The Schedule: In Ken Sparks' 35th year at the helm of the Carson-Newman football program, the Eagles will play a schedule featuring five home games, including a Thursday night contest to open the season against a PSAC school. For the third consecutive 20 year, the Eagles will open under the lights at Burke-Tarr Stadium on a Thursday night. This time, C-N welcomes in the Edinboro Fighting Scots. The Fighting Scots are coming off back-to-back losing seasons, but are looking to return to the form of a 2009 club that made the DII semifinals. The Eagles have scored at least 55 points in each of their last two Thursday night openers, a 56-46 win over Glenville State in 2012 and a 55-28 win over Wayne State last year. Carson-Newman will play out the month of September as road warriors. The Eagles travel to Wayne State for a return game in week two before opening up conference play in week three at Brevard. The Eagles close out the month with a trek to Salisbury, N.C. to face the only team not named Lenoir-Rhyne that handed C-N a loss in 2013 – Catawba. The Eagles return home to open up October by welcoming in one of the best running back's in the SAC in Mars Hill's Shaikel Davis. The Eagles were able to hold the all-SAC pick 100 yards below his average in the meeting last year. A bye week demarcates the season Thomas settles in at QB into halves on Oct. 11. After which, the Eagles hit the road for a week seven contest with archrival Tusculum. Homecoming hits in week eight against nonconference foe North Greenville on Oct. 25 with a 3 p.m. kick. The Eagles thumped the Crusaders 52-10 when they were C-N's homecoming opponent in 2012. November kicks the difficulty up an extra notch for the Eagles. C-N tangles with two SAC opponents that made the NCAA playoffs a year ago. Nov. 1, C-N plays host to defending national runnerup Lenoir-Rhyne before turning around to travel to the graveyard and Setzler Field on Nov. 8. Wingate comes to town on Nov. 15 to close out the regular season with the Eagles. The Offense: Much is gone from Carson-Newman’s offensive cupboard from 2013, but that cupboard is hardly bare. Gone are a 3,500-yard rusher and a 2,900-yard rusher, as well as All- American and all-region offensive linemen. However, an offense that produced a South Atlantic Conference record 774 first downs does return seven starters, including a quarterback who scored more touchdowns rushing than any other quarterback in Carson-Newman history last year. Quarterback: Last year, the question was who would replace Brandon Haywood. Now, the question is who will push presumptive starter De’Andre Thomas. Thomas produced one of the best debut seasons in Carson-Newman history. The sophomore signal caller started off his year by tossing a trio of touchdowns against Wayne State and completing eight of 10 passes to register a 357 QB efficiency rating, the highest single game mark in C-N history. On top of that, Thomas became the first C-N QB since his coach, Alex Good, to throw for 200 yards and rush for 100 yards in one game. Thomas’ 1,825 yards passing on the year are second to Good’s 2009 tally of 1,859 for the most in the Ken Sparks era. However, Thomas wasn’t just successful through the air a year ago. He averaged 75.8 yards per game on the ground and had a trio of 100-yard games. However, that ignores where Thomas was most prolific. Thomas found the endzone on 20 occasions – the most ever in a single season by a C-N QB and the fourth most alltime. He also had the second most 20-yard plays last year. Noah Suber, Darvia Dubose and Goose Manning account for Thomas’ backups. However, who takes the bulk of the reps at second string is unknown.
Carson-Newman Online 2014 Football Media Guide
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