1921, tackled freshman eligibility in 1922, became the first conference to adopt the 3-point field goal in basketball in 1980 and developed women’s championships in 1984.

RECENT NEWS
SoCon Goes Pro: NFL Week 1 (9/15)
Furman's Bleekrode named Student-Athlete of the Week (9/15)
SoCon names football players of the week (9/13)
12 former SoCon players on NFL rosters (9/12)
Saturday's football roundup (9/11)
Commish Chat Season 2, Episode 1: Quay Holmes (9/10)