SEWANEE, Tenn. - For the first time in 2022, the University of the South football team will hit the dusty trail to Danville, Kentucky to take on the Colonels of Centre College from Boyle County High School on Saturday.
THE BASICS
The University of the South (2-2, 0-1) at Centre College (3-1, 1-0) | Oct. 8, 1 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. CT
Danville, Ky. | Boyle County High School
All-Time Series: Centre leads, 47-30-1 (79th Meeting)
A LOOK AT THE COLONELS: Centre, who is coming off a third place finish in the SAA with an 8-2 record and 5-2 in league play in 2021, started the 2022 season receiving votes in the D3football.com poll. Currently 3-1 on the season, the Colonels opened league play with a 21-7 win at Rhodes.
Against the Lynx, the Colonels had two touchdowns scored on defense. In the first quarter, after an Armon Wells sack, Luke Macias poked the ball out and Miles Smith picked up and ran it back fo 18 yards for the score. Late in the fourth quarter, Wells, the current SAA Defensive Player of the Week, added insurance with a 20-yard interception return with less than two minutes left in the game. The Lynx out-gained the Colonels on offense, 234 to 115, despite Rhodes rushing 33 times for -2 yards.
Centre played three tough non-conference games. In Week 1 at Hanover (Ind.), the teams had to play over a two-day span due to inclement weather, but the Colonels stopped a come-back bid by the Panthers in the fourth quarter to win, 31-29.
After taking a 20-10 win in their home opener versus Maryville (Tenn.), the Colonels were shut out by Trine (Ind.), 17-0, on Sept. 24.
With All-SAA Second Teamers Patric Edwards gone to graduation and Trentin Dupper yet to see a snap in 2022, the Colonels have seen different players step up in their first four games of the season. Replacing Edwards at tailback has been a three-person committee in Keaton Martin, Nick Osterman and Will McDanield. Between the three, they have rushed 386 of the team's 425 yards.
Osterman has also been a replacement for Dupper under center as well, as he has thrown for 468 yards on 53-of-98 passing. He had three straight games of 100 yards passing prior to the game against Rhodes.
Also gone to graduation is two-sport athlete Jordan Gunter, who played wide receiver and was an outfielder for the Colonels' baseball program. Christian Billiter (124) and Cort Marbaugh (129) leads the 2022 receiving game.
Wells, who was a Second Team Defense selection last year, currently leads the team in tackles (33) and sacks (3), and second in tackles for loss (6).
Andy Frye enters his 24th year at the head coach of the Colonels, and has a 163-78 record.
1K MIKE: Setting a new career-best in rushing yards in a game with 241, senior Michael McGhee had the eighth-best finish in SAA history. With the performance, he eclipsed the 1,000-yard rushing mark in his career.
Recording the second 200-yard running game in Sewanee history since 2012, it is the most in a game since Cody Daniel's 232-yard performance against Emory & Henry in 2014.
Posting two of his 21 carries of 70 yards or more, McGhee was named the SAA Offensive Player of the Week and was named to the D3football.com Team of the Week.
Nationally, the Chattanooga, Tenn. native is sixth nationally in rushing average per game (131.2) and seventh in yards per carry (8.2).
Currently sitting on 525 rushing yards after four games, he is looking to be the first Tiger to 1,000 rushing yards in a season since Max Fuller in 1998.
HITTING THE ROAD FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WEEK 6: Sewanee has yet to take a road this season...until this weekend. In their fifth game of the season, the Tigers will travel for the first time in 2022 after spending the first four games on the Domain.
This is just the third time in program history (1993-2000-22) that the Tigers began the season at historic Hardee-McGee Field at Harris Stadium with four games.
The 1993 season saw Sewanee not leave the State of Tennessee for the first six games.
Along with five home games, Sewanee made a trip to Lebanon, Tenn. to face Cumberland and Memphis to Rhodes. Sewanee's lone trip out-of-state came on Oct. 30 (Millsaps).
BOOMING PUNTS: Sophomore Jack Satterfield set a new season-best for the SAA on Saturday. The Murfreesboro, Tenn. native set a career-high of 79 yards to set the conference mark for the year to this point, and it is the second-longest punt in SAA and school history, trailing John Cleveland's C'18 82-yard boom in 2015.
His 40.9 punt average is tops in the league and 17th in the nation.
WE KINDA KNOW THEM: Saturday's contest from Boyle County High School Stadium will be the 79th in the series between Centre College and the University of the South, with the Colonels leading the series, 47-30-1. The games played is the second-most in Sewanee history.
The two teams played three times prior to World War II (1910, 1917, 1923), and the Colonels won by a combined score of 67-6, including two shutouts in '10 and '17.
When the series was renewed in 1946, the teams met in each year with the exception of 2020.
Sewanee won seven of the next eight meetings, including a 52-7 rout on Nov. 16, 1946. The Tigers outscored the Colonels, 113-27, in the meetings from 1946-49.
Centre has had the upper hand the last few years, as the Colonels have won the last 15 meetings. Sewanee will be seeking its first win over Centre since 2005, a 31-28 win on Family Weekend (Oct. 1). The Tigers last defeated the Colonels in Danville in 2002 (23-21).
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