The portal is huge in college football, how has this impacted Georgia State since the end of the regular season?

Let’s go with “greatly”. The portal has greatly impacted Georgia State in advance of this bowl game.

Leading running back Marcus Carroll (1,350 yards, 13 TDs this season) has entered the portal and since committed to Missouri. Likewise, top wide receiver Robert Lewis (877 yards, 7 TDs) has moved to Auburn, starting right tackle Montavious Cunningham to Virginia Tech and one of the starting cornerbacks Bryquice Brown to Boston College. And add on to that left tackle Travis Glover and leading tackler and starting inside linebacker Jontrey Hunter leaving early to begin their work prepping for the 2024 NFL Draft. This will be a very new-look team for GSU on Saturday, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

What is the excitement level for Georgia State fans for this bowl game?

For all the above personnel-related reasons, plus the fact the team ended the regular season on a 5-game skid after starting the year 6-1 AND the fact that this game is not easily travelable from the other side of the country, it’d be fair to say vibes are pretty low in Panther Nation.

There’s a growing consensus opinion that head coach Shawn Elliott, wrapping up his seventh season in Atlanta, has taken the program as far as he can and fans are growing increasingly vocal that they want to see a new HC try and tap into a greater ceiling. So Coach Elliott is in an unenviable spot where a win here doesn’t do much to improve the feeling around the fanbase but a sixth straight loss and a losing 6-7 final record would do some additional harm.

Georgia State started 6-1 but then ended 6-6, what happened during the losing streak?

Good question! I have to be honest up front and say it’s a real mystery. Sometimes when you see this type of late-season nosedive from a team, you can chalk it up to some major loss due to injury. But Georgia State can honestly say it was fortunate on the injury front for the entire season.

The problems started, funnily enough, in the second half of their most recent win, a 20-17 victory at Louisiana on October 23. They escaped with the W and locked up bowl eligibility thanks to a Gavin Pringle interception in the end zone in the game’s final minute, but it had been a 20-0 lead that all but evaporated over the course of the second half. The offense which had been rolling to that point of the year lost its mojo in a major way in that second half and they never regained it for the rest of the year.

They got down by as much as 34-7 at their rival Georgia Southern the following Thursday, and though they fought back a little in that second half, it was still a heavy 44-27 loss. What followed were two identical, ugly losses – dropping contests by a score of 42-14 to each of James Madison and Appalachian State. And after holding on to that three-score lead at Louisiana earlier, in the regular season finale at Old Dominion, the Panthers blew a 21-0 lead and lost this time 25-24 on a Grant Wilson touchdown run as time expired.

For whatever reason, the team – and specifically the offense – wilted down the stretch and stopped making the “winning plays” they’d been making as they rolled to six wins out of their first seven games.

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Who are the key players that Utah State needs to know about, and who could step up for players who hit the portal?

Even if the Panthers were at full strength without any of the aforementioned portal entrants, the number one player who demands Utah State’s attention more than anyone else in blue and white would still be quarterback Darren Grainger. A true dual threat, Grainger is playing his last game for the Panthers on Saturday after being the team’s starting QB for the bulk of the last three seasons. This season, he improved his accuracy on passing greatly – completing 67% of his passes for 2,364 yards – while still giving opposing defenses fits with his legs, rushing for 625 yards and 8 scores. DG is the focal point of this offense, and the departures the team is dealing with will only make his contribution more valuable to the team on Saturday.

Maine transfer RB Freddie Brock should slide in to replace Carroll, and while he only has 6 carries for 31 yards to his name in a Georgia State uniform, he amassed 1,145 yards rushing in his three seasons at the FCS level. If the rushing lanes are there, Brock should be up to the task of filling in. And that’s where the real key change for GSU’s offense comes up – the new offensive line. Only left guard Jonathan Brown remains of the starting offensive line for much of the season for the Panthers. Walk-on Ben Chukwuma will take Glover’s spot at left tackle and usual right guard Trevor Timmons is kicking outside to play right tackle.

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Defensively, Hunter and Brown will be losses that defensive coordinator Chad Staggs will have to reckon with. But the one benefit Staggs has at his disposal is the fact that inside linebacker is probably the Panthers’ deepest position on defense. Super-senior Jordan Veneziale and sophomore Josiah Robinson, the latter of whom followed Staggs from his last stop at Coastal Carolina, should see increased roles alongside incumbent starter Justin Abraham. Coverage is going to be where the ILB group is tested without Hunter, a former safety and OLB who possessed great coverage skills for an inside backer. They’ll need to lean on the solid safety pairing of Jeremiah Johnson and TyGee Leach in the middle of the field.

As for the opening spot at CB, redshirt freshman Izaiah Guy did fill in for Brown earlier in 2023 when Brown was saddled with an injury and Guy more than held his own. Gavin Pringle has another year of eligibility after transferring in from Bucknell and Guy figures to begin 2024 as the starting corner on the other side, so this will be a chance for Panther fans – and the coaching staff – to get an early look at what should be their team’s CB tandem next season. And they’ll certainly be tested by the talented receivers Utah State possesses.

Weather-wise, this is way different from Georgia and Sun Belt games with it being colder, what have been discussions about prepping for that? Some teams do some different things in new weather environments.

It’s a topic that has definitely come up for this bowl game, but I get the feeling Georgia State coaches and players are fine with it. Coach Elliott openly asked for it to be a snow game in last week’s media availability. And while they may not be as hardened to the elements as their coach – who spent his college days up on the mountains on Boone, NC, at Appalachian State – Darren Grainger mentioned that they had been checking weather apps and noticing the temperature had been lower in Atlanta on some practice days this month than the temperature in Boise.

I’ve seen through the practice photos released by GSU Athletics that players are certainly layering up more than would for a usual gameday at Center Parc Stadium, but it has been an unseasonably cold month in the A and the additional time spent in Boise as a part of this bowl trip should help them acclimate to whatever the weather gods have in store for Saturday.

How do you see this game playing out?

I teased it before, but the single biggest key to this game is going to be how Georgia State’s almost entirely new offensive line meshes. I do think Grainger and Brock can rack up yards on the ground if there are holes that open up, but if the OL can’t get any push and the offense can’t stay on the field, it could be a long afternoon in Boise for the Panthers. Grainger does not have his top weapon at WR in Robert Lewis, but Tailique Williams has elite top-line speed and Ja’Cyais Credle – who has missed most of the season due to injury – has been a deep threat that this passing attack has leaned on in the past. With a month to prep, it will be interesting to see what offensive coordinator Trent McKnight schemes up to make the most of what he’s got.

Defensively, Georgia State will have to be ready for the threat that Utah State’s (presumed) starting QB Levi Williams poses with his legs while also accounting for top WR Jalen Royals and the Aggies’ weapon in the slot, Terrell Vaughn. The golden ticket for the Panthers’ defense will be their ability to get after the QB. The Aggies are tied for 119th in FBS with 41 sacks allowed this season. Georgia State’s D has a solid yet unspectacular tally of 27 sacks, but against every team they faced that’s allowed 30+ sacks to date, they had at least 3. That includes the program record 8 they collected in their loss at ODU.

I think this will be an interesting clash of offensive styles that will hinge on the Panthers’ ability to weather the losses they’ve suffered through postseason roster attrition. If they can make lemonade out of the lemons they’ve been handed, this should be a fun game throughout. But if the roster churn rears its ugly head, the high-scoring Utah State offense could turn this into that forgettable blowout that happens every bowl season.