LAKELAND, Fla.—The sixth season of college football at Victory Field begins with the Fire of Southeastern hosting Georgetown College Saturday night.
Southeastern opened up the 2019 season with a win at Point University last week, getting a stellar effort on special teams, blocking three kicks and returning two for touchdowns.
At an individual level,
Marquavis Myers became the second player in program history to be named the NAIA's Special Teams Player of the Week for his two return touchdowns off of blocked punts.
"Just to come out and get those two returns is almost unbelievable," said Myers. "It's rare that you go in a room, draw up a play and it turns out exactly the way you want it to."
The Fire defense recorded a pair of takeaways and held Point under 200 yards of total offense.
On offense, a group that found the end zone just once and was held to just over 200 total yards.
"You're going to have a lot more mistakes your first game and you'll have your biggest improvement from the first game to the second game," said coach
Keith Barefield. "We just weren't in sync in our audibles and our reads and picking things up on routes, and had some dropped passes."
Tonight's opponent is the most successful and storied program to ever set foot on Victory Field.
The Tigers have won three NAIA National Championships (1991, 2000, 2001), and are led by Bill Cronin, who was selected for induction into the NAIA Hall of Fame on Monday and will be making his second attempt at recording his 200
th career victory Saturday night.
Georgetown held a 17-0 halftime lead over Kentucky Christian on September 7
th, however, committed a pair of turnovers inside the KCU 25-yard line and conceded the final 17 points of the game to lose 30-27. The Knights tied the game on a one-yard touchdown run with 3:34 to play, then hit a 25-yard field goal at the horn for the win.
Nevertheless, GC totaled 521 yards of offense with 421 through the air, which was the first time since 2014 the Tigers passed for over 400 yards in a game.
This will be the first meeting between Southeastern and Georgetown. The two teams were scheduled to meet on September 9, 2017, but Hurricane Irma forced the game to be canceled.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
Tickets are still available.
